Day 67

Cass tossed and turned atop the bed. It was the softest thing she had ever felt before. Too soft, in fact, as she sank into. She was used to harder surfaces, Brunt was as well. In the end, they slept on the carpet of the room they had first been brought to.

The hive city was empty. Other than the man called Tide, they had not seen another person. Was this just what the upper levels of a hive were like? Empty and filled with… stuff?

They'd all but ransacked the mansion they had been stuck in. The food in the house's kitches were stranger than anything they'd ever had and tasted weird, though the fruits were abundant enough that they could just subsist off those. The vines had spread almost everywhere, covering the ceiling and parts of the walls, the only animal life they saw being the occasional white-furred rat. Part of Cass thought the rats were getting larger, but she was sure it was just her imagination.

Oddly, she'd had little trouble from the baby growing inside her. She still had morning sickness, but it was subdued, little more than a feeling of nausea that let her know when she needed a break.

The room they were staying in was where they spent most of their time when they weren't out exploring. They'd tried the bed several times now, and while it was fun to sink into it and jump atop it, they had never fallen asleep atop it despite trying repeatedly. They dragged blankets, which were starting to get a little smelly from not being washed, onto the floor and made ready for another night when a knock on the door made them both stand on full alert.

"Cass, Brunt?" Tide's voice called to them. They hadn't seen him in days. "I've brought someone I'd like you to meet."

For a long while, neither of the pair did anything, just watching the door, tensely waiting. However, it did not open.

"May I come in?" Tide called again. Cass made to move towards the door, but Brunt beat her to it and cracked it open.

"What is it?" He asked, keeping most of his body behind the door like a shield. His boot was lodged under it, meaning it would be difficult for anyone to slam it open. Cass saw Tide peaking inside.

"I'd like to introduce you to someone," Tide repeated. "He'll be staying in the house across the street. He's… like you, in a way."

Like… them? He had called them blanks once, did he mean that?

"Anyways, this is… Well, I'll let him introduce himself," Tide said, stepping aside. Appearing the crack of the doorway was an ordinary looking man, though he looked far more physically fit than either Brunt or Cass had ever been in their lives before. His face was heavily scarred and he was taller than either of them by nearly a head, with a shaved head. Despite his intimidating size, she could see him shifting from one foot to another in discomfort but this did not seem to be caused by either Cass or Brunt herself.

"Hello…" He said and his voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. He was dressed in plain grey robes that fit him, but nonetheless seemed uncomfortable for him. "I'm… Gratis…"

With that, he turned and walked quickly and quietly away. It was not the most awkward introduction she'd ever had, Cass decided.

"That went well," Tide said, possibly to himself, before peaking back through the door. "I hope you don't mind. I understand your aversion to having other people around given your histories, but he's had a similar history to you. To a point, anyways."

"What do you mean?" Cass asked, wary. "You said he's… like us."

"Yes, a blank," Tide replied with a nod. "If you'd like I can teach you both more about it later. People with similar… abilities, I suppose, are often mistreated because of the reactions your presence can cause. There is only a handful of you in each hive, but I'd like to turn this hive into a safe place for you all to reside. I won't force anyone, of course, just ask and I'll take you anywhere you wish to go if it is within my power, but I… I hope you can build your own community and have the happy lives that were denied you elsewhere."

Tide smiled. It was still disconcerting to both of them to have another smile at them besides one another. Cass couldn't remember the last person who had genuinely smiled at her other than Brunt, if such a person even existed. Neither blank spoke, unsure of how to respond.

"Well, I'll get out of your hair," Tide said suddenly with a nod. "Have a good night, let me know if you need anything."

With that, Tide turned and departed. Cass wasn't sure what he meant about letting him know since they could never find the man and he'd left no means of contacting him, but she decided it was just more Tide-weirdness.

The Emissary carefully turned the weathered page of the ancient tome. Even when it had been interred into the stasis field, several thousands of years ago according to the machine spirit of the device, it had been old and crumbling. The mere act of removing it, let alone pouring through it like this, would almost certainly accelerate its deterioration if not destroy it outright. That was of little concern to the Emissary, however.

A cherub floated down on quiet hover engines, carrying another automated message from the machine spirit demanding the return of the ancient tome to its stasis field, as the Emissary had expended the allotted time for it to be outside. The Emissary waved it away with a mechadendrite, sparing it not a glance.

"Emissary!" The doors of the librarium opened, the sudden change in air pressure threatening to make a particularly delicate page he was turning disintegrate. Janiel called to him as he entered and the Emissary, reluctantly, looked up from the book. The lord of the city did not seem particularly pleased and his voice reflected that. "Unless that book holds the secrets of victory against these so-called 'monsters' you say face us, I suggest you leave this librarium and get to commanding your wretched machines! If you haven't noticed, they're losing."

