Day 59
Are you sure about this?
Aliciel stood before a set of heavy marble doors, inlaid with gold that depicted the God-Emperor's visage standing over the surface Monstrum. His hair was made of black steel woven into the rock, while onyx gemstones made it impossible to tell where his gaze was directed. Rubies and garnets formed burning rains that fell like tears from his eyes, cleansing the golden landscape of the Barren Lands, while yellow diamonds formed the three shining tunnels that connected the hive cities across that sun-blasted sea. She could feel the heat of the tunnel emanating even through the thick rock and metal.
"I am," Aliciel said, before pausing to look back. Behind her, dozens of her sisters stood, all of them in initiate robes that had been stripped of any remaining iconography, all holding glowrods. Once, they had been Sisters of Battle, but now… Now they were something else. They were still sisters, the only family any of them had left, but they were no longer clad in wargear and wielding bolters or flamers for the glory of the Imperium and the God-Emperor. "We are."
There are other ways, safer and easier, of retrieving them.
"I understand that," Aliciel said, her voice unwavering. "But its something we have to do ourselves."
Tide was quiet for a moment. It wasn't displeasure that Aliciel felt from him, so much as… unease. He was worried for them. For some reason, that surprised her. This was a form of atonement for their pasts, yet he was set against them pursuing it. Yet, he had only ever argued against it. He had not stopped them, nor did she get the feeling he would try to.
"Open it, please," She said. Once, a servitor's brain had controlled the mechanisms that now activated as the heavy doors slowly, loudly ground open. It was just one of countless other such poor souls that Tide had replaced with his own biomass, taking its role as his own and ensuring its soul, if it still remained, was finally laid to rest.
The heat of the tunnel hit them like the crashing of a wave, its dry and stale air almost asphyxiating. It was at that moment that she felt the change inside of her. It was like a ripple along her flesh and she shuddered involuntarily for a moment, noting that her lungs took in the air more easily, while she felt slightly stronger in spite of the heat.
"Tide…" Aliciel said and she turned around to look at her fellow sisters, who had each felt the same thing as her. "What did you do?"
You will not die of the heat.
"That is…" Aliciel's first instinct was frustration, even anger. Giving them protection was missing the point of this atonement. However, Tide continued before she could find the words for her arguments.
You will not die. Since you have decided you deserve to suffer physically, I will not stop you from feeling that suffering. But the dead cannot seek the redemption you all crave, so none of you will die here.
Aliciel fell silent. She and her sisters all shared looks of uncertainty. Eventually, however, Praxiah, now just one among her sisters rather than the canoness, nodded to her, as did several others, their faces hardening into resolve.
"Alright," she said and she turned and looked down the dark tunnel, empty of any internal light, and found she could see it more clearly than she should have. Bones, many from the skeletons of those that had fallen just within sight of the end, littered the ground.
"Let us reclaim our sisters."
Tide watched through their own eyes as the Sisters, if they could still be called that, made their way down the tunnels. He'd lent them a few of the caskets crafted by the tech-priests for the Faux-Spartans, each one easily able to accommodate the bones of the fallen initiates.
He wasn't sure how he felt about them doing this. Even with the temporary modifications and his promise to them, this was a needless risk. At least, in his eyes. In theirs, it was all too necessary. He'd been pushing them, changing them like that, and it was not something he liked doing… but he liked the idea of letting them kill themselves even less. Death was no redemption, certainly not a death like this.
So… he was letting them inflict suffering on themselves, while ensuring they never went too far. He didn't like it, but he didn't need to in order to understand why they felt this way. It was a means of atonement, one of the few that they understood, a leftover from their upbringings. At the very least, they were focused outwards, rather than just seeking to feel pain. He'd have done more to try and prevent them if they'd begun trying to flog themselves or something. While symbolic, what they were trying to accomplish was working towards setting an old wrong right.
In the end, he hadn't stopped them, despite his misgivings. They were their own people, after all, and needed to make their own choices. All he could do was try and make sure those choices didn't cause anything irreparable.
