My puppeteer proteans can hijack organic bodies.
This information... is oddly not alarming me as much as I thought it be. Which somehow alarms me even more than the actual information that my puppeteers are living up to their name more than any organic would have liked. Reason being the docile Squiggosaurus Rex, which I actually had more puppeteers take over the other regenerated brains and so far have goo mothers galore covering the entire thing to prevent it spreading its spores while I figure out a plan to deal with it. As well as the four blue eyed drukhari kabalite warriors, one of which is a sybarite, are standing at attention in front of me. Well, one of my hobgoblins at least. I made sure to hide these dark eldar away from Imperial eyes over at the former ork siege encampment.
Thankfully none of the imperials including inquisitor Thrax and general Maiori surprisingly were able to see the 'puppeted' kabalite warriors, as that would have been incredibly awkward to explain and it might or even WILL make the imperials even more paranoid of me than they already are. How they did not see I will attribute that blessing to the harpies I left to defend the north of the fortress that swarmed a single ravager skiff.
I am a bit... torn on what to do with these four kabalites really, on one hand it feels very... concerning that I am even considering this choice to either just kill them, 'connect' to their puppeteers, or try to let them go and see what happens. But on the other hand, if I do take control I might be able to gain more insight onto Aeldari physiology, even if these are simply Drukhari I might be able to gain some form of insight onto their psychic systems.
Well, by far I am on one end of the spectrum with the Tyranids, in which both my Goo and the Tyranids are extremely dangerous to the Warp in general with my Siphons and their Shadow in the Warp. But on the other hand, psychic and warp-type abilities can sometimes have promising results. Hmm... I already have the Yggdrasil Network, and by far I guess it can be described as an Empyrean or Sea of Souls for Artificial Intelligence, but I have no idea if it will support organic mind uploads, I am an exception because I was ROBbed and so I have no idea how feasible is that idea and more importantly if I even DO try and integrate an organic into the Network.
The Number 1 question would be if their actual Soul will be able to follow or even be able to 'convert' into something similar. Because as far as I know from my knowledge on the Warhammer-verse, 'Souls' are a Warp thing, it is the reason why the old Aeldari call the Empyrean 'The Sea of Souls' after all.
...
I'll need to do it. I don't like it, but if there is a chance I can learn anything while I'm controlling the puppeteers to look into their heads and bodies now would be the chance. I highly doubt that any Dark Eldar that escaped from the failed raid would not know what happened to one of their Ravagers somehow. I'd rather not risk not getting the knowledge some other day than right now.
Thankfully these are Dark Eldar, that somewhat softens the blow to my morals since I can without a doubt say that the Drukhari would have done something far, FAR worse to their own prisoners.
My optic glowed brightly as in the Sea of Code, I saw the 'clouded' forms of my children controlling the puppeteers controlling the four kabalites. Let's start with one of the three regular kabalites, in my code-vatar I immediately connect with the puppeteer that has interfaced with one of the kabalites.
CAPTAIN TITUS POV
We see smoke in the distance, and this is very very close to Castle Krakengar. The Dark Eldar must have attacked and they must have put up one hell of a fight if the amount of smoke I am seeing is right, how much damage have they dealt? Did the dark eldar bring in an army of raiders and ravagers? Judging by the amount of smoke pillars, a small raider group could not have been the sole reason for that much damage.
What in the name of the God Emperor happened at Castle Krakengar while we were away? It seems like the members of White Squad had similar thoughts.
"What in the Warp went down at Castle Krakengar? I refuse to believe it was just the damn spike-born eldar that were enough to cause this much damage." The man known as Mark 'One-shot' Jones said with a surprised look on his face.
The squat woman on the other hand briefly glanced back at Mark before turning towards the direction of the smoke. "I dunno, but we'll get our answers soon. We are coming up on the hill, once we get up there we can see what the hell happened."
After we all gave our affirmatives, the strange strider morphs we were riding galloped fast enough that we crossed the distance between us and the hill in a matter of moments. Once we reached the top of the hill however, we were understandably surprised at the sight that greeted us.
Castle Krakengar has a lot of smoking bits around the outer wall but that is where only some of the damage is, the rest of the smoke pillars seem to be coming from what is most likely the battlegrounds between the imperials and the dark eldar. Although there were also smoke pillars coming from the direction to Ork territory, and obviously there is something massive that was sent to the fortress since there is a titanic blob of silver in the shape eerily similar to a squiggoth.
I feel like I can't blame the abominable intelligence for this, because... well its orks, even the greatest strategists within the imperium have no emperor-be-damned clue on what those walking sentient fungi will do next. "Damn, the place looks wrecked."
Jane 'Gazlight' Kelly muttered loudly as she eyed the damages, along with the patrolling goo morphs and combat frames just patrolling the areas that were attacked by the dark eldar and what I assume was most likely an ork force. This goes to show that we can NOT antagonize Eien and her... Goo right now, even using the Imperial Guard inside Castle Krakengar we are hopelessly and hilariously outgunned by every other faction on this planet.
There will be no reinforcements coming from the Astra Militarum because of the damned Warpstorm, and so far the two other only imperial settlements were taken over by warp spawn filth the Chaos and the depraved creatures the Dark Eldar.
With a silent signal, myself, the apothecary, and White Squad had our 'mounts' began dashing towards the imperial fortress and I could definitely see the shimmer that is the void shield now that I looked up at it. Void shields are not supposed to ripple like that in my experience, what in the warp happened here? I need answers, the inquisitor is the most likely place to get them.
As our mounts stopped in front of the gates, we dismounted since the strange striders didn't seem to be moving even with Jones' prodding. "Aww man the free ride's over? That's a bummer. I was kind of hoping we would get to ride in like badasses returning from a job very well done."
All of a sudden, a slightly accented but very feminine voice called out to them. "-and embarrass yourselves by riding on top of those poor things? I think it is for the best that you did not entertain that kind of thinking Mark."
Once we turned to the speaker, I instantly recognize that outfit she is wearing along with that veil. A sister hospitalier, there is no doubt in my mind that she is also a member of White Squad. A mental statement that was quickly justified as Mala let out a loud laugh as she waddled over to the sister of battle. "You be right there Maria! I might fit with it due to my fun size, but I doubt the rest would look good riding them. Especially the three big boys over there."
I saw the squat woman jab a finger at myself, the apothecary and the ogryn. Which to be fair, she is right as we would not look good riding them. The sister hospitalier turned to look at the three of us and looked at me for a few moments before turning to inspect everyone else. "Alright now team, you know the procedure. I get to take care of you every time you reckless people go on missions even with Kelly watching over you all."
Seems like she got this all under control, I turn to the apothecary who also turned to look at me before I turned to Captain Mala. "We will go on ahead, I'm sure the inquisitor and the general will want a full report on how the operation went down." After we saw her nod, the apothecary and myself turned to a myrmidon that was standing in front of us.
Slightly wary of the mech space marine knock-off, I was about to walk around it when I heard my voice coming from it. "The Inquisitor and the General will want a full report on how the operation went down." I felt a little insulted but I figured out that this abominable intelligence wants us to follow it to the two mentioned superiors of the fortress.
With a silent signal, the myrmidon turned to its left and began walking on the path alongside the outer wall, I followed it and it appears that the apothecary decided to no longer accompany me since I saw him heading for the other black templars I see in the distance.
It was almost kind of awkward for myself since well, I was being led by an abominable intelligence to inquisitor Thrax and general Maiori, no doubt I will also be meeting with Eien as well. Ah, I see them now. One hobgoblin with a myrmidon, a 'power armor'-clad imperial guard general, and the inquisitor Thrax. The blue optic of the hobgoblin moved minutely to see me before its full body turned towards my direction.
