Null was standing in front of me as I waited next to the closed gateway of the Divine Retribution, fussing over the placement of a loose hi-tech oxygen mask on my face. "You probably won't need this. It is more a precaution than anything. If a storm happens, you may be uncomfortable without it. Unless you see your atmospheric warning indicator blink within your goggles, keep the oxygen off but allow the filter to clean your air of particulate matter. There is enough oxygen to supplement you for five hours. I do not have many of these canisters, so do not use it unless necessary."

"Are you sure it will it be safe for me?" Alberich stood nearby as he held Valkyrie in his right hand. His beak made it so he couldn't wear an oxygen mask, so he had wore a simple cloth across his face like a scarf along with a pair of loose fitting goggles. It made him look like an old-fashioned World War 1 fighter pilot.

Null didn't even turn around, and answered, "Your aberrant physiology gives your lungs more efficient capacity. I will carry an extra canister for safety, but you need only to worry about overexerting yourself. I still say that one of you should stay within the ship for safety"

"I've sworn to protect Erika. I must follow."

I overheard the tech-priest mutter, "...stubborn."

The mask I was wearing resembled a typical oxygen mask from my time, but made up from a synthetic black fabric woven through with metal wires of differing sizes. A tube roped behind my neck and fed from a small air tank strapped on my back. On my head, I also wore a pair of high tech-goggles that displayed current atmospheric conditions on the bottom right corner of my view. They seemed to be fancier than the goggles that Alberich and Lian wore, and were wired into the mask. Right now, they showed a small warning of, ".05% blood alcohol" on top of other atmospheric statistics, which was why I wasn't all that worried about much right now.

I felt Lian looming behind me. He also wore a pair of goggles and a cloth scarf around his face. Null didn't deem it necessary to equip him with an oxygen mask either. Being a space marine meant that he could probably handle it. I turned around and noticed that he held the short powersword he normally kept hidden at his side. For whatever reason, he had declined to bring his big sword with him.

Virgil stood nearby, watching us all. "While I will say 'walk with caution', you are in good hands. Null has always been very attentive to his crews, so you are all safe," he informed us. The astropath was going to stay onboard. I wasn't sure if he could leave the ship, seeing that he was a hologram. Wolfie sat at my feet attentively and wagged his tail, obviously excited for more adventure.

"There, all ready!" Null said after making a few more adjustments to my mask. "When I open the door and we pass the Divine Retribution's energy threshold, you will likely immediately feel both a pressure and gravity shift. Do not be concerned. The air here is equivalent to being on 4000 meters above sea level, which is still breathable. Both I and the Scion will see a warning if a low-pressure event is on its way. We only have a walk of about three hundred meters to the pyramid, so this shouldn't be so hard."

I swallowed nervously. I remembered that Null had said that we were safe on Kolch, and that had not turned out well for us.

"Do we have knowledge of any traps, or any other environmental hazards?" Lian asked behind me.

"I've done a cursory scan of this area with my homunculus, Jiminy. There are no active traps, but there are areas of fine silt off the main path you will walk on, so do not stray from the road. I don't know how deep these silt pools are, so you might bury yourself if you venture there."

I visualized what I had seen in my nightmare again. The area around the pyramid used to be a grassland, and a short road led to the pyramid. If we were where my vision suggested, the walk didn't seem so bad at all. I pulled my hair back to prevent it from blowing everywhere in the wind.

"Are we all ready?" Null said, standing before us, and holding his jagged gear-topped Mechanicus staff stiffly in two left metal arms. Jiminy sat on his shoulder, tethered to the tech-priest with a length of metal chain. Both Alberich and Lian responded in the affirmative before I said, "Let's go."

"Divine Retribution, open gangway," Null instructed.

The doorway opened, and before us, a desert landscape in rolling sepias and golds appeared behind a shimmering energy barrier. The scene was mostly obscured by billowing sandy winds. There was an orange cast to the light, likely caused by all the dust in the atmosphere. Null walked ahead of me, and hooked my arm with one of his mechadendrites. "Visibility appears low today. We should keep ourselves together. Here, each of you attach yourselves with this cable. It will keep anyone from getting lost," he informed us.

The tech-priest produced a long metal chain interspersed with short adjustable loops from a compartment in his chest. While Null held the front, I placed a loop over my left hand like a bracelet, and passed the chain to Lian behind me, who hooked it around one of his thumbs. The Fallen turned to Alberich, who took the end of the chain and also wore it on his wrist. The chain offered a few meters of slack between each person so that we wouldn't be crowded. We now all stood linked together in a line. This was probably a good idea. People get lost in sandstorms.