Slowly, his attention turned from the world of Monstrum to another land under a different star. The lifeless moon was lifeless no more. On an island in the center of a vast lake, Tide's bioform stood before the flower he had crafted, but it was not alone. A field of flowers like it, yet of different colors, sizes, and more spread all around. Tall trees, with ash-white bark and leaves the color of autumn, had their roots digging further underground. Fruits, red like apples, hung from branches. Insects whose thoraxes flashed with soft glows in the dark of the night buzzed about. Bacteria spread and multiplied, already beginning to reach out and spread across the surface of the island. Birds chirped from places hidden within the trees, while worms dug through the ground.
The forest had not grown large, its trees were tall but thin and young. He had been hesitant to expend too much biomass, instead crafting the building blocks that would allow for the ecosystem to grow on its own. In time, he hoped to add new plants, new fungi, new animals. He could have layered the moon in spores and used those to grow the biomass more rapidly, as he had done on the other three moons orbiting the gas giant, but that was not why he was doing this. This initial growth and the addition of new species, that was all he would provide.
At least, on this island. There were other islands and small continents as well that he would visit in time. The lakes too would soon enough have life swimming through them and crawling along their banks. They too, would receive a similar treatment.
This moon would never be his garden. Its forms of life would never be carefully curated. It would be wild and free. He would watch over it and protect it, as he was watching over and protecting Monstrum.
Speaking of… Tide's biform sighed as he finally drew his focus away from the young forest. He had rested enough. For now, he had daemon engines to crush.
Ahsael's eye twitched as another droplet of water struck the metal floor, resounding through his makeshift workshop with a loud sound. Another leak. No matter how he, or rather, his serfs patched the cieling, it was so filled with cracks that the water kept finding new paths. In the end, he had given up on fixing it, attempting to ignore the sound. And yet…
He let out a breath and rose through the enumerations. He had always worked well in seclusion, but that seclusion was usually accompanied with blessed silence. He could hear the thrum of the ship's generators, the voices of those cultists who still survived through the thin walls, and the blasted water.
He nearly lost his rise and he let out another sigh. He was a Space Marine, a Thousand Son, he would not be defeated by a leaky pipe.
The blood crystals before him had grown in number. He had nearly sixty of the things now, a number not far from the total serfs and cultists he'd lost to whatever lurked the corridors of his ship. Those who were left were less than twenty and Ahsael had seen fit to stop sending out patrols now that he had an adequate number to study.
From what he could tell, the crystals were Warp-based, though of a type of sorcery he had never seen before. They were almost like a sponge in a way, sucking up Warp energies with surprising capability. While he could not be certain without witnessing the creation of one of the ice statues, something he had failed to accomplish even through scrying, he suspected that the psychic power of the victim's soul provided the bulk of the power.
That he had failed to scry whatever was doing this or see any of the statues move or be moved made him suspect they possessed some kind of Warp-sense that let them know when they were being perceived. He'd even watched a single statue with intact blood crystal for hours, far longer than it had taken for any of the other statues to vanish when not being looked upon, yet nothing had come of it. However, the creatures and their victims were of less interest to him than the crystals were.
The crystals, he had learned, would not only feed on the initial power they acquired from the souls of their victims, but also on any nearby sources of Warp energy. Even physical contact with one was enough for them to begin feeding, drawing away bits of his psychic power until he broke the connection. He had noticed that those with prolonged contact would grow in size as well as strength, though it was by mere millimeters and he was reluctant to feed it more power than what it could draw from a few minutes. While it would feed off the sorcerous powers he channeled, it seemed more inclined towards pieces of his own soul, which he was less inclined to give up to anyone.
