Loki's update for Ahriman and Magnus was actually really important, because he also had a message.

"Hi Ahriman, hi Satan! Oh, Satan, stop interfering in my training or I'm gonna pull your wings off," Loki said severely to the iguana, who rotated his eyes and flicked his tongue out. He was just hanging out in Ahriman's room, it looked like, curled up on the windowsill.

"Oh noooo. Hey, are you going to go to the Arena soon? Kezgul said he misses you," Satan said and Loki knew immediately that was a lie.

"He didn't say that. What'd he ACTUALLY say?" Although Satan probably wasn't LYING lying, just paraphrasing. Satan flicked his tongue again.

"Oh well he ACTUALLY said 'where's that dumb asshole I wanna hit him in the head' you know how he is," Satan rasped and Loki grinned. For Kezgul, that WAS missing him. Ahriman, though, put a stop to their small talk.

"What news do you have?" OH RIGHT! This was super important too.

"Zivok would like you to start sending the rest of the Rubric Marines to Galadriel, because he's had three successes and he's pretty confident he's got this," Loki said and Ahriman seemed deeply relieved and pleased. "One of them is only a quasi-success though… he was the first success and unfortunately, his memories are kind of mixed up with the memories of being a necrontyr. Zivok thinks that when he goes to Tizca and is surrounded by just your people, maybe it will help. Right now all the necron architecture might be making things worse." It was reminding him of his necrontyr 'self' and making him drop in and out of thinking he was human or xenos. "Zivok still has two more to do but then he'll be out." The others had broken but well, they'd expected that.

"Excellent. I had them on standby so it won't take long for them to reach Galadriel." Perfect! Loki knew that Zivok was training other Crypteks to help him out, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't be done before he had to leave for the Pariah Nexus. He was intending to finish this up after the Nexus before taking his transfer to Thokt, they'd said it was okay. "Such a relief, to finally no longer have this weighing on me, even if this is not truly the way I would have preferred to resolve it." Yeah, turning them into machines was a bit weird. On the other hand, true resurrection was crazy hard, most of the gods who could do it would tell Ahriman to take a long walk off a short plank. "I will also send the Key with them." Oh nice! That had been part of his message too, but Loki was glad Ahriman had brought it up.

"Great! Imotekh can't use that right away but he'll test it out to make sure it's genuine." Imotekh wasn't going to warn Oblis before the war in the Pariah Nexus. The Nekthyst Dynasty had a longstanding grudge against the Triarchs and the Silent King, so they were sitting this out. They might be small but Imotekh still didn't want to give them a reason to suddenly help Szarekh, that would just be dumb. "I had better get going now, I got sidetracked so I don't have much time." Time didn't pass the same in the Warp but Loki could tell that if he didn't get out soon, he wouldn't get his rest cycle in and he needed that. Using Warp powers all the time was so taxing to his mechanical brain. "Hey Satan, tell Kezgul I'll be around soon and remember, muscles make miracles!" Loki flexed his arms and Satan laughed. Ahriman raised his eyebrows.

"Muscles make miracles?" he repeated and despite needing to go, Loki had to explain. It was a GREAT story!

"Oh, I was running a contest in the Arena for a really good prize! It was a maze everyone had to get through and there were multiple ways to complete it. I put in a choke point halfway through, so if anyone was wildly ahead they'd get pulled up a little to even things out. It was a huge puzzle wall that got simpler the more people were standing in front of it. Kezgul was the first one there and he just looked at it and shouted 'MUSCLES MAKE MIRACLES' and punched it!" Loki mimed the punch, with sound effects. "He broke it! I was like uhhhh okay? As he zoomed right by. He won the game of course so when I gave him the prize I shouted 'muscles make miracles' and the whole crowd cheered and started chanting it and it's his catchphrase now."

"Boss was watching, he was laaaaaughing," Satan put in helpfully and Ahriman shook his head with a small smile.