Null was the first one to step beyond the barrier and onto the gangway, and I soon followed. My ears immediately registered a pressure change as I stepped beyond the barrier, and I felt a brief sensation of vertigo from the lessened gravity. Lian and Alberich followed, and we disembarked. Wolfie vanished in a puff of smoke, and reappeared at the base of the gangway, watching as I stepped forward.

The wind was gusty, but not overwhelming as we walked off the ship. The information displayed in my goggles now read, "705mb, Wind 20-30kph" but didn't hold any warning of low oxygen. The wind definitely held silt and sand, though, and I could feel it hitting areas of my exposed skin on my face. I tried not to think about what some of the sand used to be, and kept moving. Null was the first to step on the stone walkway.

In sadness, I definitely recognized this ruined road. This was the path of pale stones that led to the pyramid, but instead of being made up of a clean alabaster, it was broken and coated with a thin layer of yellow dust. Time had not been kind to it, and it had been eroded nearly completely away. I was actually surprised that it remained here at all after all this time, seeing that it had been exposed to the elements after a nuclear war for over fifteen thousand years. Ahead of us, the shape of a huge pyramid loomed ominously before us through the clouds of dust and sand. My vision of Sebastian seemed right on the money here, and it made me very sad to see the end product of his lapse of judgement.

We began walking down the path. Behind me, I heard Alberich's glaive tapping against the walkway, and Lian's heavy footsteps close behind. Woflie walked a few paces ahead of Null, and didn't stray far from us. The astral hound appeared more relaxed here than on Kolch. Maybe Wolfie only became excited when there was the possibility of action?

The wind wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and the novelty of being on an alien world was definitely beginning to distract me. The landscape around us was made up of sand dunes and dust clouds, and the pyramid ahead of us slowly came into focus the more we walked down the yellowed brick road. To my right, where the city of Byrblan was in my vision, I sometimes saw the faintest suggestion of the skeletons of ancient structures poking up from the desert like ancient whale bones. The yellow-orange lighting of this land gave it a very depressing apocalyptic feel. Every so often, the wind would howl in a way that sounded like a man or a woman moaning in agony or terror as it thrashed across the dunes. The thinner air smelled like cold ashes and blood, and the lighter gravity definitely made me feel unbalanced. Maybe being out here wasn't such a good idea...

We were about halfway down the road when Null slowed down to walk directly beside me. "My infrared vision detects faint heat around the pyramid. It surely seems that temporal technology or an enchantment is at play here," Null informed us, slightly raising his voice. "The old inhabitants of this world obviously held great significance to this pyramid. Tell me, what did you witness in your vision, Scion?"

I observed this walkway, remembering how it looked surrounded by people that were so eager and happy to see Sebastian as he walked to the pyramid, and how deeply uncomfortable he was at the entire spectacle. It literally made my heart hurt to know how this civilization ended, and I still didn't want to go into too much detail on what I had witnessed, so I offered a blunt, alcohol-influenced explanation. "So, I think the pyramid is a museum, and it held a powerful alien artifact which cursed everyone here to death. All the people and everything alive in this entire region turned to sand right after a short nuclear exchange, and this is where it happened. The last pilot of the Divine Retribution stopped here, visited the museum, and accidentally caused the end of the entire human civilization."

Null immediately froze in his stride. I stopped, and behind me, I heard Lian and Alberich also stop. The tech-priest's artificial eyes were nearly white and wide with shock, and all of his mechadendrites had contorted into claw-like gestures. I had never seen him look so disturbed. Ahead of us, Wolfie noticed that we weren't following, and sat down to wait for us.

"Are you... c-certain of this?"

"Yes. At least, I'm pretty sure of what I saw in my dream. The model of the pyramid you showed us looked exactly like the pyramid I saw in the vision, so I guess it was right. The name of the ship used to be the Divine Intervention, and the old pilot's name was Sebastian, and he was a Traveler too. Maybe you or Virgil know about him?"

Null still stood before me, an expression of horror etched across his artificial eyes. He had been absolutely stunned into dumbness at what I was saying. He held his gear staff so firmly that it looked he'd snap it with his grip. We all remained stopped on the walkway, the wind screaming around us eerily. The tech-priest choked out a response to me: "S-Sebastian? His name is Sebastian?"

"Yeah. Last night was the second time I had seen him, actually. He's a guy from a world like mine. Imagine that? When Levant's rift opened, I also saw him and we talked. He was confused and thought I was trying to break into his apartment in England. And- uh, wait, uh, are you alright?" I asked him when I observed that the tech-priest was trembling.

