by Max Barry

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Ziotor wrote:"DO NOT WASTE MY TIME! BE OF IMPORTANCE!!" Ergrith growled once more in his devilish tone waiting for the Shydes to settle to see what they possibly want.

The ship slowly approached the station, "You were the one to call out to us, Ergrith." Mivlon interjected "Your actions is what brought us here, you must have been hoping that we would arrive to investigate." she assumed, it would be weird for such a powerful being to make such a fuss unless it had a motive.

Vulstria wrote:The captain nodded thoughtfully, stating jovially as he did, "Mira it is. Great place for stretching our newfound...appendages? Our newfound magicks will be of great aid should the local authorities try to organize a witch burning for us as opposed to the Red Witch's ilk."

“Hm. You speak of a ‘Red Witch.’ Would you mind elaborating on her as we make our way to Mira?”

The captain notices that some of the inner wall paneling has… sprouted eyes. They blink and curiously observe all around them.

The dying universe wrote:As they enter, the Saturnians may be shocked to find that the three representatives are not all human. They are all wearing clothes consisting of an exotic fabric, and of an interesting design. Although formal to them, it is not traditional formal human clothing. One of the representatives is human, the other is of a species called the Maus, and the third is a Lizaro. They each shake her hands. The Lizaro says "My name is Logas, my species is called Lizaro. I am the head representative of The Galactic Confederacy's mission to this realm. These two are my companions, Magwaf the Maus and Sheilan the Human." (The human looks quite different from what they'd expect of a human) They each do a strange gesture, which is their analogue of a handshake. "I am honored to be here in your audience." Logas says.

"The feeling is mutual." she says and begins walking back to her seat "Please take a seat, we should begin the meeting." she said and sat down (and yes the seats are made to suite their bodies.) She appeared to be a bit shy but still careful and positive.

Hahoalki wrote:The projection noticed the misidentification (Hahoalki's visual presentation was based on an avianoid from Durgets known as a Kriianak - literally "soul bird" - similar in form and niche to Earth's forest eagles), but ignored it, as it was unlikely to persist, and even less likely to be repeated.

"We would be the answer to the first question. We are a teleological projection of the the Archailect of the Allied States, Hahoalki. If you imagine a so-called 'Abominable Intelligence' of such vastness and power that it requires a complex system of artificial universes to hold its brain, you will be wrong only in ways that do not matter."

"As for why the Fabricator General is in our company, there's a story there that neither of us are particularly keen to share. Suffice it to say that we came to this brane to secure our interests, and that we have finally come to a mutually beneficial understanding with him."

"In short, the Allied States were invited to join the Interdimensional Confederation. Since you also are members of it, we wished to gain your approval before officially becoming members. Our initial attempt at contact resulted in misunderstandings on both sides. After initially butting heads with the Fabricator General here, we have - as we stated - finally come to an understanding."

"We would like to establish formal diplomatic relations with the so-called 'Traitors' known as the Iron Warriors, as well as the so-called 'Dark' Mechanicum." The projection was careful to make the scare-quotes audible here. Hahoalki had found information about the strange fictional world of Warhammer 40k, but most of the material uncovered portrayed the factions e was dealing with in a negative light. Whether the members of these factions saw themselves as being "Traitors" or "Dark" was, so far, an unknown quantity.

But the projection continued.

"As for what we have to offer, we have demonstrated the ability to reverse-engineer archaeotech and produce STC files for it. If you do not believe us, ask the Fabricator General here, and he will attest to it. And we are but the shadow cast by the mind of Hahoalki emself. You may be assured that, should a proper Avatar of Hahoalki be allowed into your brane, the Archailect shall be able to unveil all the secrets of whatever you present em with - from the smallest digital weapon to the largest battleship."

"That being said, experience has taught us that the very knowledge of our existence can be memetically hazardous to certain tech-priests - specifically Xenarites. They become insane, convinced that we are some sort of Machine-God. The Xenarites of the Steel Nexus had to be removed for re-education in our home brane. If such should happen in your brane as well, we would request the opportunity to re-educate them as well."