"It's remarkable how you can make the Warp into something it's not meant to be." Loki completely disagreed with that and Ahriman saw that on his face. "You disagree?"

"Uh, yeah! This is a part of the Warp too. The Warp contains all the suffering and horror of humanity, but all the joys too. It's pestilence and war, but it's also Santa Claus and lollipops. We forget that because the horror overwhelms the joy, but the joy IS there. I'm just reminding the Warp of what it could be," Loki said and Ahriman looked a bit thoughtful.

"That is an interesting way to look at it. I wonder if that's really correct though. Do you believe the Immaterium can be redeemed?" Oh man, he was definitely going to get back too late for a rest cycle. Well, it wouldn't kill him right? Probably? Loki did his best to answer the question though.

"Not exactly but it might be possible for the Warp to get more balanced. It's okay for the bad things to exist, they SHOULD exist, but they shouldn't be so wildly out of control and overwhelming." Loki paused for a moment as he thought about it. He knew what he was going to say was basically impossible. "To get this process started, the first thing we'd need to do is shut the Warp out of realspace as much as possible. No offense Satan, but Gods like Tzeentch are using those openings to sow Chaos to promote their own power."

"Yeah, we do that, who wouldn't," Satan said and Loki nodded. From Tzeentch's perspective, why wouldn't he? Nurgle and Khorne too, why would they NOT?

"That's a feedback loop making the Warp worse so it would have to be cut off. Second… we need to cut down on all the wars. Conflict makes the Warp worse. So if we could shut down most of the Warp rifts and then enter an era of peace, maybe the Immaterium could calm down a little. It still wouldn't be Santa Claus and lollipops, but it could get better." Loki knew that was true. It was partly knowledge from the other operating system in his head but he knew that things in the Immaterium ebbed and flowed and while time didn't exactly matter, as conditions in the real world got worse so did the Warp.

"You know, you could make it happen if you were a sorcerer," Satan said slyly and Loki gave him the stink eye.

"COME ON Satan! Ahriman and Magnus working together couldn't make this happen!" Loki knew Satan was just being a dick. "All of Tizca couldn't make this happen, how would being a sorcerer help? And anyway we both know that if I did THAT it would only SEEM to be working and go horribly wrong later. Tzeentch isn't going to help seal the Warp out of realspace!" And being a sorcerer meant belonging to Tzeentch.

"I see you understand how these things work quite well," Ahriman said and Loki wondered why he had such a blind spot about himself. Don't you see that this applies to you too? But maybe it was because Tzeentch was really good at creating an illusion of free will. Ahriman thought he was acting of his own volition and a lot of the time he technically was, but Tzeentch was Actually Satan and whispering in his ear. Loki thought that was actually a literal truth… all of the Chaos Gods were aspects of Satan, but none more than Tzeentch. Then Ahriman suddenly looked sharply at the window and Loki staggered a little as the castle trembled.

"That creature is back!" Ahriman was gone from the room so fast, Loki was caught off guard. He followed though, realizing Ahriman was heading for the roof? But using a different set of steps than the ones to Magnus' lair. Loki pelted after him, the scenery and tapestries passing by. He saw some other people too, wearing hooded robes and looking like sorcerers, going up the stairs. So this was the serpent that had been bothering Tizca? Loki wanted to see it! What could be causing the sorcerers so much trouble?

"Oh no," Loki muttered although he didn't know why and he suddenly registered that the words had come from the real Loki. Wait, did HE know what was going on? If that was the case then that meant –

Loki burst out onto the roof and stared in awe at the sky. Calling this thing a serpent was a bit like calling the sea a bit of water. Sure, it was technically accurate but it gave you no sense of the scope and the serpent was literally circling the planet! It was so big that it was putting all of Tizca into shadow and the belly of it flashed by overhead, an endless encirclement of snake and the sorcerers were getting ready to attack it! Magnus was there!