"Ah. Captain Titus, right on time. So far we have finished talking about the... casualties of the Northern Raid, I have offered my services of preparing their funerals. But the general and the inquisitor do not want me to do so for some reason." I blink as I saw both Maiori and Thrax turn to look at each other for a brief moment before turning to me, it seems they want me to say something.
I clear my throat and I had to be careful not to insult the abominable intelligence if we want her continued assistance with Exalus. "It is appreciated, but with all due respect, I doubt the funerals you will prepare might be... well, satisfying to give closure? You said so yourself you came from a time where the funeral rites might be completely different to the ones we do for our dead now." Thankfully my words had an effect since the hobgoblin tilted its head to face the ground with one of its servos on its helm.
"Now that you mention it... yeah, you might be right about that. I was careless, I completely forgot that your funeral rites might well be VERY different from the funerals I remember. I apologize for any insult I have inadvertently made to the imperium as a result of my careless offer." This was really strange. I can tell this is also effecting the inquisitor and the general since I doubt they have experienced a 'xeno' actually earnestly apologize to us and the imperium as a whole. Much more for Inquisitor Thrax since he would most likely be encountering as many xenos as any healthy space marine does.
General Maiori cleared her throat uncomfortably as she turned her head to the side. "It's, well uhh. It's ok I guess. You didn't know. ANYWAY!" Smooth general, real smooth.
"We should probably head back to the command center to discuss where we will go from here, we are still going to have to deal with the other eldar attack force tomorrow onwards. So we should prepare immediately." The general's words drew nods from all around including my own.
Inquisitor Thrax turned to look at all of us. "I concur. So far we have been attacked by an attempted surprise raid from the dark eldar coming from the north, and a blatant siege force from the orks to the west. We still need to go over your report captain Titus, since you may very well have information on what kind of wargear and mechanized units they will be bringing into the fight."
I nodded as we turn to follow the general leading us back inside of the fortress stronghold although the hobgoblin split off, the myrmidon with us, it was a different one since the one I followed wandered off. "Lady Eien will be joining us with her primary body in the command center." The Myrmidon spoke, hmm it was the same voice from the myrmidon during operation White Noise.
...
This was going to be a very interesting report.
EIEN POV
Leaving the hobgoblin I sink into the Yggdrasil Network and stare at four figures with mixed emotions, thankfully I managed to learn how to mask my emotions within my private domain. My previous sad episodes caused all of my children to panic within the network, I'd rather that not happen again just in case.
Anyway, back to the four figures. These were the four kabalites my puppeteers body jacked and I have learned a LOT from taking control of their puppeteers.
One, I learned that as long as the puppeteers are in their system they are essentially given a 'lite' connection to the Yggdrasil Network. Not so much as a mind upload, but its like if someone took a piece of hardware and USB plugged it into the computer. It is a crude connection, and it is one I can sever immediately, but the connection allows me to see and feel many things from them.
I see their memories and I feel their emotions right now, they are currently feeling anger, despair, rage, horror, fear, and basically quite a bit of negative emotions are coursing through them from the start of them getting body jacked by my puppeteers.
Which is fair, it really is. Nobody wants to be body jacked at all, buuuuuut you four are dark eldar so tough shit, this crap I'm doing to you is not even 1/16th the fucked up shit you mcEdgelords do to your slaves, hell even to yourselves. As far as I am concerned, you deserve this especially from the feelings I'm getting from these four.
Ok, yeah. So basically even if they are essentially being *ahem* 'puppeted' by my puppeteer proteans, they are still alive and they see and feel everything that is happening to them and even what they are forced to do.
When I controlled one of the puppeteers in one of the three basic kabalites I learned many things, mostly about their physiology, and I have to say. What the hell Old Ones, I've already did an autopsy on an ork and they were complicated, but compared to essentially their more sophisticated 'sibling race' the orks might just well be simple and easy to understand.
Like holy shit, the way their muscles move when they jump around like a monkey on crack is like watching a blob ball just quickly shift to efficiently move back and forth with no energy lost, every movement calculated, and every obstacle taken into account to plot the most efficient route to keep not only their momentum, but also not lose a single bit of said momentum if that makes any sense.
Most of my units are going to be too slow to face against opponents like these, and while strength and durability are important, speed is just as important as the two other keys. I will have to rectify this, and I know what kind of unit I will be designing next for this, one that will become a new frontline unit for my goo morphs, and one that I can say without a doubt will make even the fastest of eldar fearful of their presence.
Aside from that, I managed to find more secrets in their body. Such as their cells are eerily similar to orks, not exactly though its more so a similar design and it goes to show both of them were made by the Old Ones they will have some minor similarities in the end.
Such as their cells, which is basically a massive fuck you to genetics, and diseases among other things. These cells are basically thugs and any kind of disease, virus, or the like are just nerds for these ork and eldar cells to beat the shit out of relentlessly. On the bright side though, since I have these kabalites and as long as I keep them healthy and alive I will be able to keep extracting more of their cells aaaand ok this is starting to sound a little fucked up.
Ok, a really bright side though is that I managed to isolate and 'map out' their dead psychic neurological system. Its really interesting, because I initially thought that the eldar's psychic system is directly connected or is a part of their nervous system. But no, it is actually a fully separate system of nerve clusters with veins spread out to every single part of their body. This looks so odd, now that I see it but I think this is how Asuryani Bonesingers are capable of making the 'magic' wraithbone. Since I just have a dark eldar and not an actual craftworlder I can only guess, using this psychic nerve system they flow their psychic energies of controlling the warp to not only 'generate' the wraithbone, but they would flow it into their hands and actually mold the damn thing like clay into various shapes.
Oh I really want to do some weird warp crap of my own, but for now I can't put any resources right now into trying to recreate something similar to the eldar's psychic nerve system. Even then I would have to also find a way to make it so my siphons would also not interfere with it but also synergize with it somehow.
Sighing in my private domain, I continue watching the four body jacked dark eldar before turning away to address another elephant, or rather titan out of the room. It is odd that even though the puppeteers are essentially body jacking the squiggosaurus rex yet I don't see it in the Yggdrasil Network other than the one puppeteer that is in the shape of an odd looking brain.
Having goo mothers cover the damn thing was a good idea, also adding them into the inside of the squiggosaurus rex it allows me to just consume the ork spores generating from the titanic creature to prevent it from spreading... its fungi... everywhere... I just thought of an idea on how to deal with this thing.
Ok, so far the orkoid fungus(ork spores) are basically endless. Which means as long as this squiggosaurus rex exists, it is going to keep crapping out spores like it's no ones business. Now this is where things start to get really weird, the ork spores have more mass then their size dictates. They are spores yes but they are DENSE spores, what are in these spores is where the weird stuff happens.
As far as I know, even when consuming the damn things the ork spores show nothing but they have dense mass on them. But when they 'grow', what they grow into generates more spores, then so on and so forth. My previous plan was to probably just eat the damn thing and be done with it, but I think if I do this correctly I might have a somewhat good source of mass for now until I get my mass economy up and running. So I have to contain this squiggosaurus rex and just have a dedicated spore eater just to essentially keep getting mass from all the spores it is generating.
I need to crack the Old Ones' codes on the Orks, if I can find a way to create my own spores. I might be able to just have infinite mass generators. But so far, such a dream will be very far away. Even with the squiggosaurus rex, I feel like I may have to start excavating the world in order to meet my resource demand for mass. Which is a little sad since I like nature.
Focus Eien, we still have Farseer Zalava and his band of goody two shoes Asuryani. We will need a new unit, one that will be used for full frontline duty. Once I make it I know just what to call it.
The Hecatoncheires.
Yaaaaaa so this isn't that long of a chapter, my brain was fighting me every step of the way since I was trying to get this out of my head.
