Null tittered excitedly to himself as he meditated, sitting alone in one of the unused bedchambers. The archmagos was filled with anticipation. The danger of raiding a Necron Tomb made it exciting, and it had been a very long time since he had last been in the field, exploring with his own hands and seeing with his own eyes. After about an hour of pacing through the bolt-hole, his mapping of the Necron Tomb below was now as complete as it could be, and he had located the craft that would hold the energy cell necessary to power the Divine Retribution. Through a veil of static, an image of a Necron Harvest Ship flickered to life on his auspex, along with a plotted path for the archmagos to follow. The informational interference buzzing invisibly through the air was somewhat troublesome, but at the very least, this confirmed that the Tomb itself was not completely dead and non-functional. Interference like this was actually somewhat favorable, since it was a sign of a healthy, functioning repository of alien relics.
His fleshling traveling companions were currently asleep. The archmagos noticed that the Scion seemed to be feeling the effects of the archaeotech's drain on her being, which was to be expected. The Divine Retribution's enigmatic machine spirit appeared to be pulling directly from her soul in order to operate the Warp protective shield, and she was weathering the effects quite well outside of some discomfort. Null postulated that the Key the Scion wore operated as an interface and a storage unit for soul energy, linking her to the ship's intelligence directly, and marking her as its master. Virgil was right again on that theory. As long as the Scion continued consuming souls around her, the effects should be minimal. Unfortunately, the small beta psyker child he had used to jolt the ship to wakefulness had been nearly drained to death already, so plans would need to be made soon concerning the acquisition of new souls after they had absconded from here with a new energy cell. Perhaps the Scion was planning on using the traitor astartes as a meal for the ship?
Speaking of the marine, Null had slipped a mild sedative into the Fallen's hydration packet, making certain that he wouldn't give him any trouble for the next few hours. Not only did the archmagos greatly frown upon the mutant Tzaangor's company, he had disapproved of the Scion aiding the traitor astartes. She had insisted, perhaps using her ability of foresight. She had also given Null a glimpse of her deific mantle, which both frightened and awed him. If he had needed a reminder on who she was, she had certainly given it to him!
A shiver of excitement played across his circuits. A Traveler, Null thought in wonderment; a real live Traveler! One that came from a realm of deities that decided the fates of the galaxy here! It could be argued that she was a living god, if her home reality was a divine one. It was as if he were living a part in a heroic history tale in the early parts of the Great Crusade, with the greatest glories yet to come. If Null had any of his original flesh left to pinch, he would've done so a long time ago in an attempt to wake himself up from this exhilarating dream. The reality of it was even better than the stories had said, and just like the research he and Virgil had committed themselves to. He was riding onboard the legendary Divine Retribution, a ship only spoken of in rumors and the dreams of the mad. Virgil had said Travelers didn't have "native roots in the Warp," whatever that meant. These individuals were also referred to by the mysterious term of "Marii-Suze" in some forbidden texts, which he also did not know the meaning of. It was a shame that Virgil had died before he could fully explain much of what he studied. Null missed his old colleague, even after all this time. How thrilled and vindicated the astropath would have been to witness such a creature!
Null exhaled from artificial lungs, punctuating his reverie with a giddy sigh. Rallying himself, he stood up, and gestured to 77-X, who stood outside his chambers, waiting for his signal. He looked at his staff, which lay against the corner, and decided not to take it. If the unthinkable happened, the archmagos was a force to be reckoned with, considering the sophisticated energy weapons he had attached to himself, and that was even before considering the formidable combat servitor he traveled with. "It's now or never," Null whispered as he quietly made his way to the elevator. While the archmagos was very familiar with Necron Tombs, his present company was not, and would only get in his way. Because he didn't want any fleshlings getting in his way and tripping alarms, Null had decided to head to the Tomb alone with 77-X, who fell in behind him. When you want a job done well, you have to do it yourself, anyway.
The archmagos found the elevator. His mechadendrites rushed forward, easily clipping the rope barriers. With a quick scan from his palm, the doors opened. Many of the Tombs in this general galactic area used similar passcodes, so this was convenient. He walked aboard the lift with 77-X. The servitor carried a large empty sack lined with a non-reactive substance on his back. The battery he sought might be radioactive, and painful for normal fleshlings to be near.
The elevator was a dark space, but there was enough room for a handful of people to stand. With another projected scan from one of his hidden mechadendrites beneath his red robe, the lift jolted to life, and descended into the Tomb below.
How odd that this Tomb had a working elevator, he considered as he did a final mental check of his systems. It was very convenient, at least. Perhaps another Mechanicus scholar had been sent here after the fiasco on Levant, he wondered. At least Null knew that this Tomb contained a functional Harvest Ship, which is all he needed anyway. A pity he was no longer traveling with his small entourage of tech-priests to plunder this place.