----------

Hahoalki had read enough of the Black Library archives to know exactly what was going on here - Chaos.

E simply asked the tech priests to explain, in their own words, what the purpose of the chaotic invocations were.

The Warsmith needs a moment to process all of that.

“I… yes, we would be more than willing to form diplomatic relationships with you, Archailect of the Allied States. However, in order to to this, you must travel to our Daemon Primarch’s world in the Warp, Mendengrad.”

“I assume that, as an extradimensional, you’ll need the knowledge of how to create Gellar Field Generators?”

----------

The Xenarites happily answer.

They had, in a bid to improve efficiency tenfold, allowed a Daemonic entity they had previously captured to possess the station.

This did not occur recently. This happened three days after the Hahoalkites arrived; they assumed that Hahoalki knew the entire time, which he very obviously didn’t.

Now an entity all of its own, the station, which apparently was now known by the name “Xz’vry’nox, Light in the Void” had struck a deal with the Techpriests: In exchange for using their Daemonic powers over the station to increase the efficiency of its systems far, far beyond what the laws of physics would allow, they would provide it with a twice-weekly sacrifice.

Both sides have upheld their end of the bargain for the time they’ve spent in the Brane; As the station has expanded, so has the visibility and power of the station’s Daemonic influence. At this point, it’s influence is too far ingrained into the station to remove without destroying it outright.

The Xenarites, for their part, seem very proud of themselves, and the Daemon-station hasn’t done anything… explicitly harmful. Aside from the sacrifices, of course.

The orkz wrote:The answer was obvious. These were Orks, after all. As such, they show a blatant disregard for all self-preservation, charging directly into the fray and not caring in the least about the casualties they accumulated.

Meanwhile, Big Cogz began to work on the legs, altering them as to use less power.

—————

As this is happening, some of the Orks notice something. Shimmering shapes, moving in and out of the darkness. Kommandoz, though… they don’t seem to loyal to the Mekboss.

Meanwhile, these dead-stealfy gitz relay what they’re seeing back to their Sneakboss. It’s almost time to strike.

All but 8% of the city had been evacuated. One final ship towered above the fog, filled to the brim with Karigai. As the Koptas arrived, their numbers began to thin, and the ship began to take off. A "small" fusion bomb, contained by the massive pusher plate of the ship, went off, propelling the ship the first few meters into the air. Massive shock absorbers were compressed, then expanded again, in preparation for the second detonation.

The Kopta pilots knew their targets, and attacked the shock absorbers with wild abandon.

Big Shootas, Kustom Mega-Blastas, Skorchas, Rokkits, Deffguns, and Rattler Kannons fired off, all targeted on the shock absorbers of the gigantic transport. Return fire was fierce, but the shields held long enough for the Koptas to jam one of the shock absorbers. When the next fusion bomb went off beneath the pusher plate, it broke outright. That wasn't when the problem occurred. The detonation thereafter, however, propelled the pusher plate well in excess of its design tolerances, breaking further shock absorbers, and causing the transport to go askew. Mere minutes would pass before the entire structure crashed to the ground.

No civilians survived.

The reprisals were fierce and unyielding. The fusion bombs the transport had been using for propulsion were now turned on the attackers. There was no way the Deffkoptas would make it back to base. But their mission had been accomplished. The evacuation had been ended.

Ziotor wrote:"We need to develop our own offensive new tactics. So far we've been chasing the defensive with a weak offense. Problem is our attempts to save sentient species has hindered what we can do. I don't want to drop this resolve, but I can't help but wonder if we would be more successful if we gave up our hearts and killed without prejudice." Hych Aun Zul stated as they continued their travel.

Hahoalki mused.

"It could be possible to destroy planets that Ergrith has already taken. We could do so by surprise and with overwhelming force, using hypometric thunderbolts stored in warp motes. There would be permanent disturbances in spacetime where such weapons are utilized, but... well, the planets Ergrith has solidly in hand could be simply obliterated from causality itself. We have not used these weapons yet, because we have lacked your explicit permission. But if you really want to put Ergrith on the back foot, it is possible, at a cost."