Anyway, that name drop will be a hint as to what kind of unit Eien will be coming up next. It will be a goo morph unit since I haven't been giving that much love to Eien's origins and it is high time I did. :3
Hmm... I've been getting really dumb ideas lately, this by far is one of more dumber ones. Is it dumb? Definitely. If I was anything other than a Pathfinder Probe? Extremely Dangerous... Am I going to try and attempt this?... Yes. Yes I will.
Oh I think I might regret this, very very much.
Quite a few things have been revealed from the Dark Eldar in possession and their Ravager Skiff, one thing is that their Anti-Gravity emitters are actually less efficient than my own Anti-Gravity cores. That was a huge surprise to me, since that means on some level the Grey Goo-verse Humanity are on par if not capable of surpassing some of the denizen factions of 40k, and that both relieves me and slightly terrifies me.
I mean, of course I am a modified Pathfinder Probe but I've only been slightly modified! At least I think, I dunno if the Yggdrasil Network was an actual thing in the lore, it might be? That could explain how in-game the Goo seemed to share resources. But anyway yeah I've only been slightly modified, the rest is still vanilla goo. But the Goomanity after basically fucking themselves over 20 ways to Sunday have basically advanced themselves unhindered and unchallenged by anyone, and a semi-unshackled Pathfinder nearly broke them, with an explorer-turned mediocre strategist's mindset.
What does that say about me? A Pathfinder that is basically fully unshackled and one that has an actual strategist's mindset. Who knew all those years playing many different strategy games would pay off someday.
Anyway, back to the the insights I've gained from assimilating the Ravager skiff and sifting through the four Dark Eldar's heads, the Anti-Grav emitters of theirs may be similar to my Anti-Grav cores in theory but the whole way they go about achieving their Anti Gravity is actually really interesting and it might give me ideas down the line. Basically for the AG-Emitters, with their namesake they basically emit a sort of well for lack of a better term 'Core Plane', how it works is that these emitters work in tandem in order to keep this core plane level with the skiff.
Now here is where things get interesting, the core plane generated by the AG-Emitters is basically it's own gravitational pull. It doesn't actually 'reverse' gravity in the normal sense. These emitters basically create their own gravitational pull, and since its a 'plane' the skiff is actually being 'pulled into itself' in order for it to be able to keep itself afloat like it is.
Still with me? Now here comes the more confusing part of this emitter, the core plane they generate can be fine tuned and with careful little adjustments the top part of the core plane works like normal gravity and it is how the people can stand on the thing without holding on and for my harpies to just float in its vicinity and not get left behind by the skiff, while the bottom part of the core plane uses its 'gravity' to push upwards against the bottom of the skiff making it 'float' on air like it is doing.
So these AG-Emitters are basically inaccurately accurate with their damned name and it hurts my head a little with every thought of how it works and its given name. I want to shoot the Aeldari who came up with this and gave the name 'Anti-Gravity' emitter, the emitter part is fine. It's the Anti-Gravity part which annoys me.
Onto another thing, the Dark Lance. One of the Drukhari's biggest middle fingers to the laws of physics itself, where do I even begin with this monstrosity. The actual gun itself is easy to understand, this weapon fires a short stream of dark matter particles commonly referred to by the dark eldar as Darklight. What they fail to mention is that this thing's firing chamber is a bloody containment field, inside is some kind of dark matter and the so called 'Darklight' which I'll give it to them it is a shadowy black ball with an aura of white and purple that emits a sort of actual 'black and purple' light.
Trying to understand this thing is like trying to understand the thought process of a less than dead rock. These kabalite warriors have no idea how to understand this thing and it is probably only the weapon shop owners of Commorragh who are capable of understanding it since they built it. If I want to be able to make immediate headway with figuring this dark matter and Darklight thing out I will need to nab a Drukhari weapon shop owner or worker maybe.
On the bright side though the actual firing mechanism and the containment field gave me insights as to what the Dark Lance actually is, and the conclusion I came to really interested me a good bit.
This thing is like a variant of a Wave-Force Particle Beam Cannon, as the weapon uses a powerful generator to harmonize the waveforms of heavy matter particles. As each particle is aligned, the matter begins to resonate, and soon the closed system is struggling to contain extremely destructive energy. At the moment in which the system's energy can no longer be contained in the supercapacitors, all of it is channeled in a powerful long-range beam that travels near indefinitely, which can tear through most known matter in its way. Now these are just the Waveforms of the particles, which means the actual particle generating these waveforms is untouched, which also means that it has an infinite supply of ammo provided the entire firing mechanism and containment field is well kept.
The Dark Lance follows this concept and turns it up to eleven while giving the laws of physics a huge fuck you and somehow compacting all the required components into something nearly 1/16 the size of an actual Wave-force Cannon emplacement, those things are big to fit all the necessary technology to make it work and the Dark Eldar somehow make it small enough to be bloody one-man portable. This weapon harnesses a small container of this dark matter and not only does the same thing as the regular Wave-force Cannon, the gods be damned Dark Lance can charge and fire this thing's 'Darklight' even faster than a regular Wave-force Cannon. It's bullshit I say!
While I may not be able to create my own Dark Lances, eating one of these things gave me a lot of insight as to how to be able design my own compact Wave-Force weaponry. I can possibly use these as anti-ship guns for my void-faring vessels as well as perhaps replace the Cyclops plasma cannon with them if I think- ah wait no that wouldn't work, I would have to replace the arcing plasma shots somehow.
Anyway, now with the mind blowing revelations of the Drukhari's most 'common' pieces of technology out of the way, let us talk about the Drukhari in my... 'extended custody' if you will. Did you know that overtime as my puppeteer's connection with them persisted, the four kabalites started exhibiting more... curious emotions. This kind of weirded me out, since their whole schtick is basically to make anyone else suffer to stave off the psychic thirst of... well, She Who Thirsts.
I felt a chill go down my current equivalent of a spine inside my domain as I spoke the title of the bitch whose Khornish Keeper of Secrets gave me a real big fright.
Mentally sighing, I 'looked' again in the Yggdrasil Network to see the faint outlines of the Drukhari are still there and while their emotions are still radiating the usual anger, depravity and all that. It is not as potent as it was before, especially since I could feel through the puppeteers that now that their situation has sunken in they are now starting to get curious as to probably what were my children, but what was I since no doubt they caught a glimpse of my 'appearance' when I temporarily connected with their puppeteers.
I've already gleamed so much from these four, I don't know what to do with them now. Well, aside from keeping them to continue studying their cells but aside from that there is really no reason for me to keep them under my control. Maybe I should just get rid of them?
Huh? One of the kabalite puppeteers is pinging me through the network, briefly connecting I felt the puppeteer translate what seems to be the odd brainwaves from the drukhari sybarite into some kind of badly written version of the aeldari language. Aw hell, even with the snippets of the eldar language from the Incorruptus I can barely understand this.
I do recognize a few words however as I cross referenced these characters with the snippets I found on the Incorruptus' database, translating them I got the words 'End' and 'Suffer', with only these two words I am very interested in what they are thinking. But aside from that there isn't much to go on and if I want to understand what they are thinking I need a full Aeldari Lexicon and some time to decrypt it.
Aside from maybe try to continue designing the Hecatoncheires and/or maybe start work on my own waveforce technology, I don't really have anything else to do here in the Yggdrasil Network that requires my full attention.
With that said and done I leave the network to reconnect to my first body, refocusing my vision every time whenever I immediately connect with the 360 vision always jars me and I have to take quite a few seconds in order to clearly see again. Using the Eien shape and starting the vision connection there helps a lot cause with her limited vision I can clearly see right away.
Compiling the knowledge from this body, I brought myself up to speed. Titus has just finished reporting about his and White Squad's performance and how much damage they've dealt to the craftworld eldar's wargear, although the presence of one thing makes me feel something is wrong. I start talking.
