Chereads / Warhammer: Adventures of the Two / Chapter 10 - The horror awakens

Chapter 10 - The horror awakens

986.M41 Craftworld Aurorum III

"Again!" Elirom instructed, and Jarod obliged by causing the constructs around him to fall to the ground and turn to dust.

Jarod smiled. They had been training for a week now, and he had finally come to get a grip on his abilities. They had started off simple, manipulating basic elements and states of matter, before moving forward to even more dangerous stunts. The disintegration of wraithbone constructs was just one of many experiments.

Jarod laughed as he used his abilities to reform the dust back into their original form, "You know, I imagined this would be a good bit harder. I mean, with Alaric I could barely manage a lightning bolt, and I only managed to get a fireball through sheer force of will." He commented.

"A common state of being with your people I am afraid. The way the Imperium trains its psykers is closer to a hammer, while the Aeldari, and by proxy you, train as a surgical instrument." Elirom explained.

Jarod hummed, "So when are we going to get into the mind reading stuff?" He asked, causing Elirom to freeze.

The Eldar sighed and shook his head, "While you are completely capable of reading someone's thoughts, speaking to someone through their mind, or even seeing into the future, I feel as though those should be left for a later date, as you may even discover them without my aid." He explained.

Jarod shrugged before he headed back to his living space. He and Michael had been given a shared house to live in, and the two of them had taken full advantage. The place was bigger than the cramped barracks they shared with the regiment before Robert had picked them up, and it was bigger than their quarters aboard the Emperor's Boot, but it felt… empty, for lack of a better word.

The kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and other spaces were all built from wraithbone, with a few bits of metal dotted about. aside from the necessities, there was no personalization, and it was hard to personalize something that technically wasn't even yours.

Jarod sighed as he flopped down onto the couch in the living room, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes. As much as he loved messing around with his powers, he did often feel a slight withdraw from his intense training sessions with Elirom.

"Rough day?" Michael asked as he walked into the room.

Jarod looked up to see Michael in cargo pants and a white tank-top, showing off his newer, more permanent arm.

"A bit. Finally got your new arm?" He asked, gesturing to the mechanical device.

Michael chuckled as he flexed the appendage, "Yep, got Matthias to install a few goodies too. Got a lasgun built in on the forearm. Pretty spiffy all things considered." He explained.

Jarod raised an eyebrow, "No tech-heresy?" He asked.

Michael shook his head, "Apparently it's a pretty standard get-up, nothing all that advanced going on. The thing can even run for days without recharging, and if worst comes to worst, it can run of las-gun battery packs if needed." He said.

Jarod smirked, "Does it have a vibrate function?"

Michael gave Jarod a deadpan stare, "Really?"

Jarod shrugged, before sitting up and pulling out his flask. He had gotten rather fond of Amesec in recent time and had decided to keep his flask filled with the stuff.

Michael frowned, "You know, I understand you drinking after a battle and what not, but do you have to carry that around wherever you go?" He asked.

Jarod sighed, sticking the flask back into his pocket, "We're in the forty-first Millennium, life sucks, there's only war and we're probably going to get eaten by Tyranids. Have fun."

Michael shook his head, "In any case, I'm heading out. There's still more of the craftworld to explore, and the Howling Banshee Exarch has been following me lately."

"Isn't this thing the size of a planet? Of course, there's still more to explore. And how the heck did you get an Exarch to start following you?" He asked.

Michael shrugged, "I'm not really sure, I think I made her mad when she tried to put me in my place."

Jarod rolled his eyes and laid back down on the couch.

[-----]

Calivar stared into his helmets eye-sockets, wondering just where his life had taken a turn for the strange. Perhaps it was the fact that service to the blood god had lost much of its allure, or perhaps it was the fact that his brother was dead, but he had not felt the urge to spill blood.

Frowning, he took his tools and began grinding away at the Khornate symbols carved into his armor. He filed away at the armor, flakes of adamantium falling to the ground as the ruinous symbols slowly vanished. An hour is gone, and no forms of imagery were found on his armor. Nothing of Khorne, the Imperium, the Space Wolves, or the Emperor, a blank slate.