Azucur wrote:Rimiris sighed "I do have a question, I notice humans seem to care very little for the environment, the smog that is produced by Northesta is something that will inevitably destroy the environment of Iiqaath one day." she says as she continued to look through the window "Electricity might not work here, but there has to be an alternative source of power that can be used without killing a planet. So why don't humans seem to care?" she said and turned to face him, in the case of Azucur it was Magitech, which didn't produce any emission, but humans still didn't have the means to create it, most of them couldn't use magic and even so, few actually knew the steps to power alore and extract energy from it.

Frank seemed a little caught off guard by the question. He was expecting a half attentive response. "I mean, look I'm no environment guy or anything, I'm a marine, my job was to be a good bullet sponge and kill people, not worry about the environment." He sighed. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, Cascadia is at least trying to go green, but we have the problem of getting enough energy from it in the first place. Our options are wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear. Problems are, solar is useless in a place that barely gets direct sunlight, wind seems only useful in areas that are, well windy, hydroelectric are reliant on there being bodies of water like rivers, and nuclear still needs uranium and other resources that we kinda don't have. We're trying to find workarounds and ways to more efficiently deal with emissions withou literally deindustrializing ourselves." He paused. "So look, we do care, it's just that it's not that easy a problem to solve, and given that there is no electricity, I don't know if any of those proposed energy sources will still be usable." He leaned back a bit, "What about Azucur? Does Magitech produce emissions? Think they'll trust humans enough to endow large quantities of humans with magic and then sell them Magitech related machinery?" He asked her. "Don't quote me on this, but I think Cody was shocked when you agreed to endow him in the first place. He probably thought that you would say no because 'ah stupid humans attacked, sons of Rylan, never to be trusted again!' or something." He said, mimicking the Elven accent best he could, which was to say pretty well.

Cascadian Free State wrote:Frank seemed a little caught off guard by the question. He was expecting a half attentive response. "I mean, look I'm no environment guy or anything, I'm a marine, my job was to be a good bullet sponge and kill people, not worry about the environment." He sighed. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, Cascadia is at least trying to go green, but we have the problem of getting enough energy from it in the first place. Our options are wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear. Problems are, solar is useless in a place that barely gets direct sunlight, wind seems only useful in areas that are, well windy, hydroelectric are reliant on there being bodies of water like rivers, and nuclear still needs uranium and other resources that we kinda don't have. We're trying to find workarounds and ways to more efficiently deal with emissions withou literally deindustrializing ourselves." He paused. "So look, we do care, it's just that it's not that easy a problem to solve, and given that there is no electricity, I don't know if any of those proposed energy sources will still be usable." He leaned back a bit, "What about Azucur? Does Magitech produce emissions? Think they'll trust humans enough to endow large quantities of humans with magic and then sell them Magitech related machinery?" He asked her. "Don't quote me on this, but I think Cody was shocked when you agreed to endow him in the first place. He probably thought that you would say no because 'ah stupid humans attacked, sons of Rylan, never to be trusted again!' or something." He said, mimicking the Elven accent best he could, which was to say pretty well.

Rimris barely held back a chuckle when she heard him mimicking the accent. “Giving Cody the power of magic was my choice. The war against Rylan was before I was born, so I can’t really condemn humans for something that didn’t really affect me.” She said.

“But magic alone doesn’t open the door to magitech. There’s magiscience involved, as is the rare crystal we call Alore.” Rimiris explained, “Magitech would benefit them and save the planet, but convincing House Cinderblood and House Dawnsinger would be challenging, not to mention that the queen would oppose the idea.”

“I suppose geothermal power or bioenergy might produce results on another planet, but you need something that doesn’t run on electricity here.” Rimiris raised a hand to her chin in thought. Kaniros had generated power without killing the planet, but she didn’t really know how.