The tech-priest rapidly shook his head. His eyes were still nearly white, and I thought I saw a spark race across one of his arms. "N-no, most certainly not," he replied. Null's eyes then shifted quickly to a deep, sorrowful blue. "This, well... I have a t-theory on the last pilot..." he trailed off, still shaking his head. "It is s-something we should now address when we get back to the Divine Retribution." Null looked up at me again, appearing very upset. "I will just say that I do hope that history does not repeat itself once again in regard to the fate of this lost empire. Hearing that the last pilot may have been responsible for the accidental genocide of an advanced human civilization, well..."

"Nah, it's fine. The artifact isn't active anymore, so it can't hurt anyone else," I offered, my tongue loosened by the amasec. "Sebastian broke it when he killed this civilization. He warned me with 'don't be like me' too, so I promise not to mess around with dangerous xenos tech I don't understand and assume that I'm a god, which is how he messed up. I'll be a good captain, promise."

"S-scion?"

"Hmm?"

"Please... stop t-talking," Null whispered, his body language still very tense. Another spark raced up his arm, this one burning a small hole in his red robe. "I-I mean no offense but, please do not speak on this subject further right now. Talk later about this but not now. It is too much for my circuits to process. T-too much."

"Is everything alright?" Alberich walked up to Null and I. Lian remained standing quietly near us, as did Wolfie.

"No. Not at all. But, yes. For now, y-yes. Everything is safe right now. My concern is in regard to the Scion's vision. I have been given some new information that correlates with some of the r-research Virgil and I had been investigating over the years. It has s-shocked my circuits, so I just need time to compile this new d-data and accept it. Fear not, my f-friends. Let us investigate this pyramid in the meantime. Keep to the present."

Did I just break Null? I shrugged. To be fair, I was also having a hard time. But, at least I was on a cool pyramid adventure right now, right? Wow, it felt like I was drunker than I was before. Oh, right, thinner atmosphere. That'll do it.

We continued walking down the broken pathway as we watched the pyramid appear from behind the windy curtain of sand. It was just as large as it had been in my vision, and had to be at least two hundred meters tall, much bigger than any Earth pyramid. My vision dictated that there was an entryway at the very end of this road, and I was proven correct when I saw what appeared to be a large round arch ahead of us that was about three meters tall, and carved out of the same white stone as the pyramid. It opened to a dark corridor which led inside the pyramid.

"And here we are," Null remarked, now standing ahead of the archway. "I will now double check for any kind of trap or anything else that could kill us. One moment please," the tech-priest said to me. Wolfie sat near my feet, and yawned.

Null held out one of his arms, and a faint green light issued forth from under one of his metal wrists. He passed it over the archway twice before responding that the area was safe. Wait a minute... I remembered Null's suggestion this morning to send Lian and Alberich out first by themselves to investigate this area without this extra safety check for traps. Real awesome of you to suggest that the people you don't like check this place out first, Null. Real smooth.

"The outer areas of the pyramid are not under a temporal lock, it seems. Perhaps some of the tech has failed over the years. It must have been recently," the tech-priest informed us. "It is safe to pass. I will walk ahead and light the way. Stay close to me."

Null began walking through the arch, and pulled us along using the chain. It was dark in here, and the floor of this area was covered in dusty sand. Dimly, I saw one of Null's mechadendrites reach above him like a snake, and a white light now illuminated the dark corridor. When we had light, I noticed with revulsion that some of the sand was reddish, like rust. I hoped that it was just sand, and not a disintegrated person. I wondered what had happened to the priestesses in the gold masks?

Our group walked quietly down the corridor until coming upon an expansive open space with white walls. Looking upward, the ceiling was high and flat, and was about ten meters in height. To my right and left, two different arches opened up to other rooms that had been partitioned inside the pyramid. Directly ahead of us, and leading deeper into the structure, there was some kind of tall metal barrier that bore the symbol of a three-eyed gold eagle with outstretched wings. It looked suspiciously like the Divine Retribution, and I sensed some kind of powerful enchantment. Aside from the closed barrier ahead of us, everything resembled the museum I had briefly seen in my vision. Intuitively, I knew that the broken Heart of Worlds lay deep within the center of the pyramid, probably behind that closed metal door.

Null and Lian's metal footsteps echoed in the wide space. "I'm going to pull the chain back now, as we are unlikely to get lost in here," the tech-priest informed us. We all undid our bracelets, and with a tug, Null began to gather the chain back into himself. Wolfie, being a dog at heart, immediately began to chase the retracting metal chain, and barked in excitement as Null took it back.