The emotion of fear kept interfering as the elevator quickly descended into the abyssal depths of the Tomb. I will not fear, the archmagos thought. Fear is a base emotion, a collection of chemicals designed to keep flesh-based animals alive. It was a vestige of an emotion, but since Null had chosen to keep his passions, fear was also imported into his circuits, which made his life irritating sometimes. Other worshippers of the Omnissiah were obsessed with the cold logic of metal, but Null knew that true power held two sides, and that to neglect one side was to neglect the nature of reality. Unlike nearly every other tech-priest, he genuinely enjoyed the sensation of "feeling", and had even altered his form to include animated eyes that could convey the emotions he was feeling to others. It also made him extremely intimidating when dealing with other tech-priests, so that was a bonus too.
After some time, the elevator finally stopped. Touching the combat servitor behind him, Null issued a silent command into 77-X to keep defensive protocols online, and to follow him closely. His auspex was now a mess of static and noise, and was basically useless. He turned it off.
The elevator doors opened, and around him, a darkness blacker than deep space surrounded him. The air here was different, and a series of notations appeared on the corner of his vision.
Atmosphere: 82% Nitrogen, 15% Oxygen, 1% Argon, 2% other trace. Warning! Low oxygen environment! Transfer any servitor functions to phase 2. 160 minutes until hazardous effects accumulate.
Null expected this as much, and touched 77-X to switch him to a higher oxygen sensitivity. Here, he couldn't send the command over air, due to the interference. The archmagos swung his head left and right, seeking any visible light, which there was none. That was expected. He switched his vision to adjusted-infrared, and the landscape came alive.
Seeing new technology and new places for the first time always gave him a rush, and here was definitely no exception. As much as people always complained that the Necrons were a cold race, that notion was false. All of their tech emitted a faint gentle heat, nearly undetectable to everyone, but not to Null's sight. Ahead of him, a massive hangar bay of crescent shaped ships slumbered, each impossibly floating a short distance of the ground. There had to be about ten strange crafts here, but one stood out as it yawned like a terrible leviathan in his field of view.
Null's attention was immediately drawn to the largest vessel as it loomed ominously over the smaller crafts. The mammoth ship was very bizarrely shaped, and resembled an expansive flattish crescent attached to a long metal body. Near where the crescent joined to the long body, three long struts branched outward, each at a 60 degree angle and at least a five hundred meters in length, with one length pointing upward, and two below in a triangular shape. The Harvest Ship levitated like the rest of the crafts here, frozen at under a meter off the floor. This ship was so large that if there were light in here, that it would be shadowing all of the other smaller crafts. It was incredible that something so big was slumbering beneath the planet, merely waiting for the signal to become airborne once again.
Being here was setting off Null's fear sensors. Even when dormant, Necron technology felt "wrong" to him. There was something very primally and unnaturally evil about these vessels and the race that had made them, the archmagos thought as he walked far into the forgotten hangar. He passed several smaller ships as they slumbered in the dark, keeping his vision fixed on the larger ship as it rested near the center of this black space, looming like a spider in a web.
A Harvest Ship, Null contemplated, looking upward as he walked quickly beneath the crescent at the fore of the vessel. He summoned the memory of the ancient drawing he had seen in Levant, quickly recalling where exactly the crystal cell would be inside this behemoth. The object of his quest appeared to be deceptively easy to find. This particular ship had numerous crystal energy cells along with its primary reactor, with one being located within a mere arm's length inside the hull, acting as a centralized nerve bundle while distributing power from the main reactor, and being used as a power source itself. The design was complex, elegant, and utterly alien, Null thought with grudging respect. With this, the Divine Retribution would be restored to full glorious functionality.
The archmagos hastened to the base of a floating strut connected to the main body of the ship. It was one of the three angled structures that branched out from the main body. The bizarre ship had to be at least a handful of kilometers in full length. It was so large that Null could not see the vessel in its entirety, which gave him a sinking feeling. The Harvest Ship was a craft that should not exist, and it gave Null a chill to know that these ships were now being used to "harvest" living humans from their homeworlds in the Necron's search for a way to transfer their consciousness back into the flesh.
After a great deal of walking, Null and 77-X finally arrived at the base of one of the floating struts of the vessel. The archmagos gently reached forward with four specialized mechadendrites, gently testing the area around the hull for any sort of defensive shield, which it lacked. It would be quite a climb, but he was capable. With another touch on 77-X's metal shoulder, he commanded the servitor to stay put, and to wait for the archmagos as he climbed.
He did not look forward to what he needed to do to conceal himself from any security measures of the Tomb. Climbing on a Necron vessel risked tripping an alarm. Secrecy was necessary, and it was also good that no one else was here to witness him.