The Milky Way Galaxy, in orbit around Sagittarius A*

Shedi Russandee awoke from her torpor to find her ship silent, only the low hum from the reactor that kept their anti-gravity shield up was present, and as she left her quarters, she found no guards stationed at her door; she began walking towards the bridge and avoided the transporters for now as something was clearly wrong.

As she walked, she would detect a second pair of footsteps behind her, when she stopped they were gone, Shedi turned and looked behind her, the lights of the corridor went out as the darkness came closer, two blood-red eyes stared out from the darkness, the eyes filled her with terror and she went into a sprint trying to get away from the eyes. “Someone! Is anybody there?!” she screamed as she ran, but to no avail. She seemed to be alone. “Why isn't anybody coming out?” she exclaimed.

“Because they are dead, or they are unconscious.” A voice said. Shedi looked towards the voice and again she saw the two red eyes as a girl stepped out of the darkness. Shedi knew her face. It was the underlord Shadare Maldraza. But something had changed her. Shadare's skin was paler than before and her silver eyes had turned red. As Shadare grinned, her sharp teeth came into view. Shadare had become a vampire, but Shedi knew not how. “Impossible!” she said.

Shadare sighed. “Now then, I feel no need to spare your life. So I'm going to have you die here, and as the most qualified underlord, scratch that, the ONLY underlord on this ship, your position falls to me.” Shadare said, Shedi charged a fireball only for Shadare to slip under her guard and aim a punch into her throat with enough power to sever all three of her brain stems, killing her outright.

Shadare now stood over the corpse of her former master “I considered drinking your blood, but the thought of drinking your blood makes me sick.” she said and to make absolutely sure the system lord was dead, crushed both her hearts.

The Gods of Chaos wrote:The Warsmith needs a moment to process all of that.

“I… yes, we would be more than willing to form diplomatic relationships with you, Archailect of the Allied States. However, in order to to this, you must travel to our Daemon Primarch’s world in the Warp, Mendengrad.”

“I assume that, as an extradimensional, you’ll need the knowledge of how to create Gellar Field Generators?”

----------

The Xenarites happily answer.

They had, in a bid to improve efficiency tenfold, allowed a Daemonic entity they had previously captured to possess the station.

This did not occur recently. This happened three days after the Hahoalkites arrived; they assumed that Hahoalki knew the entire time, which he very obviously didn’t.

Now an entity all of its own, the station, which apparently was now known by the name “Xz’vry’nox, Light in the Void” had struck a deal with the Techpriests: In exchange for using their Daemonic powers over the station to increase the efficiency of its systems far, far beyond what the laws of physics would allow, they would provide it with a twice-weekly sacrifice.

Both sides have upheld their end of the bargain for the time they’ve spent in the Brane; As the station has expanded, so has the visibility and power of the station’s Daemonic influence. At this point, it’s influence is too far ingrained into the station to remove without destroying it outright.

The Xenarites, for their part, seem very proud of themselves, and the Daemon-station hasn’t done anything… explicitly harmful. Aside from the sacrifices, of course.

"We have acquired a great deal of information during our stay in the Steel Nexus. Including that which pertains to the creation of the Gellar Field. For which the Fabricator General has our thanks."

"We presume that it would be meaningless to ask for directions, given the environment of Mendengrad?"

----------

First thing Hahoalki did was request information on who, exactly, was being sacrificed. If it was something along the lines of "whoever put up the least fight," e would arrange for "transfer to the Mechanicum" to replace the death penalty for the very worst offenders.

E would also request information on this "Xz’vry’nox, Light in the Void," as it didn't sound like a typical daemonic name.

Hahoalki wrote:"We have acquired a great deal of information during our stay in the Steel Nexus. Including that which pertains to the creation of the Gellar Field. For which the Fabricator General has our thanks."

"We presume that it would be meaningless to ask for directions, given the environment of Mendengrad?"

----------

First thing Hahoalki did was request information on who, exactly, was being sacrificed. If it was something along the lines of "whoever put up the least fight," e would arrange for "transfer to the Mechanicum" to replace the death penalty for the very worst offenders.

E would also request information on this "Xz’vry’nox, Light in the Void," as it didn't sound like a typical daemonic name.