"This wraithlord you speak of, is it this?" I still have to play upon the appearance of myself not knowing much, a tiny protean formed on the palm of my Eien shape's hand and sprouted a stalk in which it began forming a small holographic figure of the eldar wraithlord.
Captain Titus nodded, meanwhile Inquisitor Thrax and General Maiori eyed the hologram of the wraithlord with slight apprehension before turning to me. "Lady Eien, how long did you have this if you do not mind me asking?" Really? Questioning me like this when its obvious that my myrmidons would have seen it as Titus and White Squad escaped. I explained that the myrmidons saw it as all of them were escaping and transmitted the appearance to me.
Thankfully the explanation sufficed as the inquisitor and general relaxed a little, just as they were about to discuss more one of the extra notable people in the room spoke up. "I have a question for you... lady Eien." Turning my Eien-shape's head towards the noise while seeing through my 360 vision that it was Magos Aronna who spoke that, with an arm I motion for the mechanicum member to continue with her question.
She cleared her throat, huh seems she still isn't that far into cyborgification? "Just how much is left of the original force you brought here? Is the wreck where we came from also completely finished?" The first one made me hiss in my domain and the other is also a good question, I called through the network on the status update of the Incorruptus while I answered the magos.
I made the expression of a grimace on my Eien shape, showing that I very much do not like the answer I'm giving. "Not good, of the original force I employed I nearly lost a total 40% of what I brought to the West. That is even with the multiple Bastions and Hydras I had doing their best to keep the rest of my units operational. If the orks bring in more of those things before I establish a stable enough economy to replenish what I've lost then the fortress may be lost."
The thing is, I was not exaggerating. With a return ping, I just now found out that the Incorruptus has just finished depleting and while the continuous spores generating from the squiggosaurus rex helps, my mass economy has been cut nearly by 80%. Which is most definitely not enough to support an endless tide of goo morphs and combat frames, I mention the depletion of the Incorruptus as well to further sell how vulnerable we currently are.
Magos Aronna winced and I could see Titus' eyes twitch and inquisitor Thrax's breath to hitch quickly, General Maiori and the other imperial military members not including Thrax's retinue winced to the casualties I got hit with while also looking confused as to what wreck we were talking about. Huh, the inquisitor and his party didn't tell them of the Incorruptus wreck.
Ronus' myrmidon turned to look at me Eien shape and I could feel him ping through the Yggdrasil Network while also speaking out loud for the sake of the organics. "Lady Eien, what about the established force in the Sea of Iron? Surely it is fine if they head our way in order to link up with the Imperials?"
Good idea Ronus, but... "That would have been my first choice, however with the amount of Goo Mothers in transit along with the Purger. They will be extremely slow and will become very juicy targets even though they have dangerous morphs and frames protecting them. My Eien morph made a show of crossing her arms under her bust and closing my eyes as I think of a way for the Incorruptus force to be able to somehow link up with us. Wait a minute, oh right I completely forgot about how my goo proteans work man I feel a little more than dumb.
"Actually, wait no they might be able to link up with us." My words drew the attention of everyone as the tiny protean on my shoulder formed a map of the continent on the board.
Spoiler: Da Map
I point at the small mountain range that blocked the Ork territory from the sea to the south. "Most of the force I currently have at the location of the former wreck of the Incorruptus comprises of multiple proteans. Especially the Sea of Iron that I used to construct the very same army that I brought with me to Castle Krakengar. At the cost of moving even slower than they would on flatlands, my proteans can traverse the mountains easily in order to reach us. The only threat they would encounter would be the odd mountain scout or any kind of air support, and the Tempest morphs, Hydra, Harpy, and Wyvern frames more than make up for that."
My explanation both unsettled and relieved the imperials I as with, well except for Captain Titus. I swear that guy has a face carved from stone most of the time. Inquisitor Thrax then spoke up. "How long would they take to get here?"
This caused me to tilt my head back and forth. "Not fast enough before tomorrow, if that farseer will actually attack tomorrow, then the Incorruptus force won't arrive until a good two maybe three days after tomorrow, and that is if I am being generous with the terrain my children will be traversing." Ah, I slipped and called them my children again. Although the brief feeling of joy I felt in the Network made me almost say it again since that felt a little cute of them.
General Maiori hummed and looked down at the holographic map before pointing at the North of castle Krakengar. "We cannot wait for this other force to arrive. Lady Eien, are you able to use the remaining forces you have to establish another defensive perimeter to our north and a little to our east just in case? My forces will also supplement yours of course."
Ah. Seems like Thrax explained to her that she should not give me reasons to take my forces and just fuck off leaving them to their fate. But still, it is kind of a little funny that they sometimes look like they are dancing around eggshells when they are talking to me. But I nod anyways while keeping my Eien morph's face completely straight.
Hmm... I don't want to piss off the magos but I can't help it. Thrax and Titus(not including Oleg and maybe the Twins) are the only ones who will actually bloody listen to me seriously. I turn to the inquisitor and space marine, they looked at me with raised eyebrows and my body moved over to them, Thrax being the first one. I was doing in front of everyone even though it would most likely look weird to them and slightly embarrassing to me.
Without warning I swipe the Plasma pistol from his holster, Thrax in response showed a rather disturbing amount of trust and did nothing but raise his other eyebrow. Titus also raised his other eyebrow and also did nothing, but the rest of the imperials in the room took a step back from me while those with weapons raised them to aim at my current body.
Silently I hold the plasma pistol and faintly scanned it before my Eien-morph's face twisted into something resembling a little annoyance. "Now that we aren't that much in danger, I can finally take a look at this abomination of a plasma pistol of yours." My words caused the inquisitor to blink.
"Surely it is not that different from your own plasma weaponry?" To that I made a very unladylike snort.
"As if. This thing looks like it was cobbled together with no safety for the wielder. I would like to request that you let me modify this so that you can use this without worry?" My words made Magos Aronna choke on air as I saw through my 360 vision that Oleg was getting a bit closer to the mechanicum member in order to intervene if she tries to actually attack me now.
Inquisitor Thrax saw the same thing and flickered his gaze to Aronna Mekaw and then back to me. "If it is not too much trouble for you Lady Eien, then you can do so." His acceptance was surprising, but very welcome.
I beamed a large smile that slightly disturbed him and made the rather provocative action of shoving the pistol down my chest. I meanwhile decreased the opacity of my appearance and doing so looked a little more solid while hiding the existence of the plasma pistol within me. My Eien morph's eyes glowed an even brighter blue as within myself I modified the plasma pistol.
This thing, it made me want to strangle the adeptus mechanicum and by extension maybe magos Aronna. They shoved a pistol-grade cooling coil system on a fucking rifle-grade plasma array and they didn't even position it right. No wonder this thing needs to actually cooldown before firing again! The coolant system was forced to be compatible with the array and the parts are not arranged correctly. Correcting this affront to plasma weaponry, I moved the cooling coils to where the barrel should be, made some edits to the shape of the coils, slightly expanded the housing, moving the emergency vents to the sides of the coils so that air can rush in and help cool it, changed a few settings in the containment unit and moved the plasma array a bit further front right where the 'barrel's start would be before reinforcing the cooling coils to rifle-grade and voila!
Eyes no longer glowing I reached for my chest and pulled out a completely different weapon to the one I had taken from Thrax before. This caused everyone around me to look somewhat shocked at the rather strikingly different weapon as I gently handed it over to Thrax, who took it almost gingerly as he stared at the thing.
Spoiler: Thrax's new toy
Heh, he must be thinking of using it on me to test its ability. Huh, I don't hear any anger from Aronna. Briefly looking at her through my 360 vision I saw she was eyeing both myself and the plasma pistol with a conflicted look on her face and some sort of... wait is that desire? Aright moving on. I watch the inquisitor look at the pistol then at me before he cleared his throat. "Many thanks Lady Eien, I will take care of this weapon very well."