"Gone chapterless have you, cousin?" Alaric asked from behind him.

Calivar turned to face his loyalist brethren, "I betrayed my brothers for false promises. I see that now. I am simply fortunate enough to have left before I reached the point of no return."

"I may have abandoned my duty as a member of the Deathwatch, but I can firmly say that I am glad to see one such as you turn away from the ruinous powers. Far too many fall prey to them." Alaric said with a frown.

Calivar nodded solemnly, "I was not the only one of my brethren to fall to Khorne, and I do fear that I will not be the last. I will not lie, seeing those that have fallen prey to just one of the gods has ruined my image of what I was promised."

Alaric nodded, eyeing the polished armor. The previous red color had been painted jet black, a tradition of those who had been dishonored or if their chapter had been deemed lost. To many Astartes wore that color, in his opinion.

"I may have gone to a Daemon world to find the two of you, but I do believe you of all people did not wish to be there, am I correct?" Alaric asked.

Calivar nodded, "That world was -- and still is I imagine -- dedicated to Khorne, and all of that which it entails. I am not sure what I was thinking, why I followed my brother down that path."

Alaric tore his eyes from the blackened armor, and looked at his fellow Astartes, "What made you join the dark powers anyway? The wolves of Fenris are not known for being traitors, even if They do not see eye to eye with the Inquisition." he noted.

"As you said, the Vlka Fenrika and the Inquisition do not get along well at all. And it was just that which drove my brother to abandon the Imperium and to join the leagues of Chaos." Calivar started, "We had gotten into a… confrontation, which resulted in the Inquisition declaring us heretics. I believe my brother simply took the accusation to heart, and I was foolish enough to follow him."

Alaric hummed, thinking back to the days before he had joined the Deathwatch, "I will admit that the Inquisition is wholly corrupt from the inside out, however, I must say that there are many amongst them that have aided the Astral Winds at one point or another." He stated.

Calivar raised an eyebrow, "And how did you manage to gain the favor of the Inquisition?"

Alaric scoffed, "I do not think there is any living man in the Imperium that can claim they have gained the favor of the Inquisition, I merely mean that we have managed to keep their suspicions off of us." He explained, "The chapters of the twenty-fourth founding are watched closely, and we will take whatever asylum we can get."

"You are of the twenty-fourth?" Calivar asked, "I will admit I have heard strange things about that founding."

Alaric nodded, "And the stories you have heard are likely not unfounded. I swear we were almost a second cursed founding…" He muttered.

"A second cursed founding? Is it really that bad?" He asked.

"Not quite, thankfully. Only one of the four chapters founded ever attempted to turn traitor, and even then it was a small number. The rest of us only came out with mutations at worst." Alaric explained, "I will not go into detail why our chapters have mutated so much -- for there is a reason -- I will only say that I have no wish to meet our Primarch, should he still be alive."

Calivar frowned. It was a bit strange for a space marine to not to meet their gene-sire. Even as a traitor, he still held a small wish to meet Leman Russ. He idly wondered which of the Emperor's sons had sired the Astartes of the Astral Winds.

[-----]

986.M41 The Warp

Planet of the Sorcerer's

"Must you be so arrogant?" The cyclops asked the Slaaneshi marine, "You lost, it is not all that strange an occurrence. Especially considering it was a craftworld that you attacked, what exactly were you thinking?"

"We were to crush the Spirit-stones! We were to send their souls to the Prince of Pleasure!" The crazed marine ranted.

Magnus let out a sigh. He always loathed dealing with the servants of Slaanesh, so arrogant, only focused on their own goals and desires. Yes, he was aware that saying it made him somewhat of a hypocrite, but at least his plans served some kind of purpose. He sighed as he remembered how wrong his life had gone, the decisions he'd made, and how he had gotten to the position he was in now. Still, the traitor marines information was at least interesting.

