In a dark tunnel deep beh the Hive City's lowest floor, reality shimmered as the veil betweey and the flickered out for a moment. It was already weakened after the ortal, and while it wouldn't have caused too much trouble otherwise, in this one pce, it would be different. The veil cracked and peeled back, revealing a twisting gate of chaotiergy. Out of it, a lohered arm reached out, followed by a cwed leg remi of a hawk but much rger. 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 joihe first, ected to the same t body. The being stepped forward as tiny creatures rushed around its legs, barely reag its ankles as it pced its long staff, appearing like a twisting tree ending in a vivid fme that ged color every time someone g it. The two heads swished around, one ferocious and bloodthirsty like a vulture, and the al like an eagle, as rger monsters joi after the many small beings started flooding the tunnels. These oood as tall as a man, with piacles for hair and long spindly arms holding fire at the ready, as their rge maws cut their heads in half, revealing rows of teeth should they o resort to ripping their eo shreds instead of decimating them with their sorcery. They for sure possessed the capabilities. The rge birdlike being, A Greater Demon of the ger of Ways, a Lord of ge, stood silent and watched as the lesser demons uhe orders of the Heralds near him anized and fell into line. Not even its own subordinates could gleaent 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 ba the top of the task list. I didn't care for anything aside from how they slipped into the without creating even a minor ripple. The dumb animals somehow could do what the best human teology in the gaxy could not, and I wa desperately, especially now that Selene's shit-for-brains sed-in-a us here for dead. I suspected that I could somehow even fo actually entering the for 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 colles of esoteriergy. One just wasn't corrupted by all the murder, death, deceit, and fug that happened in the gaxy. "What do you think the tin found?" I asked, my lips quirking upwards as I g 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 ba it. If there was a juicy back right in front of you that stood between you and being the captain of a Frigate, you sure as hell stabbed it if you were a human from this gaxy. Maybe give it a good twist too. We were lucky he didn't fire heavy ordinan us too before leaving. "Don't be so grumpy; we are not dead yet," I elbowed her, much to her dissatisfa. Her bodyguards didn't know what to do, as ag against an Inquisitor would be uable, but said Inquisitor was also elbowing their captain hard enough for her to double over and start coughing. "That was uncalled for," she gred 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 p," I raised a finger, ting, "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 experieh such Xenos, Lady Inquisitor?" The question surprisingly came from the Arch Militant, Orion Vern, 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 bck hair and a beard that I could see he cared for, a 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 ell whether one of your men was the same as the day before without extensive questioning." "I see," said Orion, "there is always something ued hiding among the stars." "Hht 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 bee the right-hand man of a Rogue Trader?" "Ah, I suppose it couldn't hurt to tell it," he gnced around us, "there shouldn't be anything jumping on us now." "I'm keeping my eyes out, o worry," I waved off his s. I'd deteemies 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 ander serving in the Guard, and one of my newly assigned lieutenants turned out to be a peculiar young woman," the man gave a meaningful gowards Selene, who acted like she wasn't hearing the versation, "I spent the five years of my life from then not to tear my hair out from all the wild antics the woman to. But as, she always aplished her orders more than perfectly, so I had nothing to pin about aside from the stant loss of my tanks and vehicles." "Very iing, please tinue." "Long story short, as you probably know, more often than not the high and of the military is made up of a bunch of inpetent morons that were born into power. So when said promising Lieutenant handed in her resignation when her sigime , 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 petent, more petent than my previous superior, which she proved several fold in the ing months." "So you all are rather o 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 him thankfully, which he returned. Our walk returo silence. I was tempted to tihering 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 mihough 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 ge 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 sapie least. In a se should be eveer 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 crete jungle was getting rather b. 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 gettiitive. The smell of gravel and moldy crete assailed my nose. I pushed past it, searg for something distinct to take my mind away from the monotonous king 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 panions looked at me weirdly. I smelled the oil and inse 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 ahereal smell I couldn't pbsp;I graciously ighe body odor of the others. Most of them weren't engio not waste water by sweating, and I suspected one of the Shadows ed 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 sed, softer, breath. This time, most of the sts were the same, aside from one. A rail of the inse and oil bination swam through the air and into my nostril nguidly, but not from the dire of the tech priests apanying me. We turned a bend, and as the trail of the new st intensified, I spied a loech priest waiting for us with a small squad of bat servitors behind him he 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 iing then. "Where is the Magos?" Selene drew my attention, speaking up rather loudly even before we are within teers of the priest of Mars. "He is down in the ruins," the priest stated, his emotionless voiing out of the Vox speaker ied onto his shoulder, "He said: with the new circumstahere is no time for p." "Any idea what said ruin might tain that got him so excited?" I interrupted, earning a gre densing all of her mounting irritation into a single look. I almost expected her to awaken some hidden psychic power a off my face with her gaze, but luckily that didn't e 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 imagihe curse that never left the tip of my to the uselessness of this tin . "Lead us to him then!" Selene ordered, turning all of her annoyaoward the unfortunate walking toaster. "At once." Then we were off, following the ambling cyb priest through the maze that some called a city. Our destination was deep beh the pces where light reached, a pce that supposedly existed prior to the human ization of this p. 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 gaxy teo p buildings they abao the crashing waves of time? P3t1

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