"Actually, we can provide you coordinates. However, due to the nature of the Warp, they are unreliable and ever-shifting."

He proceeds to insert one of his mechadendrites into a console out of the hologram's view, and soon, a wafer-thin disc of glass and metal is 'printed' out of the Fabricator General's Cogitator. Picking it up, it does indeed display Warp-Coordinates... ableit, ones that are shifting and changing semi-randomly.

"There you go, that should help you get a general direction of where to go. Be careful not to end up in the Realm of Brass and Blood like the Saturnians did."

With that, the hologram shuts off.

----------

The Techpriests have... surprisingly little information to give. They know it's a Daemonic entity of some kind, though it seems to be powerful enough to be independent from any of the four Chaos Gods. Other than that, however, they don't... have anything.

And yes, they have been throwing in the weakest among them.

Interestingly, however, they weren't originally the ones to contain it; Indeed, the Dark Mechanicum stumbled upon Xz’vry’nox's containment chamber in the derelict ruins of an ancient and long-broken Blackstone Fortress. They had hung onto it for a little over 1500 years, transferring it to the Saturnian Commonwealth for study. Then, when the New Sequence formed, they brought the Daemon over to the station, and finally released it.

After the information is given, Hahoalki hears... something. A whisper, not prodding or scraping, but... mild and patient. Granted, the voice is still slightly maddening, but there's an attempt at restraint on the speaker's part.

It's message is clear:

"Xz’vry’nox wishes to speak. Come with haste to its abode."

Whether it's the Daemon itself speaking in the third person, or perhaps the message was brought to their mind by a lesser 'courier' of sorts, who can say. What is apparent to Hahoalki is that they now know something they previously couldn't do no matter how hard they tried: They know how to get to the station's center.

...So that's why they couldn't locate it before.

The Gods of Chaos wrote:“Hm. You speak of a ‘Red Witch.’ Would you mind elaborating on her as we make our way to Mira?”

The captain notices that some of the inner wall paneling has… sprouted eyes. They blink and curiously observe all around them.

The captain had the errant thought that he would soon have a staring contest with them, before his mind reoriented back to the Telekine's words and enough of his neurons managed to fire to produce a sentence or two. "Elya the Red Sage, the Bloody Mistress of the Cauldron and Heresiarch of the Red Flux. A sworn enemy of the Miran warlords and presumably incredibly unpleasant even by the standards of the blood drinking lunatics of the Hemophants."

Kaniros wrote:The ship slowly approached the station, "You were the one to call out to us, Ergrith." Mivlon interjected "Your actions is what brought us here, you must have been hoping that we would arrive to investigate." she assumed, it would be weird for such a powerful being to make such a fuss unless it had a motive.

"I CAN FEEL THAT THE SKIVEN HAVE MOVED BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THIS REALM!! I SEEK TO DESTROY THEM ALL! YOU'RE NOT FROM THIS REALM AND THAT MEANS YOU CAN REACH WHERE THEY ARE! TELL ME HOW!" Ergrith growled furiously.

Hahoalki wrote:Hahoalki mused.

"It could be possible to destroy planets that Ergrith has already taken. We could do so by surprise and with overwhelming force, using hypometric thunderbolts stored in warp motes. There would be permanent disturbances in spacetime where such weapons are utilized, but... well, the planets Ergrith has solidly in hand could be simply obliterated from causality itself. We have not used these weapons yet, because we have lacked your explicit permission. But if you really want to put Ergrith on the back foot, it is possible, at a cost."

"Is that cost worth the gains? To cast lives away as consequence of destroying our enemy... does this make us the same murderers?" Zul asked the new body of Hahoalki

Ziotor wrote:"I CAN FEEL THAT THE SKIVEN HAVE MOVED BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THIS REALM!! I SEEK TO DESTROY THEM ALL! YOU'RE NOT FROM THIS REALM AND THAT MEANS YOU CAN REACH WHERE THEY ARE! TELL ME HOW!" Ergrith growled furiously.