"No, don't attack her! It's okay, I'm sorry, I was wrong she's looking for me – " Loki started, projecting his voice as the head of the great serpent came into view. Loki registered that the scaled on it were oddly pink before it sang. It was a sound that reminded him a bit of whalesong and was very beautiful, despite causing the whole castle to shake a bit with the vibrations. And despite it being nothing like any human language, Loki understood what it meant.

/I missed you. Where have you been?/ The head lowered to look directly at him and Loki felt incredibly, deeply sorry. It hadn't been entirely his fault, he hadn't been able to say goodbye, but he'd left them all alone. Shifting into something much closer to his true god form – every bit as big as Magnus – Loki cupped his mouth and sang back.

/I am sorry. I missed you,/ Loki said before the head dipped closer and he reached out to gently stroke one of the long fronds. Vaguely, he registered that he was bigger than Magnus now, much bigger, but also touching the world lightly… a few sorcerers had technically been inside him for a moment when they shifted but he was sort of a shade, only touching what he wanted to. They had gotten out quickly though, that must have been weird for them. Loki put them completely out of mind as he examined what he knew must be the real Loki's daughter… Jormungandr, the world serpent.

Loki thought this design was weird and would be rejected for a video game instantly. Instead of some hoary old serpent, Jormungandr looked like she'd never seen a sea ever. She was beautifully groomed, utterly immaculate, and her scales were mostly pink. Various shades of pink, ranging from soft baby pink to a heavy, dark shade that was verging on ruby. Most though was a rather lovely shade of pink, soft and pleasing. In just a few spots, like her head, the pink was shaded with a bit of blue and purple to add accents. It was honestly pretty gorgeous it just didn't make a lick of sense. What fever dream had made the World Serpent so… pink?

Jormungandr's head was more like a Chinese dragon than a real serpent. Fronds flowed back, soft blue and very sensitive to the touch, judging from how she half-closed her eyes when he stroked them. Her eyes were like gorgeous gems, a lovely amethyst shade shot with green. Overall she was a very beautiful dragon and Loki decided that in his head, that was what he'd call her… she seemed far more like a dragon than a serpent to him.

/Papa, Fenris is being weird, I think he misses you/ Awwww! /Although he was gone for a while too. I don't understand why you both leave me alone/ She made her eyes very big and Loki felt his heart melting. He gently patted her face.

/I'm sorry sweetie. I didn't mean to go,/ Loki said and not-the-real-Loki felt his deep, abiding resentment towards both God and Cegorach. Not because of the incarnation that he'd come to love, but because they hadn't let him say goodbye. /Maybe you can join me soon/ Wait what. /Would you like to be my daughter again?/ Oh come on he couldn't have kids now! …Wait… when he turned human did his sperm still work? OH GOD COULD HE HAVE KIDS?

Loki felt the real Loki ignoring him as he had a minor mental breakdown. He could still have kids? It made complete sense that it would work though, since this was full reality alteration. Would the kids look like uh… Loki? Or would they look like his original body that he really didn't like? Loki glumly suspected it was the latter. Maybe he shouldn't inflict that on the Universe. Although Calder would say he was being too hard on himself – wait, hold on. His mum had been a Gamma level psyker and Loki was Alpha Plus, only constrained by an avatar. His dad hadn't had any psyker powers Loki knew of so wouldn't that mean the mutation was dominant and accelerating? Oh man. Maybe it was better for the Universe if he didn't have kids and not just because they'd be kind of ugly.

/You know, if my beloved daughter were incarnated, your child would be perfectly safe/ Loki said as an aside to him as he was nuzzled by Jormungandr. And hey, that was a good point! Although wouldn't he need help to do that? /The clown better help after all he's put me through/ Ummmm. Loki was pretty sure Cegorach wouldn't recognize that at all and would probably demand they do something for him. God might be more amenable to playing fair though, fair was kind of what he was all about. Maybe they should just go to him instead. /Getting in touch with the White God is a pain even for me, but you might be right/

Of course, all the sorcerers of Tizca were watching this and Ahriman and Magnus too. They weren't content to just stay quiet forever.