The Emissary was aware that the daemon engines were being pushed back. It was a slow process, but the enemy troops, if they could indeed be called troops, were beginning to gain ground again, winning smaller battles more and more often. The number of daemon engines, even as new ones were being manufactured at a rate that would be considered prodigious elsewhere, continued to diminish, while the enemy never seemed to run out of troops and material. The lack of supply lines for their enemy brought about by their teleportation methods meant the only way to disrupt their logistics would be to attack the hive cities that produced their arms and armor directly, something not even his master believed could be accomplished with their present forces. Outside of perhaps crashing the space hulk onto the planet, they lacked the means to cause any real devastation to their enemy.

Of course, he wouldn't tell Janiel any of that. He considered just telling the man to leave, albeit in more polite terms, but he paused for a moment, mulling over one possibility. If he revealed a fragment, perhaps he could have a new tool in his search?

"This book does indeed hold answers that may prove of immense benefit," The Emissary said instead.

"Why, what is it?" Janiel asked, glancing at the tome with a dismissive look in his eyes.

"It comes from the days before the Imperium," The Emissary replied. "It was written by some of the early colonists of this world, when the hive cities were still being built."

"And?" The little lordling was starting to sound impatient, though even he had a wary look at the mentioning of so ancient a time. "How does ancient history help us?"

It will not help 'us', fool, the Emissary thought to himself.

"There is a device, somewhere on this world. Archaeotech of immense power," The Emissary answered. "I believe this book will show us the path there."

"You speak like Ahsael's cabal of witches," Janiel said, crossing his arms, but the wariness in his eyes only grew along with curiosity… and desire. "What sort of power?"

"Well…" The Emissary paused for a moment, as much out of a relish for the moment as for time to consider the perfect phrasing. "The 'god-maker' sort."

Uirus stared into the emotionless, witch-light eyes of the Rubric Marine, who remained motionless outside of its master's workshop, bolter at the ready as always. It showed no signs of caring that he was looking, nor did it even seem to acknowledge his presence in any other way. Though it had once been a son of Magnus like himself, it was now nothing more than a sorcerous automaton. He had learned the stories of the Rubric of Ahriman along with countless others concerning the glory days of the Legion. That was what they were, after all, even if he'd have been killed or worse for just thinking that. Glory days, which had come and passed them by before he'd ever been a part of the Legion.

The way some of the veterans of the Long War had spoken of the days before the Burning of Prospero, the days of the Great Crusade, Uirus could tell many of them missed it. A great sorcerer he would never be, but he was good at reading people, if not their minds.

Ahsael was no great sorcerer either, but he had the potential for greatness that Uirus simply… didn't. For one of the Thousand Sons to lack such talents was almost unthinkable and Uirus knew he would have died long ago, made into fodder for some greater sorcerer's experiments, were it not for Ahsael saving him, taking his brother under his wing. Uirus was content with that position, more or less. He wouldn't say he'd never had thoughts of treachery, but they rarely lasted long.

And yet, he hadn't taken the account of the serf who had survived the creatures to Ahsael. Because he knew Ahsael was keeping things from him.

That was natural for a leader, of course. Subordinates did not need to be informed of things that did not concern them and Uirus would likely be unable to assist in the kind of sorcery needed to harness the blood-crystals. Yet, more and more, Uirus was coming to recognize that Ahsael was not doing it out of any sense of confidentiality… but a growing desperation and paranoia.

He had seen it in many mortal servants, who were constantly afraid of their position being undermined by their own subordinates. It was common practice among the faithful of Chaos to try and supplant one's superiors and was even expected by most leaders that didn't possess absolute power. However, there came a point where paranoia superseded reason, superseded the plan, whatever that plan might have been, and that path lead only to madness and self-destruction. He was often the one who sealed the fate of those mortals who broke in such a way, as their failures warranted such punishment.

Yet, what of Ahsael? If he had cracked, none of them would escape this world alive. Uirus knew better than most what happened to the souls of those who failed Tzeentch. The Rubrics were, in a way, an example of such. They had failed to possess enough power to warrant the Architect's favor and had suffered a horrific fate for it.

Uirus did not expect that he possessed enough power either. While it was doubtful his fate would be that of the Rubric, it likely wouldn't be better either.

Uirus could care less about the souls of his servants. He would expend or save them as he saw fit, they were little more than currency in his eyes. Yet, they were fast running out of that resource and, regardless of whether Ahsael had saved him once in the past, Uirus knew which of the two of them his fellow Thousand Son would prioritize the life of.