"A museum? In a pyramid? How curious. My organization in my old life studied these structures for hidden knowledge, but never once did we see one that was used as a museum like this," Alberich spoke up, very intrigued. "It looks quite intact. Only a little bit of damage. The paintings, after thousands of years, should be dust." The Tzaangor held up his daemon glaive, and it began to glow with a soft blue light, further illuminating the space. Lian had stepped away, and was now studying some of the paintings on the walls.

"Indeed," Null responded as he examined something in a dark corner that lay in a mess of sand. "I believe the temporal lock on this area only recently failed, perhaps only in the last few years. I will need to find where the energy field to the inner chamber is being generated so I can study it. Ah, and another thing..." the tech-priest beckoned us forward to where he stood with one of his hands. "It seems we aren't the first to breach this pyramid's outer walls."

I approached Null, and looked where he pointed, and beside me, Wolfie let out a short chuffing bark.

Two massive and menacingly armored figures lay dead face down on the floor. Lurid black and pink armor decorated the two dead marines. Their spiky armor was scarred and scorched. When Null bent his light mechadendrite, I was able to see something else. It appeared that there had been a fight here. Another figure, dry and mummified, lay crouched in the corner. A curved white sword and a tall helmet lay at his side, and a strange rifle was still clutched in his hands. The crouching figure wore dark, form-fitting armor over his slim body, and a bright jewel lay visible and softly glowing on the plates of his chest armor. The knife-like shapes of his pointed ears were still visible through the remains of his long black hair, marking him distinctly as an Aeldari.

"Looks like two chaos marines, and that other one is an Aeldari, I think" I observed as I stood next to Null. I heard Lian and Alberich walking to us, their steps echoing in the hollow space of the museum. "And this must be a spirit stone," I said, pointing at the glowing gem.

"You are correct," Null said, gingerly stepping around the bodies of the dead chaos marines, and very careful to avoid contact with their obscene armor. When he stood over the crouched figure, one of Null's mechadendrites reached out and tapped the armor plating around the Aeldari's spirit stone, which caused a rivulet of red sand to fall from the corpse with a hiss. The glowing spirit stone fell from the armor, and into the sand beside the body. "Interesting. If you say the population of this world and all others near it were turned to sand, then it seems the curse still exists, although it has decreased in potency. This means we should probably not stay on the surface of this planet for long. Let me examine further."

"The curse is still active? I thought you said we were safe?"

"What are these dead things, and what curse?" Alberich asked as he now stood beside me. Null gave me a look, suggesting that I explain it to him as he began scanning the sandy corpses with one of his left hands.

I pointed at the dead astartes as Lian joined us in our investigation. "These two big guys are Chaos space marines. Normal Space marines are people like Lian here, augmented at childhood to become larger, stronger, and tougher than normal humans. Chaos marines worship evil supernatural powers, and are very dangerous. These two are corrupted by the god of excess, Slaanesh. I'm not sure what chapter, but I do recognize these symbols. Slaanesh is the same god that put a daemon in the statue on Levant." I then pointed to the smaller corpse. The head was a mummified skull with paper-thin skin stretched over bones in an eternal yawn. "This one is an Aeldari, an alien that looks like an elf from old stories back where you're from. It looks like all three of them died fighting each other, and it looks like this happened a long time ago. Can you tell how long, Null?"

Null stopped scanning and said, "Mmm, actually only a few weeks at most. That is odd. Very recently, it seems. And partially turned to sand by the effects of a potent lingering entropic curse that was delivered by... a very powerful individual. My best guess is that the phenomena of life disintegration is a sort of accelerated entropy combined with an unknown sort of power. It assures that everything that is either living or was once living will desiccate and turn to sand, given enough time. Truly, this is a Deadly Desert. Either the Imperium did not know about this, or it did not feel fit to tell me when I served as archmagos, which is highly unusual considering my station. This curse is not specifically Chaos corruption, which is why it wasn't detected as such earlier. Since I did not detect any sort of anomalous entropic readings on the Divine Retribution, I'm going to assume that it offers us as measure of protection when we are inside. The last pilot had to find a way off this planet somehow, anyway."

Lian offered his input and spoke up behind us. "If you wish to know, the heraldry on this armor marks these two beasts as members of the Angels of Ecstasy, a Chaos warband that holds a special interest in the torture and extermination of Aeldari. It is likely that the vessel that transported them here is nearby, either intact or wrecked. The xenos here appears to have fought bravely to his last strength. There may be other Chaos marines or Aeldari nearby, but I am unsure. They are likely neutralized as threats considering the curse on this planet. How long do we have before we start turning to sand?"