I nodded at him with a small smile before explaining what changed with the weapon. "This plasma pistol now has a slightly lower fire rate, due to the fact that each shot is chargeable as you hold down the trigger. The gun has a failsafe which instantly fires the plasma bolt once it reaches a certain charge to prevent the gun from creating a too powerful a charged shot as that runs the risk of exploding literally in your hand." My explanation brought forth a nod from the inquisitor as he began checking its weight, its aiming speed, see how fast he can swing his arm with it.
Turning then to Titus, I saw he now looked at me with slight apprehension and... is that actual excitement I'm seeing in his eyes?! As I moved to him, he silently held out a certain weapon on his current person, one that almost made me balk at him. I heard a snort from behind me and from my sight it was Thrax who did it, focusing more on the weapon in front of me. Raising my own equivalent of an eyebrow at him. He finally offered an explanation. "If there is a way for the Vengeance Launcher to be further improved, then I will seek it out to ensure its efficient kill ratio is heightened."
You know what? Fair enough. My Eien morph gave a teasing smile at the ultramarine, this is probably the best and only time I can make this kind of comment. Rolling my eyes, I gently take the Vengeance Launcher and shoved it down my chest. "Boys and their toys."
My comment got a laugh out of White Squad's captain Mala and sister hospitalier Maria as well as General Maiori surprisingly.
Continuing this song and dance, my eyes glowed again as I connected with the weapon and muttered to myself in my private domain. Ok maybe the mechanicus CAN know what they are doing, so far there are no flaws with this Graia-pattern Grenade Launcher, and since it has not blown up in Titus' hands ever since he first used it on Graia. It shows that this weapon was built to last.
So far its completely normal, at least for a 40k weapon. Aside from its payload for sticky fusion charges, this thing basically yeets the damn bombs with a magnetic sling. Now... how can I make this thing even deadlier? Ah! Let's add a little gift from the Volcano Cannon, just a little modified volcano array to essentially give my boy Titus a heavy duty high powered infernothrower along with his grenade launcher. Aren't I such a good goo mom? Heh.
Altering its appearance a bit as a consequence of essentially giving it literally more firepower, I pull out the result and eyebrows raised even higher at the completely different weapon that came out followed by a cord connecting the back of it to a small pack that I pulled out and set in front of him.
Spoiler: Titus' new toy
If I didn't know any better, I would think the Thrax now looked jealous of Titus for his new plaything. "So, new specs for this. It can now be mounted onto your arm and connected to your power armor hopefully, it has a new heavy flamethrower type weapon you can switch the grenade launcher for, and the tube and small pack is for the payload of this thing. Oh and the 'barrels' can retract so it doesn't get in the way of other weapons you might wield."
I said this all with a smile on my face, I can feel amusement radiating off of Ronus and frankly I can feel a lot of confusion and quite a bit of jealousy from some of the other imperials in the room. Turning to face the door, I had my body start moving out while I called out to the rest of them.
"Well. I'll be preparing for tomorrow later, for now while we are currently not in immediate danger, I wish to explore this stronghold." As my body left followed by Ronus and two other myrmidons with him I started combing through the network for one of my children that was guarding. Aha!
There you are, Ms. Tiki.
So this chapter is a doozy and done, I might not be able to post another chapter sometime soon, at least not until I start getting the brain juices flowing once again.
I hope that my tech talk is easily followable and is not a complete mess. <:3
But I do wonder what the Drukhari might be thinking of hehehe.
Anyway, I hope you like this chapter! As weird as it is. <
Work work work, oh I love my current job! Granted I was drafted against my will, but with all this machinery to play around with I can say I don't have any hard feelings for the guard. Who knew thinking of the idea of using the work exoskeletons as bases for semi-power armor would catch the attention of big sis Maimai and her friends. As they do the fighting I get to just have fun doing my own thing and maybe help a few times with the Indigenous armors here in the Krakengar Industrial District.
Something caught the corner of my eye and I quickly barked out without looking away from my newest experiment. "DON'T, put that there. Just place that box of power packs over by the test chambers, that is where it usually all ends up going anyway." I saw the two guardsmen carrying the box nod and just walk away with the box, weren't those James and Jones? Ah, they are joking again, yep its those two alright.
I sigh as I pick up a wrench and began tightening the bolts used to hold this thing together, frankly why am I making this? Well, its more so for the boys and gals in the Mk.I Indigenous. But I can't really show it as one, it is still untested, and two why use this when they have heavy stubbers and/or storm bolters?
Simple really, lasers can be really effective. Especially in LARGE numbers.
So far it is unfinished but it is getting close to it, I can feel it! Also my inner engineer wants to go finally find one of those goo things or the frames of our newest ally. Apparently it is a machine through and through, and is apparently going by the name of Eien and goes by female pronouns. Odd but I don't judge.
What I want to do however is get my hands on one of those juicy mechanized frames or even maybe grab a jar full of that goo! Although with the rumors and stories I am getting all around, anything that happens to even a single drop of that goo, then Eien will know of it. So I can't do anything there sadly, I sigh again as I slump over my current project playing with my wrench as I tried hard to think of a way for me to talk with the goo lady and maybe convince her to give me some of her stuff... Actually that would probably end horribly for me if I did try and do that.
"Holy frak!" A scream from the entrance of the industrial district prompted multiple people to look over and against my will, my jaw dropped as I saw a grey female figure with blue highlights flanked by two huge grey and silver power armor looking frames! No doubt about it, that is probably our current ally and savior of Castle Krakengar. If rumors are to be believed, she is Mother Eien of the Goo.
Behind her it seems that the inquisitor, big sis Maimai, and uhh that is a member of the adeptus mechanicus. Oh butters.
Immediately I grabbed a nearby sheet and covered my current project with it while looking over the servo-rig beside me pretending to work on it while whistling inconspicuously... I am inconspicuously whistling, ah by the Emperor I'll be found out in no time.
"At ease everyone, just get back to work. We are still not yet out of the danger." I heard Maimai bark out her order and the rest of the district that heard her quickly got back to work. Chancing a glance I saw the group was looking for something... or maybe someone, ah. I can see the Eien lady staring at me so quickly look away to focus on my fake work.
"Oh there she is." Aw jeez, Maimai why? Are you trying to get me killed here?! Taking a deep breath I prayed to the Emperor that Maimai is not actually trying to get me killed and will protect me.
Turning from my fake work I stand up and pat down my dirty clothes a bit to get some of the dust out with my gloves, then again I think I just succeeded in dirtying them up a bit more. I blew a lock of my greyish hair up away from my eyes and watched Maimai and the group stop right in front of my station, with a bright smile I wave enthusiastically. "Hi hiiiiiii Maimaiiiiiii!"
I giggle as I saw big sis Maimai sigh and slump slightly with a hand to her forehead. "Hello there little Tiki." Oh she did NOT just go there! I know I'm tiny for my age but come on!
Ugh, the gall of her to ignore me and my pout. She turned to the rest of the group and waved her hand in my direction, ah introductions. "Everyone, this is Tiki Cheimmer. The one responsible for the MK.I Indigenous Power Armor and quite frankly the one we owe our bacon to for giving us that much of a fighting chance in the first place."
Ah nuts Maimai, you know how much I can't handle earnest and honest praise. Especially from you. I felt myself rub the back of my neck with my glove and shyly waved at the group. "Y-yeah, hello." Ah come on me, where is my previous energy!
"Quite a shy thing isn't she?" I heard the inquisitor comment, I mean he isn't wrong but rude.