Reversely, breaking them caused an explosion of sorts, an eruption of that gathered power. Though, that was, perhaps, giving it too much credit. For an explosion, it was very muted and wouldn't have damaged even a mortal beyond perhaps some mild lacerations. That was in spite of the fact that Ahsael could see an enormous amount of Warp-power, similar to that of an average human soul's power, explode out of it with Warp-sight. He'd managed to snare a portion of that power from the crystal he'd broken, but it was like trying to catch the ocean with a handheld net and much of it had vanished moments after, presumably fading back into the Warp.
There was a way to harness the power these crystals offered; he was certain of that. Yet, each day that passed closed more and more corridors as new rents and tears were found, cutting off entire sections of the ship that had previously been accessible. At the present rate, it would be a week before the only area left was the vicinity of the power generator itself, if even that much.
He needed to know more of these crystals, but he was running out of time. So, he did what any sorcerer would have done: he called upon the aid of a Neverborn.
The cultist laid out before him on a table, eyes glazed over with the effects of a charm, had grown weak from the constant exposure to the cold, weak enough that he'd no longer be able to work. Thus, no longer useful for anything beyond what he could pay for.
Ahsael worked the ritual dagger with deft hands unhindered by his gauntlets. The moment the blade's tip touched flesh, he removed the charm and the cultist's eyes bulged inside his skull. The man tried to scream, but another spell kept his limbs and voice paralyzed, unable to do more than see and feel the pain of having his flesh flayed off him while he still drew breath after shuddering breath. Ahsael used that suffering like a courier, sending out his call into the Warp. Just demanding aid from any random Neverborn was liable to get his sacrifice's soul devoured. Instead, Ahsael had one in specific held at the forefront of his mind alongside its true name.
The Neverborn in question was unable to resist the call, revealing itself to his second sight, though it had not been summoned yet. It struggled, as all Neverborn did when not in total control, but he snared it like a wild animal and dragged it into the Materium and the body of the sacrifice.
The Neverborn eagerly devoured the proffered soul, even as it twisted its new puppet body, trying to reshape it to its own whims. He allowed this, to a degree, though he kept his guard up and was watchful of any signs of treachery.
The face of the cultist split apart, revealing a shiny, grinning skull that bulged outwards, before that too cracked open like a split egg, the two halves falling away to reveal a smooth, pearlescent orb that sat atop a neck that grew thin and metallic in sheen, almost like a goblet. The orb rotated in every direction, completely disconnected from the neck. The fingers of the cultist grew longer and longer, even as the arms shortened until they were nothing but stubs that ended an inch below the shoulders. The fingers themselves grew more knuckles, almost becoming like tentacles though clearly still possessing bones, though they bent and flexed at unnatural angles and they turned a deathly blue. Countless spikes of bone sprouted up from the torso, covering it entirely in almost a sort of carapace like scales, while the legs split apart again and again, while the bone structure within slowly broke apart, until what could no longer be called a cultist sat atop nine tendrils.
The transformation was slow, much slower than it had needed to be, and Ahsael wondered if the Neverborn had been trying to annoy him by taking its time. It had worked, but he kept himself within the enumerations.
"Kalfen," Ahsael greeted with no love or welcome in his voice. The orb swivelled and became almost glassy, revealing a silver eye with nine, blue pupils that stared out at him. Its fingers beginning to tap out a rhythm on the table, four rapid drumbeats, like the rapid pumping of two hearts, again and again.
"A leash." The daemon's voice did not come from the eye, but from somewhere between the gaps of its bone armor. It had an odd voice, like always, one that whispered like the whistling of the wind, but flowing out through many openings, making it seem as though more than a single being were talking. Ahsael's eye twitched slightly with annoyance at its words.
"Must you do this every time?"
"Your name," Kalfen continued, as though it hadn't heard him. "Backwards and reversed. A. Leash."
Then it laughed, a snickering giggle that would have been completely normal coming from a mortal child and was entirely disconcerting to hear from so twisted a monster as this one.
"You will answer my questions," Ahsael said, shoving away his annoyance at the daemon's endless, repetition of the same 'joke'.
