38 – Tales of the Past

38 – Tales of the PastIn a dark tunnel deep beneath the Hive City's lowest floor, reality shimmered as the veil between reality and the Warp flickered out for a moment. It was already weakened after the Warp Portal, and while it wouldn't have caused too much trouble otherwise, in this one place, it would be different. The veil cracked and peeled back, revealing a twisting gate of chaotic energy. Out of it, a long feathered arm reached out, followed by a clawed leg reminiscent of a hawk but much larger. Soon after, a beaked head rested at the end of a long twisting neck. Eyes blinked on the ferocious head, dozens at a time, before the rest of the being fully stepped out of the gate, and another head joined the first, connected to the same towering body. The being stepped forward as tiny creatures rushed around its legs, barely reaching its ankles as it placed its long staff, appearing like a twisting tree ending in a vivid flame that changed color every time someone glanced at it. The two heads swished around, one ferocious and bloodthirsty like a vulture, and the other regal like an eagle, as larger monsters joined it after the many small beings started flooding the tunnels. These ones stood as tall as a man, with pink tentacles for hair and long spindly arms holding warp fire at the ready, as their large maws cut their heads in half, revealing rows of teeth should they need to resort to ripping their enemies to shreds instead of decimating them with their sorcery. They for sure possessed the capabilities. The large birdlike being, A Greater Demon of the Changer of Ways, a Lord of Change, stood silent and watched as the lesser demons under the orders of the Heralds near him organized and fell into line. Not even its own subordinates could glean the intent or the thoughts of the Greater Demon. Only it knew why they were here, and even it failed to grasp the full meaning of what they were to do. I was burning my reserves of both bio and soul energy to enhance my Mind-Cores and put the analysis of the Crotalid back on the top of the task list. I didn't care for anything aside from how they slipped into the warp without creating even a minor ripple. The dumb animals somehow could do what the best human technology in the galaxy could not, and I wanted it desperately, especially now that Selene's shit-for-brains second-in-command left us here for dead. I suspected that I could somehow even forego actually entering the Warp for Warp travel and somehow make do with my steadily expanding sea of souls. Both were in the immaterium, so it shouldn't make much difference, and both were collections of esoteric energy. One just wasn't corrupted by all the murder, death, deceit, and fucking that happened in the galaxy. "What do you think the tin can found?" I asked, my lips quirking upwards as I glanced at the not-captain. Not that I was going to rub that in her face...yet. "I have no idea," she grumbled, still rather downtrodden from the betrayal. I was barely even surprised now that I looked back on it. If there was a juicy back right in front of you that stood between you and becoming the captain of a Frigate, you sure as hell stabbed it if you were a human from this galaxy. Maybe give it a good twist too. We were lucky he didn't fire heavy ordinance on us too before leaving. "Don't be so grumpy; we are not dead yet," I elbowed her, much to her dissatisfaction. Her bodyguards didn't know what to do, as acting against an Inquisitor would be unacceptable, but said Inquisitor was also elbowing their captain hard enough for her to double over and start coughing. "That was uncalled for," she glared up at me once she recovered, "and we might as well be dead." "Could be worse." "How?" "Did you really serve in the guard?" "Yes," she hissed. "We could have a bunch of Orks on the planet," I raised a finger, counting, "or the ruins could be from some dipshit Xeno that put a bunch of bombs into it, or a Demon could have been summoned and is still hiding around here." "Yes, yes, I get it." "One of us here could turn out to be a shapeshifting alien-," "Okay, shut up...please," she just shook her head at me. "Did you have experience with such Xenos, Lady Inquisitor?" The question surprisingly came from the Arch Militant, Orion Vortigern, if I remembered his name correctly (I have eidetic memory, of course I remembered it correctly). The man had a deceptively young-looking face despite all the scars on him and the feeling of oldness I got from him. He had thick black hair and a beard that I could see he cared for, and yet it was now in a rather disheveled state. "Yes, indeed I have," I nodded. If Selene didn't want to be the cure to my boredom as we made our way to the meetup spot Zedev sent, this old man would have to do, "Annoying fuckers; you could never tell whether one of your men was the same as the day before without extensive questioning." "I see," said Orion, "there is always something unexpected hiding among the stars." "How right you are," I wondered what face he'd make if I told him the shapeshifting alien was right in front of him, "If you don't mind me asking, how does one become the right-hand man of a Rogue Trader?" "Ah, I suppose it couldn't hurt to tell it," he glanced around us, "there shouldn't be anything jumping on us now." "I'm keeping my eyes out, no need to worry," I waved off his concerns. I'd detect enemies hopefully faster than any of their sensors. "Well, it is not much of a story, really. It all started back when I was a field commander