With one of his most secret abilities, and one that he absolutely loathed to use, a bilious lime green cast came over his eyes, and soon, he was able to see through the living metal of the ship. This had the relieving effect of killing all of his fear, but he knew that if he kept this up, it would subsume the rest of him, so he kept a mental tab on how long he allowed this state to continue. As expected, this ship did not react to his touch or his vision, seeing him as friendly. Now safe, the archmagos extended his mechadendrites, and lifted himself onto the hull of the profane ship, supporting his weight to balance himself on the diagonal surface.
Very old memories began to emerge; impossible memories from millions of years ago. He tried to ignore them.
Null climbed high and far on the angled strut, advancing to where the crescent met the long body of the ship. 77-X wasn't agile enough to follow; his steps on the hull might be taken as an intrusion by the sleeping xenos, so he left the combat servitor on the floor of the hangar.
After many minutes of climbing high on the hull, Null reached his destination. This juncture of the struts to the main body and crescent was what he was looking for. A stolen memory confirmed it. Hidden just beneath the hull here, he saw the shadow of a crystalline energy node of the Harvester Ship. The object was coiled with connecting wires and other strange technologies like a serpent devouring an egg, and would have to be disconnected from the main body of the vessel. It throbbed with energy to his sight, confirming that it was operational. This would be more than suitable as a replacement battery for the Divine Retribution. Calling this mysterious crystal a "battery" wouldn't be doing it justice, but it did have the ability to store and disperse energy with a unmatched amount of efficiency.
If the archmagos had the ability to fear in this moment, he would be afraid as he cautiously reached with two of his mechadendrites. The thin hidden appendages of necrodermis gently reached inside the skin of the ship.
The ship's skin parted as if it were a thick gelatin, and his two snaking arms discovered their prize within. He quickly checked, and found, to his relief, that the battery itself wasn't so large, and that the hardest part would actually be climbing down off the ship and handing it to 77-X who waited below.
The object was a fat, hexagonal shape of a strange crystalline substance that pulsed with living energy, and it was deceptively small for how powerful it was. It only measured a bit over a meter in length, and half that wide. He estimated that it weighed about a hundred kilograms, which would be in the realm of 77-X's carrying capacity. He observed as he worked, remembering that it was composed of millions upon millions of shredded souls, and residual non-sentient fragments of eldritch C'tan energy that had been repurposed and condensed into an impossible thing that shouldn't exist, but did. Null's specialized mechadendrites began to undo the connections that kept the unholy thing attached to the ship.
We must wake up. Null heard the screeching thought lash through his living metal first, and then, through the rest of his more conventional parts. He was calmly satisfied he was incapable of feeling fear, he thought as he continued to surgically remove the terrible prize from its resting place. He had never woken a Tomb before, and this one would be no exception.
Wake up. We must wake up. One of us. Awake. Wake up. It is time to wake up. One of us. Awake.
With a few more pulls of a some difficult connections, the crystal was unhooked, and Null pulled it free of the craft, buckling under the weight of it. He grabbed it with all of his hands to steady himself, and with great difficulty, began to slowly climb down the strut, struggling with the heavy crystal. The archmagos used his numerous appendages and limbs to steady himself, but it was still very difficult.
Wake up. Thief. Wake up. Wake up. Thief. Wake up. Wake-
The signal was now going out more consistently, and Null observed that different parts of the hangar were now beginning to show differing levels of heat as he made his way downward. He lost his grip on the hull when the Harvest Ship placed a protective shield over itself right as he was near the bottom, causing the archmagos to fall a short distance on the floor. Blessedly landing on his back, he felt a couple portions of himself break as he fell under the weight of the crystal, but it was safe, and that was what was important. As 77-X took the large crystal from him, and secured it on his back, Null violently forced the part of his programming that was Necron back into the shadows, beating it away with a shock from his heart to jog him back to life, and to keep his soul intact. He stood up, reeling from the experience.
Warily, the archmagos immediately did another scan of the hanger as he trembled. Aside from the temperature differential, there was still no movement in the Tomb, and the archmagos relaxed a little. If he had fully woken these xenos, scarabs would be emerging right now, and so far, they weren't. 77-X was now leaning slightly forward, balancing the battery in the bag on his strong back.
The archmagos could no longer hear any signals coming through his implants, nor his his appendages of living metal. Silence hung heavily in both the hangar, and his sensors. It was a false awakening, he decided with relief.
Null and 77-X walked to the elevator doors at a near run, and pushed the button for the main floor. Right as the door closed, the archmagos thought he saw something moving, but he wasn't certain.
"I've never woken a tomb, and this one is no exception," he muttered to himself as the elevator began rising upwards. "False awakening, malfunction in my metal, that's all."
Far below, the signal continued to replicate, ricocheting through the expansive hidden caverns of Kolch until it happened to strike a slumbering ancient king. Immediately he knew, and the first word out of his cold metal body was "...thief," uttered in a hateful ancient tongue like a curse.