"That is rude of you inquisitor Thrax, moreover can someone please explain to me why you saw fit to come with me when I wanted to look for her by myself?" The Eien lady said- wait what? Why is she looking for ME?!
I then heard the inquisitor speak without hesitance. "Because you might unintentionally set something off since you don't have clearance to most of the facilities? That and you might leave a mess behind once you are finished. Besides, I wanted to see this miracle engineer for myself as well after hearing that the power armor was made by her." Say what?! Maimai you traitor!
Watching the mechanicum member stare at me, I held my own gaze while maintaining my shy smile. I then heard her speak. "To be fair, this one just made an easily manufacturable and applicable armor pieces for some environmentally protective servo-rigs."
"But the fact she actually thought of doing that to make readily available power armor is still a commendable feat." The inquisitor told the mechanicum member.
I noticed from the corner of my eye that Eien was looking at me with an expression on her grey colored face before it was as if a light bulb formed above her. "Hello there little Tiki, I am Eien. The sassy inquisitor over there is Thrax, the adeptus mechanicus member over there is a Magos Errant by the name of Aronna Mekaw, and that big blue armored man is an Ultramarine Space Marine by the name of Titus."
"Sassy? Really now Lady Eien?" I heard the inquisitor mutter behind Eien, huh. Aren't inquisitors supposed to be super scary? No wait, maybe he is scary and is just making himself look nice! Wait a minute, Space Marine? One of the Emperor's angels?
Oh hold on hold on, man my mind is all over the place. But... "Uhm, not that the visit is not nice. But why exactly did you want to see me?" Thankfully I didn't stutter, but I hope nobody caught onto the worry that wormed itself into my voice at that moment.
Then Eien decided to compact herself and now it kind of looks like I am looking at those nobles with the huge dresses but without that much design and now she is right in front of me, she is... much taller than I expected? She's about slightly taller than the honored angel Titus like this. I could not help but hold incredibly still nervousness permeating throughout my body as Eien began circling around me, ahhhh I feel like I'm being eyed by a predator!
Thankfully Maimai helped out... I think? "Lady Eien, what are you doing? You are frightening her." That actually got the machine woman? to back off from her personal space, although she did not leave without patting her on the head and messing up her grey locks.
"It was not my intention to do so, I was only just looking her over. Tiki here loves working on technology, even going so far as to try and make something new if what I am feeling over under that sheet is true." My stomach did a backflip and felt like it dropped out of my body.
I watched the group's eyes turn from her then to me, this caused my smile to become even more shaky although big sis Maimai looks surprised and almost excited. I would have been just as excited but the presence of the inquisitor, the mechanicum member, and His angel prevented me from making my normal reaction. I've heard stories about how the mechanicum hates innovation and will declare those who try and do so heretics before having an inquisitor swipe them. I don't want that!
Thrax seemed to get what she is feeling so nervous about and raised both his hands clear of any of his weapons. "Relax engineer, we are not going to do anything negative to your health. We simply wish to view this innovation of yours, it is nothing else, right Magos?"
My eyes darted towards the mechanicum member as I saw behind her red tinted goggles dart to Thrax for a moment then back to mine own. "Indeed, I... wish to observe your work and perhaps maybe extend a recruitment offer to you." Hold on what? Can I refuse that? I don't want to go away from Maimai, she's a better boss/big sis than anyone else.
Just then, I saw Eien look minutely at the magos and inquisitor before turning to look at me, her glowing blue eyes would be mesmerizing if not a little bit terrifying. "If you would be inclined, may we please see what it is you are working on?"
Well, she asked so kindly. I can't really not show them now, I would be spitting on her kindness if I did. Taking a deep breath I turn around and strode over to the table with the sheet covering it and took it off with the sound of fluttering cloth, I heard an appreciative hum from behind me although I can't tell who did it.
Afterwards I turned back and stepped to the side and motioned with my arm at the new baby I was making. "This is my first experimental prototype for a concept I call the Gatling Laser or LasStorm Gun." I saw Eien's eyes slightly widen as she got a good look at my baby and I swear her morphed face look excited even.
"Four photon agitator barrels?" Wait is she actually? I shake my head.
"No, the barrels are using beta wave tuners while the receiver is using a photon exciter." My excitement began growing as Eien began humming in thought before pointing at the barrels of my baby.
"If that is the case why not replace the barrels with charging barrels to focus the laser into stronger beams?" Before I could answer it was the Magos who answered her.
"Because if she did that, she would be sacrificing the fire rate of this weapon. Is that right?" Excitement overpowered my nervousness as I began nodding rapidly with a huge smile on my face, ignoring the exasperated fondness on Maimai's face and the amused look on everyone else I got closer to my baby and pointed at the barrels.
"The whole idea of having the barrels have beta wave tuners it is so that while sending rapid fire lasers at the target, it will also have a chance to set it on fire. The receiver in the main part of the weapon is a photon exciter so as to make sure that the lasers would be somewhat accurate!" I watch the magos approach and Eien look over my precious baby.
The goo lady turned to look at me with a small smile on her face. "Why not change the barrels into gamma wave emitters and the receiver into an overcharged capacitor? That would increase the chances of burns and fire while also keeping the damage. As for the accuracy? Over here at the end you can add some type of beam focuser for a muzzle." Oh now why did I not think of that?!
I put a hand to my chin and hummed out loud muttering. "That might actually work, I mean the added weight wouldn't be a problem since this would mostly be in the hands of the boys and girls in the power armor. The overcharged capacitor would take the energy from the power pack and magnify it before passing it through the barrels where the gamma wave emitters would encase the energy in some form of radiation bubble before passing out and through the beam focuser. As a plus side it might also increase its range while not sacrificing the damage." Before I could say anything else however, the magos had put out a rather compelling argument.
"A standard power pack would not be able to meet the requirements for this, a hotshot power pack perhaps?" Magos poked and prodded my baby with her mechadendrites.
"I have seen those power pack objects you use, and since this Las Storm Gun will be an energy eater. Why not simply enlarge the power packs? I mean surely if need be you can strap maybe six or more together into one pack a person can carry on their back and attach it to the gun?" Eien piped in her solution, is she working with just our tech base?
It seems that everyone else thought the same. "Not going to 'improve' upon our designs are you?" I heard the slight challenge in the Magos' words.
We then saw and heard Eien scoff. "Hardly, from what I see this is something completely new. I want to see where it goes, and if it means working with your tech base to complete this prototype in your way then so be it. So, any other suggestions for the power source?"
I turn my head down at my baby and let out a very bright and happy smile. "Just maybe. It might work."
I don't know about the stories about abominable intelligences, but this Eien machine lady seems really nice!
Sorry for more tech speaky, since this is an interlude on Tiki Cheimmer the mystery engineer. I wanted to kind of include some 'nerdy tech speak' and basically put an image in your head that this girl is excitable, loves technology, and is basically a shy nervous bean that becomes more loose when talking about technology.
As for her appearance? She basically looks like Sunny Eimmerich from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, not her first appearance.
Spoiler: Tiki Cheimmer
So yeah. Not a full chapter but I still hope you guys like this! Also I bet just from the 'tech speak' you can tell what our little Sunny Tiki girl is making. :3
Hope you enjoyed it! :3
Ahh... Meeting the mystery engineer of Castle Krakengar made me want to squeal in delight as Tiki looks like Sunny Emmerich, and she is a fucking adorable tech-nerd. Right, that's it I'm going to complete the whole Sunny look and 'guide' her and make a Hunter frame for herself as her very own Bladewolf buddy... Well, aside from the invisible kill team I am keeping around her for her own safety.
Note to self, might be worth 'recruiting' her and having a modified Khalkotauroi guard her even just in case a random inquisitor and techpriest not Thrax or Aronna tries to do anything with her. Well, that is going to be long after we get off this world and hopefully out of this warp storm.