"I am aware of that whore of a god's obsession with the Eldar, but I am still mildly confused as to how you thought to attack a craftworld was a wise course of action. How did you not see that the Eldar would-"

"It was NOT the Elder that drove us off! It was those stupid Imperial dogs! They came to the defense of the Eldar! And one of them felt quite a bit like your ilk!" The marine interrupted him.

Magnus let out an exhausted sigh, the worshippers of Slaanesh really didn't have any sense of self-preservation. Had they interrupted any of his brothers like that, he would have found his head relieved of his shoulders. For goodness sake, had he interrupted Magnus were he in any other mood he would have probably done the same as his brothers.

Thinking about his mood, Magnus wondered why he had been so… calm, as of late. It wasn't as if anything had changed really, no, it was more as if the world around him did not affect him as it originally had. No longer did he feel the need to subjugate those around him, and he felt his disdain for both his father and Tzeentch grow in intensity. This wasn't anything new, he had always felt hatred towards the two, but now… now it was less outright hatred.

He didn't ponder on it much, however, as he had more pressing matters on hand, "If they were a servant of Tzeentch than I would no doubt be aware of their plots. Besides, do you think the Eldar would willingly make a deal with the ruinous powers?" He asked.

The marine growled, before throwing his hands in the air and leaving the room. Magnus snickered as the marine stepped off the edge of a cliff the second he opened the door. The Eye of Terror was fun like that, not following the rules of physics and all that. His smirk soon turned into a frown when he began to consider the implications of the marine's speech.

A group of human's even knowing the location of a craftworld was odd in and of itself, but that could easily be explained away. What was truly strange was the fact that the Eldar and Humans seemed to be working together.

It seemed as though something was going on behind the scenes, and he didn't like that he didn't know what was going on.

[-----]

The tomb was silent. For sixty million years, it had not been disturbed. Battles had been won and lost above its endless crypt, wars had raged for what had seemed like an eternity, and yet the residents of the catacombs had not been disturbed.

That all changed when a soft, green glow emanated from a tube embedded deep within the tomb. A metallic hand pressed against the gas-filled tube, and slowly, the containment opened. As the mist flowed out of it, a metal figure stepped out. His body took the form of a long-dead skeleton, with glowing green eyes and long flowing robes.

The creature made a sound that one could have mistaken for breathing, had the creature still had lungs to circulate air. The creature's eyes panned over the room it was in, eyeing the machines, gadgets, and miscellaneous objects littered around.

"What happened…" a voice spoke. It took a moment until the creature realized that it had been the one to speak.

"My voice… how long…" it shook its head, not bothering with its questions at the moment.

The creature examined the room it was in, before leaving to examine the rest of the tomb. It spent hours walking through the empty, silent halls. It found more tubes, filled with creatures just like it.

"What has happened, why did we not awake sooner? What has happened to our bodies?" It asked itself, knowing it would not receive an answer.

It finally stumbled upon a room filled with terminals, each one filled with data. The creature spent hours combing through anything it could find, learning what had happened to it and its people. It found documents, detailing the rise and fall of the C'tan, the Necrontyr, and the War in Heaven.

"My people… what drove you to such desperation? What caused you to fall into such a state? To blindly follow such creatures of obvious malice? To have your very souls stripped of you?" It asked.

It pondered these questions before it came to a strange realization. What was its name? Who was it? It knew that it was once Necrontyr, but with what it's people had done, could it truly be considered as such?

"My name. I… do not remember it. Who am I? Who was I?"

It kept looking through the files, finding names and titles. Nothing looked familiar. It let out the equivalent to a sigh, before looking back to the terminal. She soon noticed one name and the end of the list, and It hit her like a bolt-round.

She was Nevha Cleo, High Lady of the Necrons. She was not sure what to think of her revelation, as she still wasn't sure who exactly she was. Yes, she now knew her name and title, but what did any of that mean now? What did it mean before she was locked in her tomb?

She would have to do more research. She needed to know.