Null was now beginning to examine the armor of the Aeldari with his mechadendrites. "We should not be outside for longer than 24 hours at a time, lest negative effects begin to accumulate." I watched one of Null's limbs reach for the spirit stone, and delicately pick it up.

"Hey, let me see that," I said, holding my hand out. Null offered me the spirit stone. It was warm, and its light danced across its shimmering surface like a liquid opal. Wow, a real spirit stone. I turned the glowing ovoid object around in my hand. Alberich watched as I held it, so I decided to give him a 40k lore lesson. "So, this is a spirit stone. It holds the soul of the Aeldari corpse right there. If these aliens don't trap their own souls after death, Slaanesh eats them, so they put themselves in spirit stones to make sure that doesn't happen."

Wolfie reached up with his paws to scrape at my trousers, and actually began to beg for the spirit stone as if it were a piece of bacon. I had a brief laugh before saying, "No, boy. We'll find you some more fun things to do later, but this isn't food for you."

The astral hound sat back down and whined sadly. Poor little pup just wanted a snack.

Alberich appeared captivated, and held out a clawed hand. "It contains a soul? May I hold it?" he asked me, and I obliged him. The beastman's eyes were filled with wonder as he turned the magic stone around in his hand. As I watched him examine the jewel under the soft blue light of his glaive, a blinking red light appeared before me. It said, Warning! Low pressure event detected! Seek shelter immediately!

I took the spirit stone back from Alberich, and put it in a pocket in my trousers. "Guys, we have a problem. One of those low pressure storms is on its way. I don't know when it'll get here. My goggles are warning me," I informed my crew as they explored the room.

Null had also straightened up from examining the mummified corpses, and I saw that his eyes were searching. It appeared that he had received the same message. To my relief he didn't seem too worried. He blinked a few times before saying, "Oh, what a bother. A storm will reach this area within ten minutes. Scion, when you see the blinking light that says 'ox+', turn on your mask. The rest of you should be fine. Perhaps weakened, but fine. You may begin to feel tired, or perhaps sick, but these storms quickly pass, so do not worry. It will feel as if you are at 5919 meters. The storms here typically pass under one hour."

We needed to be here anyway to find whatever archaeotech Null was looking for, so a slight delay here didn't bother me, I convinced myself. As long as we didn't stay on the surface of this cursed planet for too long, we'd be fine, right? There weren't any screaming monsters or Necrons here like on Kolch, so hanging out examining dead bodies and art really felt like a welcome change. Behind me, I heard Alberich offering Lian some advice (which he probably didn't need) concerning how to weather high altitudes. I was actually very glad that Alberich continued his efforts at being amiable. The two of them began to examine some of the paintings on the walls, but stayed close to me.

"So, what do we do till then?" I asked Null as he began to walk away to examine a nearby painting.

"A little exploration, I think. The storm will require that we also stay put for our safety, as the winds will become very dangerous. I have a special love for uncovering the remnants of civilizations long dead, and their strange technologies. These paintings here, they are probably very culturally important to this ancient civilization to exist behind a stasis lock. I wonder who engaged it the final time?"

"Sebastian, probably," I said as I began to further explore the museum, walking up to a nearby painting. Null didn't respond, and I felt a curious sensation of both uncomfortable excitement and cognitive dissonance shimmer off of him as I walked away from the corpses. Yeah, I feel you there, buddy.

The painting I stood before was in shadow, but I could see that it was about half my height in size. It looked very familiar. Had I seen this in my vision too? "Hey Null, can you give me some light over here?" I asked the tech-priest as he scanned a different painting nearby on the wall.

Null walked to me, still upset. The "ox+" warning began to flash in my goggles. "What do you see?" the tech-priest asked me as I fumbled with the switch on my mask. He aimed his light mechadendrite over the painting that I was observing.

I was glad that I was still mildly intoxicated, because I probably would've had a heart attack at seeing the art that hung before me now. To say that this painting was familiar was an understatement. It was an eagle wreathed in gold, wings spread in the air, and its eyes looking at the viewer with intelligence. Delicate marks created by sable-tipped paint brushes illustrated a keen hand, but colored with frustration, one that I knew all too well.

How was this possible, I thought. How could this be here?

"You know, some guy only offered me $150 for this. Can you believe it? Took me 50 hours to make," I said, laughing nervously as the oxygen started to flow through my mask. "I was the one who made this. This is my art. I made it in New Jersey."