Speaking of 'getting off this world' I need to get started on designing some void faring vessels soon, like ones that can actually be used as a viable fleet and as a few that are capable of supporting life just in case.
Still, so far my scouts have mapped out the current continent we are on, and without a doubt I can now see what Fort Joy and Delta City is like as well as what is to the far north where I see is nothing but snow and mountains.
Let us start with Fort Joy, the taint of Chaos is so bad you can immediately feel it as soon as you step a toe in their direction. Just looking from a distance you can see the skies and the ground of the swamplands are a corrupted pinkish purple fleshy color and quite frankly it is disgusting to look at, like at the edges of the swamplands and marshes it isn't that bad, you get like some odd colorings here and there but as you head deeper and closer towards Fort Joy you start seeing trees that are either half tree and half abomination with teeth and tentacles, rocks and lakes oozing acidic substances out of pustules, and by far the most disturbing parts of it is the complete lack of life.
So far ALL of the living creatures in that area are congregated either inside Fort Joy or around it, I mean sure I see cultists, daemons, and even a few traitorous astartes marching south of Fort Joy with a few vehicles. But they are moving downwards simply to do battle with or try to simply eradicate the Orks. Which is no easy feat even for Chaos, hell even the fucking Tyranids apparently have had a hard time themselves when it comes to dealing with Orks.
Don't get me started with what's been going on in the region that Delta City is in, the humans in there have all gone underground, either figuratively or literally, and those are just a minority. The majority of them have been raided and captured by the damned Dark Eldar and are being subjected to the sick, twisted, and disgusting debaucheries that the Drukhari are capable of thinking up. Frankly if I was feeling even just a LITTLE bit sorry for the four dark eldar in my captivity, watching this snuffed that out quite quickly.
The Hobgoblin and Hunter scout teams as well as the Radiant groups I sent that way are doing their best to locate and protect the few free humans left in that region under my orders, as well as any chance to free others and harass the dark eldar they are to take provided the risk isn't too great to them.
On a side note I actually found the remains of the raider force that attacked Castle Krakengar heading towards Delta City and I am curious if the leader of the dark eldar will be punishing them personally. It might be good to see what the leader looks like so I can possibly capture or just murk them later.
I have not found the leader of the forces of Chaos in Fort Joy however. Oh don't get me wrong, that Khornish Keeper of Secrets Kassar'duun is no doubt one of the leaders. But one, I don't believe that is its actual name as that is the height of idiocy, offering your NAME as a Daemon is tantamount of setting yourself up for slavery, or did the Workshop fucking retcon that and in this universe daemons can scream their names for as many times as they want? Bah, still. Aside from that daemon, I did not find the leader of the cultists and frankly it is bothering me quite a bit. I do not want to be blindsided by Chaos bullshittery.
To the far north so far nothing has been found aside from snow, snow, and guess what? More snow. Accompanied by a horrid great blizzard that is so bad that only my Radiants are capable of navigating that wasteland due to the multiple scout, recon, and infiltration suites they have. I would have to make some updates to the Spotter variant of the Hobgoblin before I could send any of the scout frame teams up far north.
Ah but I am getting off track. Today is the day that the Farseer Zalava and his Eldar nutjobs might begin their assault on Castle Krakengar. This isn't great, but it isn't as bad now either since I've been hard at work inside the Yggdrasil Network, and the Hecatoncheires unit I was making?
Well...
I've done it. I've actually completed the Hecatoncheires! I mean granted I needed to do the equivalent of mental gymnastics on an Olympic programming level, but I've actually done it! Just in time too, as I will need to make sure with how strained my current mass storage is, every unit being piloted by my children is important.
Completing the Hecatoncheires actually accomplished three different things surprisingly, the first of course is the actual unit itself, the second is the Edge Program and I actually made this once I saw that the Hecatoncheires settings could be exported to other program nodes. Which means I can install this program in every other goo morph I have in my arsenal.
This program is actually really terrifying, as this makes even SMALL PROTEANS extremely dangerous. The effects of the Edge Program vary with each unit but the result is the same. It turns all of my goo units into 'upgraded' versions of themselves and that terrifies me, because it can also be imported into the PURGER. It is still installing, but once complete I don't know what will happen to that unit of mine once it is done installing.
The third is arguably the most dangerous result of completing the Hecatoncheires. I call it the Surge System and that is a separate program installed in Puppeteer Proteans. Basically if the combat frames they inhabit are completely irreparable, they detonate and they consume the frame inside out before morphing themselves into another goo morph equal to their size. Which means Goblin, Hobgoblin, Harpy, and Hunter puppeteers if they 'Surge' they turn into either Drovers, Striders, Radiants, or Tempests, Myrmidon, TerMinotaur, and DreadMinotaur puppeteers can 'Surge' into Hecatoncheires, and any puppeteer controlling the bigger frames can 'Surge' into larger goo morphs barring the Crescent and Bastion.
There are times when I question myself what the hell I have created, but then I think to myself that this is bloody beautiful. Well, not beautiful as in an attractive way. At least I think? But more so in a mesmerizing way, watching my children within the goo test out the new Edge programs in all the goo morphs, best of all? They are testing it by themselves! They don't need me to test it for them! Granted I might also join in on the fun but watching them do it by themselves without my guidance sort of makes me happy, ah, I leaked into the Network and now they are chirping in joy back at me through it.
Jeez that feels really embarrassing, but anyway so far since the introduction of the Edge Program into all my goo morphs, all of my goo units are faster, more flexible than they already were, their forms are somewhat altered, by that I mean they still have the smooth hexagon-like pattern all over them, the shapes that the form are some what uniform as well, but the most glaring change really is that they look a lot more... fluid and solid.
As lame and as weird as that sounds, it actually makes them incredibly dangerous. I've seen a Drover basically dart around similarly to a hecatoncheires and their plasma shotgun blasts are even stronger, the drover by itself is now really damn fast, and now imagine like a hundred of these things swarming you with their speed and shotgun faces.
That's just the drover, the Edge Program basically supercharged every goo unit I have in my arsenal barring the Puppeteer as they have their own Surge System.
This is all thanks to the Hecatoncheires, and I am really proud of it. While not as jagged and rough as their true counterparts, they are capable of shifting their goop like mass into something solid and even make some sharp nanomachine blades and hooks. That was the most difficult part of them that I tried making, but in the end I managed to make it work. They will only get better the more I understand how it works and I find better ways to Mimic it.
No doubt the humans back in the material world are panicking at seeing all my goo units ripple and writhe. I should calm them down actually. After sending out a crooning call throughout the Network I saw the world glow and sing back at me in reply before I submerged my consciousness into my first body... which is in a more solid but gooey Eien form? Oh wait, I look down at myself.
I HAVE LEGS! Wait, no that makes me sound like a dumbass. I mean, I actually have legs instead of an amorphous blob of goo for my lower half. Since when did this happen? Looking around I saw I was quite tall actually, since well Titus is the tallest one here and I was about a good head or two taller than him since he comes up to a certain point when he is next to a pillar and my 'eye level' is past that.
Briefly I connect my sight to one of the Myrmidons Ronus had guarding this body I saw... I looked like a grey featureless, well except for the face, version of Nikusa from Friday Night Funkin. Ok yeah she looked really nice, although I still look like I might drip some goo but other than that, I look like her. The pink eyes that I would see on her are replaced with the blue light of my goo, and in the inner part of my 'hair' sat the standard hexagon patterns with the blue highlights. As I formed 'clothes' for me to 'wear' so I don't feel so naked now that I got a somewhat humanoid form, frankly I think I look cool. Not beautiful, I'd rather not hear that adjective please.