"So you are actually Loki. I did suspect as much," Ahriman said, gazing at him like a hawk that had just spotted its' prey. Loki could sense he wasn't angry, but an apology seemed in order.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't know myself until recently. I wasn't deceiving you on purpose," Loki said apologetically. Ahriman nodded but was still staring at him… oh. "You've never met an Avatar before?" They probably weren't that common given how badly the Ruinous Powers had fucked up everything. Ahriman frowned.

"I have met one, but only briefly. He chose to end his life before I could examine him." Loki blinked at that and Ahriman sounded a touch miffed. "I hadn't even done anything. I'd barely even talked to him. I still don't know his name." Wow… weird. Also, really hardcore! Did the actual Loki know who that was? Loki could feel a mental shrug and knew he didn't. Also, the real Loki wasn't remotely scared of Ahriman, Loki sensed the God thought he could take him. The one he wasn't confident in taking at all was Magnus and Loki quickly transferred his attention as the Daemon Primarch started towards him. Uh oh, he felt really pissed!

"You have done great damage to Tizca. It could have been infinitely worse, if you had shattered the library I would be destroying you right now. What do you have to say for yourself?" Magnus sure sounded pissed but Loki felt a bit annoyed. What was the Primarch, his mum? Now was definitely the time to kiss ass, though, and Loki knew exactly how to do it.

/I most humbly apologize for my daughter. Please accept this gift as a token of goodwill between us/ Loki said, his voice resonating with godly power as he reached into his cloak and pulled out the final golden fruit from the Land of the Dead. He'd gotten five, but only used four… Loki hadn't really thought about it, but it was still with him. Here and now, though, it wasn't a little pumpkin fruit with a jolly face. No, it was a golden apple, looking beautiful and full and juicy. A yellow apple, but with a strange shine of gold, making it seem even plumper. Loki offered Magnus the fruit and felt his senses scanning it – then pausing, and scanning it again before carefully reaching out to take it.

"What is this…" Magnus murmured and Loki thought he already knew. He was just stunned to see one. "I see. I will let your disrespect pass, this time." Well, that was all he wanted really.

/Thank you. Now, I will bid you farewell/ Loki said before gesturing to Jormungandr. She obediently lowered her head and the God pulled himself onto her, taking a spot on her head. /I can't stay too long, daughter, but I will spend some time with you/ Oh man, he was totally going to miss a day or two of his lessons and the eldar would be super worried, but it couldn't be helped. Wait, was he going to see the Warp as it really was? Loki wasn't scared exactly but would they be okay? /You'll be fine. It will be like going home/ Really? Neat!

Jormungandr circled the planet of Tizca again and Loki watched in amazement as the ground rushed by beneath them, the serpent building up speed. Then the blew away from the planet, tearing apart the 'rings' of lost and tormented souls surrounding the planet. Loki felt bad for them, but only a little… somehow, he knew they could leave if they really wanted. They were trapped by grudges and old pains, and many of them DID go, but there were always more. More victims of treachery, screaming into the void.

Shaking that aside – humans were like that, and gods too if he was being honest – Loki paid attention to Jormungandr's joy as they plunged deep into the Warp. Godly, chaotic energies swirled around them as they dove into the place where up was down and down was up and nothing mattered but everything mattered and Jormungandr did a barrel roll! Loki laughed, his voice rousing the Warp, making it froth and boil. They dove deep and then flowed back up, through the indescribable waves of energy.

Navigators all through real space felt the godly currents running through the Warp. The weak or incompetent panicked and a few ships met grisly ends. But the strong and experienced could feel the positive energy of it and knew to take advantage of it. To ride the wave, getting on top of it and harnessing it. With many 'waves' in the Warp that would be lunacy, as they were too intrinsically destructive, but not this one. Despite the strength of it, this current was oddly positive in nature. It baffled the most powerful Navigators a bit. What could have caused it? Was the Emperor in a good mood? Had some powerful psyker experienced a moment of great joy?