"Would you like to know if you leave this world alive?" Kalfen asked, still giggling between every word as though every bit of it was hilarious. Its whip-like fingers fluttered around it and its tone suddenly shifted to one of annoyed boredom. "Or maybe about the missing shards of your dear father's soul?"
Temptation, as always, rose up inside him. Kalfen always did this, always offered knowledge more tantalizing than the answers to any questions he had thought to ask originally… But always knowledge that was entirely useless to him.
"Tell me what this is," Ahsael said, holding up one of the crystals, just out of reach of the tendril fingers.
"Hmmmmmm," Kalfen made a noise much like the power generator that kept the cold away, long and drawn out. One of its fingers bent upwards like a hand to scratch its pearl-like head, an entirely pointless gesture. "Three. Three questions for this soul." Ahsael grimaced as it failed to fall for his simple trap.
"Four," Ahsael said, intending to bargain, only for Kalfen to shriek with a sound that could have been laughter as easily as anger, its eye rolling over and over atop its neck.
"That's how you got in this mess!" Kalfen cried out. "Ask your questions three."
What do you know of the Malum entity, was what Ahsael almost asked. He had three questions, he needed to make them count and get as much useful information as he could. He thought for a moment, picking out the phrasing of his questions.
"Very well. How do I harness the power of these crystals with the means I currently possess?"
"Easily," Kalfen replied as its eye focused on the crystal in his hand, the hunger in its gaze obvious even across its alien features. "It is no different to harnessing a soul's power."
"Explain," Ahsael said and Kalfen just chortled. He had already attempted to force the power out of the crystal as he did the souls of others, but all that had resulted in was his own sorcerous might feeding the crystal. It was possible Kalfen was lying to him, but this individual preferred to mislead rather than tell outright falsehoods. He'd need to think long on this, but he felt his hold on Kalfen beginning to slip. He had to hurry. "What are the creatures out there in the snow that turn my servants into ice?"
Kalfen's body jerked and shivered and Ahsael realized it was shuddering. "Outsiders. Hunters. Creatures of another realm than yours, but connected to the Warp, parasites off it. They have hunted in these snows since before the Anathema rose to power, though you are the first prey they have had since this world still turned."
Prey. More questions burned within Ahsael, yet he had only one left and Kalfen's price was always exorbitant. If Ahsael had still been hidden within a hive city, he'd have been able to pay simply by sacrificing portions of its population, but now…
"Why are you tapping your fingers?" Ahsael asked his final question and Kalfen went still, the rhythm finally halting.
"Because it would have attacked me first," Kalfen replied and he could tell the creature was grinning at him, though why he wasn't sure. There was a shrieking, distant howl as Kalfen's body twisted once more, collapsing in on itself and becoming an indescribable pile of pulsing flesh and bone on the ground. Ahsael stared down at it, shocked to have seen that Kalfen had not only departed… but done so with haste.
Then, he heard the sound of water freezing, like icicles scraping against one another, and felt a presence behind that hadn't been there before.
Ahsael twisted around, Warp lightning crackling in his fingers. The creature that rose before him out of the pile of blood crystals, one of his prizes embedded in its chest, was half-formed, yet he could make out a humanoid figure emerging from the ice and a pair of long, jagged claws. Lashing out, he sent a burst of power towards it, only to watch as the arcs of blue electricity were drawn in by the crystal, which shone with light. He grunted and released his hold on his power, backing away at the creature fully formed.
It was tall, nearly two and a half meters in height, but gaunt, almost skeletal. It was made of ice, his helmet's auspexes only finding the near absolute-zero temperatures to be notable, yet there was no sign of the heat of the room rushing into it. In fact, it seemed to be the reverse, as the ambient temperature in the room was already beginning to drop. Despite its icy flesh, it shifted and moved like something with bones and muscles, flexing as two claws the length of chainswords extended from its hands. Its face, if it could be called a face, was a blank mask, almost like an armored helmet, the only distinguishing features being the pair of lights, like eyes, set just within its head, glowing with a soft, white light. It fixed him with a look that possessed no emotions he could discern, but its stance was unmistakably a hostile one.