If Uirus told Ahsael of the serf's account, Ahsael would likely send out more patrols with instructions to mimic the tapping. However, if anything went wrong, they would lose more souls to bargain with. If they lost too many… Uirus' soul was all but forfeit for whatever power would inevitably be required to fuel their sorcerous escape.

He suspected that was why Ahsael had closed himself off, to keep him in the dark. If he didn't know how desperate the situation was, he wouldn't know whether Ahsael would need his soul as payment. If Uirus turned on Ahsael openly, he'd die, Uirus had no doubt about that. His brother was stronger than him in sorcery, but also had the Rubric, who could not be gotten rid of without alerting Ahsael. Even if he rallied the remaining mortals, the handful who remained would be insufficient to achieving victory.

Ahsael probably knew this as well. Whether he knew Uirus knew it too was another question.

Even if he somehow defeated Ahsael, that left him without a means of escape. All means but one.

He turned and strode away to a nearby chamber, one he had taken over for himself. Entering, he shut the door behind him and stretched out with his sorcerous power, checking to ensure a certain brother was not spying on him. Satisfied that no such study was occurring, he drew out a locked box from the bottom of a storage crate, one covered in Chaotic symbols he'd learned long ago, with similar properties to an invisibility spell, though these were intended to hide from scrying and Warp-sight. Opening the box, he studied the small pile of blood crystals, separate from and fewer in number than those Ahsael had himself.

Plucking one out gingerly in his surprisingly delicate metal grasp, Uirus studied it closely.

"Just how do I make you work for me?" He wondered to himself, only to freeze at the sound of a knock upon his door. He swiftly stowed away his hidden materials, put on his best scowl, and opened the door to glower down upon the mortal that had interrupted him. "What."

"Lord Uirus," The mortal said, staring at his boots. "There's… There's been an incident."

"Report," Uirus said, exasperated. There was always something breaking in this wreck. They'd been lucky the generator hadn't ruptured and cast them all into the Warp.

"One of the food stores has… Its flooded," The mortal said. Uirus blinked. At first, he felt little more than annoyance, as the loss of food would only really be an immediate problem for the mortals, not Astartes, only for his eyes to widen as he realized the long-term implications of all their servants starving to death.

"Show me," He commanded, but he needn't have bothered, he knew the way already. He started forwards, almost barreling into the man, who wisely threw himself to the side. The mortal scurried to his feet and was forced to run to just keep up with the brisk pace of the Chaos Space Marine. It was not a long walk to the food store, which was a repurposed storage room previously used for spare parts in case the generator needed repair. It was quite a large chamber, nearly a hundred feet long and parts of its flooring had collapsed into the lower levels.

Water trickled down from the ceiling over that collapsed section, which had filled to the brim with water and was starting to spill onto the floor. At the rate it was going, the damage wouldn't be too bad, and many of the serfs and cultists were hard at work saving as much of the food as they could. Still, it must have been an immense amount of water to have filled the lower sections and it could have been catastrophic if it hadn't flowed down there. It couldn't have been one of the reservoirs, they didn't have that much fresh water aboard, so perhaps a snow bank had fallen into the ship and then melted from proximity to the generator?

"Save what you can," Uirus ordered, stepping through several small puddles. He hadn't heard the metal tearing to let the flooding in, so he turned upon the nearest cultist. "How long has it been flowing?"

"We found it like this ten minutes ago, my lord," The cultist said, straightening while still clutching a box of ration packs. "No one heard or saw it break."

A break that big, with that much water crashing down, should have caused enough noise that the entire ship would have heard. Perhaps the water had already been filling the corridors and the amount that had spilled inside the storage room had simply raised the water level to a more noticeable level… but the tear in the metal, where the water had flowed in, that looked far too large for so little water to have caused it to bust and…

Uirus paused, his eyes focusing upon that tear. It was long, which wouldn't have been surprising if the seams where the metals were fused had burst from the pressure, but that wasn't where the tear was located. Instead, it was in the center of the panels, almost like…

Almost like a claw mark, Uirus thought to himself.

Movement in the corner of his eye made him pause and he looked down at the water. He stepped closer to the edge, looking down into its depths, an attachment to his helmet beaming light into the waters. There was nothing there, of course, just empty darkness and he deactivated the light, about to turn away while chastising himself for his paranoia. But he stopped, mid-turn.

Without the light to blind him, he saw it. In the deepest part of the water, a dim, crimson glow could be seen. The same glow as from one of the blood crystals he had stored away in his room…

Only this one was a hundred times as large.