They would never know.


Iplanen was concentrating with a laser like focus on the task at hand, the building of the great recall facilities.

Everything from the gigantic emplacements on Egg, the new recall ships and also relays that could 'transmit' dead necrons farther, they were considered to be the absolute pinnacle of Necron technology. Iplanen wasn't entirely confident in his mastery of this technology, although he was carrying out his tasks well. Fortunately – sort of – even true necron Technomancers admitted they were also not entirely confident with this. Iplanen was far from alone.

Boris was cheerfully rabbiting along with absolute confidence and Iplanen could only envy his ability as he directly assisted High Technomancer Tolakh. He seemed to have actually mastered the technology and was working on the most delicate systems, the ones that would put together the necrons engrams. That was a terrible failure point… it was possible for everything to seem to be working fine, Necrons would be recalling, but the number of failures would gradually increase. More and more mental defects would creep in, Necrons returning with subtle personality disorders and building dementia. The worst part was that by the time a defective recall facility was detected, many Lords, Overlords and Crypteks would have suffered permanent damage.

The only way to avoid that was to make it right and then test it to death. Iplanen and Jan were working together on still critical but less delicate things, like the teleportation used to bring the bodies to the recall facility. Iplanen put everything he had into it, pausing only for rest cycles before returning to work. The endurance of his machine body was phenomenal.

After months of work, they had another recall ship completed. Then the testing began.

"First test," High Technomancer Tolakh said before beginning the process. It took roughly ten minutes and all the glyphs flashed green, a good result. "Second test." Another ten minutes, more green glyphs. Iplanen schooled himself to patience… there were almost a hundred tests to get through. "Third test – " This one failed quickly, several red glyphs showing. Tolakh examined all of his readouts carefully before issuing instructions. Scarabs scattered and Crypteks hurried away, Iplanen and Jan among them.

After rechecking everything they reworked a few things and tried again. The third test passed. After that, ten more tests passed successfully before another failed. This time it was a few slight problems with the relays, things that had gone undetected. They fixed that and moved on.

It was an exhausting and painstaking process but finally, Tolakh pronounced their work good and a new recall ship was added to the fleet. In recognition of the occasion and to promote mental health, all of them were given a week of leave, to spend however they liked. Iplanen knew many of the Crypteks already had their plans… they were going to engage in various computer games. The great strategy and world building game had a setting now, so you could put in a time limit and the AI would calculate scores at the end. That one was very popular.

Iplanen intended to catch up on his reading. Mostly technical books in Necron runes, but one book he'd specifically marked as pleasure reading. It was a recently published book of ancient necron fables and Iplanen had a particular reason to read it… he hoped to find clues of the past. It had been written by an awakened necron novelist who was shocked to find that their ancient stories were mostly lost. He'd put them down, even the ones involving the Star Gods, and Iplanen hoped some of them might hold genuine clues of things that might still exist. Was it remotely likely? No, of course not. But you never knew and at worst, he would have wasted his time reading some rather enjoyable fables.

While Iplanen was doing that, Jan would spend time with his family. When the week was over, they would begin work on another recall ship. The fleet was a bit short and that was not good, they could be too easily overwhelmed by a mass casualty event. And the Szarekhan Dynasty would guess as much and do everything they could to produce such an event. Sooner or later they would succeed and Sautekh needed to do all they could to mitigate the coming casualties.

This was the way of Necron warfare.


Author's note: Sorry for the slow update9s, I have be9en bing9e reading9 Primal Hunter. That series is amazing by the way. Finishing all eight books took a while9 and then my laptop de9cide9d to h9ave the nine key crap out. Ye9s, I've9 been fighting9 like th9is to write th9is final ch9apter9. If you see a random nine9 I misse9d, tha9t's wh9y.