"We have the technology to move through the multiverse, but we do not know who or where the Skiven are, we have never heard of these beings before." she assured the god, like all Shydes, they knew of the Ziotoans, but the term Skiven was foreign to them, very few had been present at Kyrenaz' explanation, and it wasn't knowledge that had been freely distributed to the people.

Kaniros wrote:"We have the technology to move through the multiverse, but we do not know who or where the Skiven are, we have never heard of these beings before." she assured the god, like all Shydes, they knew of the Ziotoans, but the term Skiven was foreign to them, very few had been present at Kyrenaz' explanation, and it wasn't knowledge that had been freely distributed to the people.

"I FORGET HOW SMALL MINDED MORTALS CAN BE... YOU KNOW THEM AS ZIOTOANS! THEY'RE THE REMNANTS OF MY ADVERSARY! A GOD WHO WAS ONCE NAMED SKIVEN!" Ergrith growled once again

Ziotor wrote:"I FORGET HOW SMALL MINDED MORTALS CAN BE... YOU KNOW THEM AS ZIOTOANS! THEY'RE THE REMNANTS OF MY ADVERSARY! A GOD WHO WAS ONCE NAMED SKIVEN!" Ergrith growled once again

Some of the shydes was not amused at being called Mortals, they were generally the species to describe others as mortals rather than the ones being described, but Mivlon kept it to herself "You wish to exterminate the Ziotoans?" she asked.

The other people on the bridge seemed somewhat excited, as they were former followers of Nercon, some of his personality had rubbed off on them and 13 years was not enough time to rehabilitate them completely. The Admiral walked over the comm station "And how would we bring you to our realm?" he asked

Kaniros wrote:Some of the shydes was not amused at being called Mortals, they were generally the species to describe others as mortals rather than the ones being described, but Mivlon kept it to herself "You wish to exterminate the Ziotoans?" she asked.

The other people on the bridge seemed somewhat excited, as they were former followers of Nercon, some of his personality had rubbed off on them and 13 years was not enough time to rehabilitate them completely. The Admiral walked over the comm station "And how would we bring you to our realm?" he asked

"OFFER ME AN OUTBOARD SHIP AND I WILL CORRUPT IT WITH MY ESSENCE! FROM THERE I WILL FOLLOW YOU ALONG THE PATH YOU TAKE TO TRAVERSE INTO REALMS UNKNOWN!" The shadow of a god instructed the shydean admiral

Ziotor wrote:"Is that cost worth the gains? To cast lives away as consequence of destroying our enemy... does this make us the same murderers?" Zul asked the new body of Hahoalki

"We do not believe it to be worth the cost, else we would have offered to bring them to bear earlier. But there are conditions where bringing justice to a guilty enemy and preventing him from doing further evil can justify the death of the innocent, albeit very stringent ones. Human philosophers called it the 'Principle of Double Effect,' and when the time comes, we may need to invoke it. But we do not believe the time has yet come. It is an option of last resort. But, should it be necessary, it is an option."

Ziotor wrote:"OFFER ME AN OUTBOARD SHIP AND I WILL CORRUPT IT WITH MY ESSENCE! FROM THERE I WILL FOLLOW YOU ALONG THE PATH YOU TAKE TO TRAVERSE INTO REALMS UNKNOWN!" The shadow of a god instructed the shydean admiral

"Admiral, we don't currently have a ship with a functional autopilot computer, they're all deployed. If we're to take this god back to Universe 972 then someone will have to pilot a ship." one operator on the bridge told the admiral.

"So I'll need a volunteer to put his or her life on the li--" The admiral began but was interrupted by Mivlon, the Junior Lieutenant "I'll do it." she said

The other officers on the bridge turned to look at her "My license suffices to pilot an Uridezu-class Shuttle, and I am allowed to return to Ferrandon, under the emergency protocol I can land on Ziotolgalen unmolested."

The admiral scratched his chin, he looked at the junior lieutenant, she had a look of determination about her and he nodded "Very well. You have a go."

As she left the bridge, the Admiral sent a transmission to Ergrith "We're sending a ship now."