serving in the Guard, and one of my newly assigned lieutenants turned out to be a peculiar young woman," the man gave a meaningful glance towards Selene, who acted like she wasn't hearing the conversation, "I spent the next five years of my life from then on trying not to tear my hair out from all the wild antics the woman was up to. But alas, she always accomplished her orders more than perfectly, so I had nothing to complain about aside from the constant loss of my tanks and vehicles." "Very interesting, please continue." "Long story short, as you probably know, more often than not the high command of the military is made up of a bunch of incompetent morons that were born into power. So when said promising Lieutenant handed in her resignation when her signed time was up, along with an employment offer for me as her Arch-Militant, I didn't think twice about accepting it." "Hmm, wasn't it hard?" I asked with a slight tilt of my head, "Going from superior to the one being ordered around?" "I admit, it did feel ... weird for the first few months," he answered with a shrug, "but I knew she was at least competent, more competent than my previous superior, which she proved several fold in the coming months." "So you all are rather new to this Rogue Trader business, right?" "Yeah," the man nodded, "I don't know the exact time, but a handful of years ago, I was still in the Guard." "Thanks for sharing," I nodded at him thankfully, which he returned. Our walk returned to silence. I was tempted to continue bothering Selene, but I felt the obvious signs in her aura that she wouldn't like that. There was the type of brooding you could snap people out of, and there was the type you should just let them get themselves out of, or something like that. I wasn't a psychiatrist. I felt much more alive in this new form of mine. Though that came with the caveat of being rather whimsical and an overall pain in the ass for those around me, and while I felt a bit sheepish about that fact, I wasn't going to change it now. I much preferred this state to the apathy from before. I wasn't human; it was a stretch to call what I had humanity, but it was sapience at least. In a sense, it should be even better than humanity, as my Eldar base is a better fit for my weirdly shiny soul. In the deafening silence, my hearing picked up on the faraway howling of the wind, dampened by the thick walls still standing without a crack through some miracle. I had to admit, this concrete jungle was getting rather boring. Ever since I woke up here, I only saw the insides of one dystopian maze after the other. The ship, and this city, both were getting repetitive. The smell of gravel and moldy concrete assailed my nose. I pushed past it, searching for something distinct to take my mind away from the monotonous clinking of boots and the heavy steps of Selene's power armor. I breathed in through my nose, filling my lungs with the damp air as some of my companions looked at me weirdly. I smelled the oil and incense wafting off the red robes of the tech-priests first, then the soft tang of iron-like I shoved one of the rifles up my nostril, and finally came an ethereal smell I couldn't place. I graciously ignored the body odor of the others. Most of them weren't engineered to not waste water by sweating, and I suspected one of the Shadows neglected washing his uniform for a few months, or more than one of them. I breathed out, letting the air escape between my lips before taking a second, softer, breath. This time, most of the scents were the same, aside from one. A new trail of the incense and oil combination swam through the air and into my nostril languidly, but not from the direction of the tech priests accompanying me. We turned a bend, and as the trail of the new scent intensified, I spied a lone tech priest waiting for us with a small squad of combat servitors behind him near the location Zedev designated as a meeting point. He didn't bother leaving whatever he found for even a moment, did he now? Must be something interesting then. "Where is the Magos?" Selene drew my attention, speaking up rather loudly even before we are within ten meters of the priest of Mars. "He is down in the ruins," the priest stated, his emotionless voice coming out of the Vox speaker integrated onto his shoulder, "He said: with the new circumstances, there is no time for posturing." "Any idea what said ruin might contain that got him so excited?" I interrupted, earning a glare condensing all of her mounting irritation into a single look. I almost expected her to awaken some hidden psychic power and melt off my face with her gaze, but luckily that didn't come to pass. "I have no information about that, nor is Magos Dominus Zedev capable of feeling what you describe as... 'excitement'." "I sighed audibly, I was sure everyone could imagine the curse that never left the tip of my tongue at the uselessness of this tin can. "Lead us to him then!" Selene ordered, turning all of her annoyance toward the unfortunate walking toaster. "At once." Then we were off, following the ambling cyborg priest through the maze that some called a city. Our destination was deep beneath the places where light reached, a place that supposedly existed prior to the human colonization of this planet. I began to wonder. Would this 'ruin' be some building lost to time, a crypt maybe? Or would we find something actually useful aside from the myriad of traps every damned species in this galaxy tended to place in buildings they abandoned to the crashing waves of time?