Ahsael raised one hand and there was another surge of power, but this was not directed towards the creature, whatever it was. An invisible hand reached out and ripped his staff through the air, into his outstretched palm. Bringing the weapon up, he awaited the inevitable attack.
He did not wait long.
The creature burst forward with an incredible swiftness, claws pointing towards him. Ahsael turned one aside with his staff and stepped past the other, bringing the end of his weapon up, sweeping it around in an arc that took the creature squarely in the head as it did not even try to evade. His staff passed through the head as easily as through real ice, though he felt the cold already beginning to crawl up into his fingers through the metal from even the brief contact.
The creature remained standing, despite missing its head, and he noted that the white lights that he'd assumed were eyes remained floating in the same position as they'd been moments before. He watched as the detritus of his attack fell to the floor, turning to water even before hitting the ground, but he saw nothing more as he leapt away from the creature as it reared back around with a slash of both claws.
Ahsael rolled, coming up once more in a ready stance, when he realized just where the creature had put him. In his evasions, it had positioned itself between him… and the other crystals. Was it happenstance? Was it defending its kin? If the water could reform around the crystals to produce more bodies... Ahsael glanced up and saw that more leaks, many of which had been patched, were starting to reappear. In a similar way, the water created by his attack was already slowly inching towards the creature again, as if pulled by some invisible force.
The crystals were the key. If he destroyed them, he had little doubt the creature would perish. Yet, if he just smashed all of them to pieces, he'd be no closer to getting out of here.
The creature seemed disinclined towards letting him consider any further actions and it rushed forward again, despite missing its head. It lanced forward with one claw which he again turned aside, but the other came up in a slash that he was more hard-pressed to avoid. The claw grazed his armor and his eyes widened slightly at how easily it passed through the ceramite of his wargear. While not the same level as a power blade, he had no doubt it was superior to any standard chainsword or other mundane weapon. An impossible sharpness for mere ice to possess.
He shoved the creature away with the staff, feeling the ice crackle under the blow though not break, and backed away.
"Come then," Ahsael said with a grin, not remembering the last time he'd fought without the aid of his powers. He could feel the chill in his hands growing, already spreading throughout him, while his helmet registered the temperature of the room decreasing at a dangerous rate. Fortunately, he'd already won this battle.
The creature darted forward and Ahsael sent a single mental command, the last of several he'd sent since first laying eyes on the creature. There was the muffled bark of a bolter and the sound of metal rupturing. The Rubric Marine's shot sliced through the air even faster than the creature could react, perfectly aimed thanks to Ahsael's quick calculations. This shell was not intended to explode, as doing so near the rest of the crystals could be disastrous for his research. Instead, it simply burrowed its way through the back of the creature, shattering the blood crystal before embedding itself into the wall.
The creature collapsed in an instant, the heat of the room rushing back, though it took its time to return to Ahsael. The ice body melted away, but Ahsael did not let down his guard. The water was already flowing towards another crystal, after all.
When Uirus finally burst into the room, khopesh in hand, he found Ahsael conjuring flames, boiling away the water, telekinetically funneling it so that the vapors had no choice but to enter the vents.
"What happened?" Uirus asked, not sheathing his khopesh.
"Prepare a casing for the crystals," Ahsael said, almost off-handedly, ignoring his question.
"Yes, but-."
"Now, Uirus!" Ahsael barked and the space marine quickly withdrew. He was getting antsy, Ahsael knew, at least as close to it as was possible for a space marine. It was only natural, he knew. With so few serfs left, they were quickly reaching the scenario where the only ones with souls left to offer were Ahsael… and Uirus. Still, Ahsael was confident Uirus would be obedient.
He glanced over at the pile of indescribability that had once been Kalfen. For some reason, he'd thought he heard the daemon laughing just then.