Estates Sinister

Space was a premium on the throne-world, this was nothing new to anyone, yet space was always at the disposal of the Emperor and the Imperial dynasty. Through inheritance or by confiscation, the Emperors had gathered together a vast collection of estates over the long centuries and given them out as rewards to loyal and dependable subjects or, less commonly, to members of the dynasty who either asked for or were granted the gifting of an estate. Most often those asking were those who simply wanted to get away from the constant politics of the Imperial Court, which many an Emperor could sympathize with and often granted if the member in question was not an integral part of this or that plot. Few of the estates in question remained out of the Emperors' hands anyway, with those gifted to retiring dynasty members returning following their deaths, but the practice has come to a slow death following the gradual transformation of the dynasty and its members into something more and less than human. Intentions of peaceful and quiet retirements have changed into desires for the sort of isolation and solitude where they could freely indulge their less than acceptable desires and commit acts that not even the Imperial Court, with all its sycophants and flatterers, could tolerate. It was an unspoken truth that most members who try to do so anyway while at Court were to be handled by the Emperors' own justice and thus a modicum of moderation and temperance was forced onto the dynasty, yet the current Emperor surprised everyone when he granted an estate to an aunt he supposedly favored above all others in his dynasty. It was expected of him to maintain some sort of vigil on her, isolated as she was, yet he surprised everyone again when he completely ignored her and expected everyone to do so as well, harshly punishing those who sought to pry into the affair and soon enough the Court knew enough to leave that particular skeleton in the closest. What the Court did not know was that the Emperor did maintain a vigil of sorts, a personal one where he would take time off to inspect the estate and thoroughly question his aunt in a private setting where none could see or hear what occurred, not even his closest advisors and confidants. Naturally, it was also a chance to sit down with his beloved aunt and enjoy a nice, relaxing conversation with her over the finest teas and fingers foods available to the Imperial dynasty, which was what the visits were actually for.

The Emperor and the Matriarch

Emperor Ghilad IV nas Hizdaniid erupted in a fit of mirthful chuckles as his aunt, the honorable and esteemed Lady Vimla, continued to complain about the antics of her latest set of children that she affectionally called her little rascals and he nearly combusted on the spot from the ruddiness of his cheeks alone when she began whining about how one of the boys had played a prank that saw an entire section of the estate covered in luminescent paint. She settled with a sigh, "I do not know what I am going to do with that boy, Setmin is just so rowdy at times it makes me think he would much rather be off gallivanting with pirates", to which Ghilad chuckled, "Auntie, please, there is plenty of time for you to turn that little street urchin into a decent member of our family, by your standards anyway". Vimla eyed him with a coy look, "By my standards? Why, Ghilad, you almost make me blush at how good you have gotten at back-handed compliments. Did a courtier whisper that in your ears while stroking your ego, perhaps?", to which Ghilad ruefully smiled, "She was stroking something, that much is certain, but I could not possibly say more". Vimla scoffed in disdain, "My little Ghilad, why you were such a gentleman when you were younger", before she tossed in with a wicked grin, "and the ladies of the Court were far better at seduction". Ghilad rolled his eyes and drawled, "Ah, that explains the orphanage and its curriculum. Should I thank you, Auntie, for making the ladies of Court better at seducing their Emperor?". Vimla reclined in her chair with an airy sort of faux-arrogance, "I should hope so, why, the children here learn far more under my hands than those spoiled brats do under their parents". Ghilad paused his tea drinking to deadpan, "Under your curriculum, you mean", to which Vimla gave him a menacing leer, "Little Ghilad, still so unused to the ways of family", before a more troubled and troubling look crossed her face, "It astonishes me that you have not yet come down with any sort of desire, so stubborn unlike the rest of our family". Ghilad set aside his tea and platter, quietly murmuring, "'Come down', like its some sort of sickness", and put a hand on Vimla's to gently squeeze it, to which she set aside her own tea and placed her other hand on his. She looked down and swallowed, before looking back with a small, sad and bitter smile, "I-I do not know when they started, the urges, but they....they were so strong then", Ghilad spoke then, "Auntie, plea-""Ghilad, listen to me. I did not fight them and I will regret that to my dying days, I expect. Even...even when I am with them, some small part of me is screaming....". Her eyes had gone blank, dim and distant by then, while Ghilad said nothing in stony silence and simply held on to her shaking hands. "They do not know it is wrong when-when I begin their 'education', they are so changed by then that I....I just go to them and the-they know and they are happy". Tears were running down her face now. "Because I am their mother and what I do to them can not be wrong. It's...it's like hours go by while I am stuck in the back of my mind watching it all like some sort of nightmare and I can not wake up. I gave in so quickly, what was the harm I thought, and now...I have broken every mirror in my quarters and I never go near the children's, I do not want to know what I look like because how can this be me". Ghilad rose from his seat, came around the table and pulled his aunt close to his chest, letting her quietly ramble and sob, as she had done before and would do again, for that was the curse of Hizdan's line, to be tempted and tormented in equal measure for their ancestor's folly.

Vulstria wrote:The captain had the errant thought that he would soon have a staring contest with them, before his mind reoriented back to the Telekine's words and enough of his neurons managed to fire to produce a sentence or two. "Elya the Red Sage, the Bloody Mistress of the Cauldron and Heresiarch of the Red Flux. A sworn enemy of the Miran warlords and presumably incredibly unpleasant even by the standards of the blood drinking lunatics of the Hemophants."

The Telekine seems somewhat shocked.

“A sorcerer… with the mannerisms of a Khornate.” He mutters. “That certainly sounds… quite paradoxical, at least from my perspective. The blood-drinkers from my plane of origin despise the arcane.”

Hahoalki wrote:"We do not believe it to be worth the cost, else we would have offered to bring them to bear earlier. But there are conditions where bringing justice to a guilty enemy and preventing him from doing further evil can justify the death of the innocent, albeit very stringent ones. Human philosophers called it the 'Principle of Double Effect,' and when the time comes, we may need to invoke it. But we do not believe the time has yet come. It is an option of last resort. But, should it be necessary, it is an option."

"Very well, how long until we arrive my friend? And do you have a status report on our armada's assembly and position?" Hych Aun Zul stated with a sigh.

He was growing weary. He'd not slept properly in almost a year. Under normal circumstances, a Ziotoan could go weeks without any sleep at all due to their highly adaptive physiological requirements. However, to run off of maybe two to three good hours of sleep a night and plagued by some of the most horrendous nightmares for the span of nearly a year? That was enough to put any Ziotoan near as state like that of death.

He'd grown so accustomed to Hahoalki's unchanging resolve and infallible energy, that he had slowly gradually given almost all control of the military might to him. It was only a matter of time for Zul before he became useless...

Kaniros wrote:"Admiral, we don't currently have a ship with a functional autopilot computer, they're all deployed. If we're to take this god back to Universe 972 then someone will have to pilot a ship." one operator on the bridge told the admiral.

"So I'll need a volunteer to put his or her life on the li--" The admiral began but was interrupted by Mivlon, the Junior Lieutenant "I'll do it." she said

The other officers on the bridge turned to look at her "My license suffices to pilot an Uridezu-class Shuttle, and I am allowed to return to Ferrandon, under the emergency protocol I can land on Ziotolgalen unmolested."

The admiral scratched his chin, he looked at the junior lieutenant, she had a look of determination about her and he nodded "Very well. You have a go."

As she left the bridge, the Admiral sent a transmission to Ergrith "We're sending a ship now."

"GOOD!! NO HARM SHALL COME TO IT'S OCCUPANTS!" ERGRITH STATED TRUTHFULLY

Ziotor wrote:"GOOD!! NO HARM SHALL COME TO IT'S OCCUPANTS!" ERGRITH STATED TRUTHFULLY

It didn't take long for Mivlon to dock the shuttle with the station. She waited for Ergrith to signal that she could leave. She had already primed her drive and was ready to head through the rift.

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