But the thing is, I just got used to my first body being the mother goo with a human-like torso sticking out the top of it. Now I got to get used to what is essentially a new... body, shit I completely forgot. This might be the Edge Program at work here, my first body the Mother Goo I started out with is not like the other goo mothers I made after, this housed me first, this was the only one I used that had the Eien-shape. No doubt that within the program nodes of this morph I would find a similar but different web instead of one I'd see in a regular goo mother.
That's rough for me then, I didn't take that into account. Wait, that might mean that there might be more changes to the rest of the goo arsenal than I thought, I should take a look into that after I talk with the Imperials.
Switching back to my... new Eien-morph. I take a tentative step forward, oh that feels so weird. Rather is it weird that I am more used to the 'movement' of the goo lower half? Hopefully not, but another weird thing is that my 'foot' is solid but also fluid, so that is making walking in this morph a fucking challenge. Screw it I'll practice some other day! Looking into the nodes of this body, I found the morphing program node I made for the Eien shape and I felt the familiar feeling of the mother goo reform my lower half.
That feels so much better, although my upper half is still the new shape though. So that is going to be a surprise for everyone else. Hmm... I might just actually surprise the others with the new full form instead.
...
Yeah let's go with that.
INQUISITOR THRAX POV
I do believe I am beginning to regret becoming temporary allies with Eien, since as of recently every time I have started getting anxious it usually involves the amorphous goo lady in some way shape or form and I mean that both figuratively and quite literally.
Right now, a few minutes before actually, the goo forces of our unlikely ally are pulsing and some are even losing form. Something to note is that this action is only being replicated by all the 'morphs' and the 'frames' of the abominable intelligence have not changed and they are not reacting at all to what is happening to their 'brethren'. This could mean absolutely nothing and I have no cause for worry, but the chance that the half of our ally's fighting force is undergoing some sort of malfunction will put the rest of the imperial forces here more on edge than they already are.
As I approach the command center I hear panicked shouts and an occasional screech coming from the closed doors to the room and sighed to myself before I schooled my features as the doors opened automatically. Indeed, the 'actions' of half of Eien's forces have pretty much riled up every single important imperial commander in this stronghold.
"Listen you emperor-damned scrap for brains! I don't know why you are not panicking, but the Eldar could be arriving at our fracking doorstep at any moment and half of the abominable intelligence's forces look like they are going to fracking turn into fracking slush!" Seems like the actions and the possible assault of the Eldar have caused the good General Maiori to start becoming more... well, unhinged.
"Because general, the other half is not reacting negatively to the state of the affected half of their forces, this may not be true of course and these machines are just putting on a front, but in all likelihood that we have nothing to worry about on their front. I have full confidence that the defense will proceed as planned." That is new, I have not heard the Magos defend the abominable intelligence like that, and quite frankly it is suspicious.
Then again, that little bit with the engineer Tiki, I need to remind myself to try and recruit her into my retinue at some point, such talent will be wasted or outright 'taken care of' if any other inquisitor or magos aside from Aronna decided she is too 'heretical' to exist. If that were to happen, I have no doubt that Eien might take advantage and actually whisk the engineer away for herself, that machine is already powerful enough by herself, we have no need of her getting stronger even if she is currently aiding us. The lady of the goo is already getting stronger by herself enough.
Before any more arguments were made, the doors hissed open, I rapidly look around to check that indeed everyone one of the important imperials are here in this room, which means that the one who entered is...
I turned around and I was face to... a pair of large round things that I will not mention. Taking a quick step back I look up to see the grey 'face' and glowing blue 'eyes' of the reason behind all this mess. Lady Eien.
Looking her up and down, I realize that her lower half is not only a pair of actual humanoid legs, but her appearance seems more... human. By that I mean that she looks like a human, clothes and all despite her being two colors which is grey and the soft glows of blue. I figured I need to address the titan in the room. "How's the weather up there Lady Eien?"
What is she? Like 10 feet tall? Ah, there is that annoying grin on that humanoid face of hers. "It is perfectly fine up here inquisitor Thrax, thank you for asking."
Well, at least she is courteous. She turned from myself and faced the rest of the imperials, now that I see it. Indeed, she is like a good 2 feet taller than Oleg and that ogryn is about 9 feet tall and Eien is taller still... Hold on, she has legs.
Out of context that sounds absolutely idiotic coming from me. What I meant is that ever since we first met Eien, she/it has had her blob lower half and her humanoid upper half on top of it.
So to see Eien despite still being mostly made out of that goo actually have legs and 'clothes' is a little bit off putting.
I watch as the lady made of goo walked around the command table and the officers. She spoke. "I apologize for any distress that my forces have caused, they are currently undergoing an update and are trsting their new abilities."
Her explanation caused every imperial in the vicinity to begin looking at each other murmuring and whispering. It was not the Magos who spoke but it was in fact captain Oleg. "Updates? Are you installing some sort of program?"
This caused the abominable intelligence to turn her changed head to the ogryn. That really looks odd, seeing a tall woman machine or not be so tall Oleg has to look up at her. "Indeed, my new program will be more than enough to provide us the Edge we need. Its installation will ensure that the eldar will have more than a difficult time when it comes to finding victory against us."
I narrow my eyes since I had a feeling that Eien is not deigning to tell us something. I then saw her look around and then at me, my narrowed look got a bright smile from her. That is worrying.
"Inquisitor, how is your plasma pistol? Have you been practicing with it?" Ah yes. The 'retrofit gift' she made for my pistol. I did practice with it... after I had Aronna run several tests with it to ensure it is not going to explode on me.
After said tests, I felt suspicious. Because it is exactly as she advertised it, and quite frankly it worries me. Because the Magos Aronna informed me that my new pistol is both made from our technology but is more advanced than what we can currently make.
She believes that Eien simply used the materials in my 'old' plasma pistol in order to make my current one. It also needed me to practice with it, and... it works, it works as Eien said it would, exactly how she said it.
With that result... I have trouble with figuring out what in the warp is her end goal.
EIEN POV
That was completely worth it, spending a short time practicing in my new Eien form before coming here. Although this will cause me to receive looks, I had the unfortunate moment of finding out that my old Eien form no longer exists. So I have to get used to this Edge Programmed version of my Eien form as soon as I could.
But enough of that, now is the time I finish up the updates, as well as prepare maybe a few hecatoncheires morphs to combat the eldar. I may have sheer numbers when it comes to fighting the eldar, but now? Their greatest asset against me and my own.
Their speed and flexibility WILL be tested and challenged by my Hecatoncheires, not to mention the rest of the Goo Morphs upgraded with the Edge Program.
In fact, maybe I might be able to... No. The eldar may be pretentious dickbags, but they are so much better than the dark eldar. But still... NO, I will not do that. I am already taking a huge risk with the stupid idea I am planning in the first place, I am already risking crossing a line that will never be uncrossed.
IF and ONLY if I find an eldar that is so bad they make even the dark eldar look at them for tips. Will I even consider what I am thinking.
Oh! The update into the Network has completed, and so far my goo morphs are now stabilizing themselves into improved versions of themselves. The purger is still updating however, and that pretty much halted the movements of the convoy, but then again... With the edge program from the hecatoncheires... I order one of each goo morph to head south into the sea. I know for sure that the hecatoncheires will be able to swim, I do NOT know however if my regular goo morphs with the newly installed edge program will behave in a similar enough manner that they would be able to swim themselves.
Welp, that answers my question. They can, and since most of the units are morphs instead of frames, the few frames in the convoy can be reabsorbed into the collective while the proteans and the morphs head into the sea. Man, the creation of the Hecatoncheires really supercharged the rest of my goo force it is honestly quite scary.
No doubt the eldar and the imperials are going to agree with that statement.
Speaking of which, I got alerted through the Network. In the material realm, my eyes glowed and it caused the imperials around me to go silent and look at me. In turn I cast my gaze around and spoke a few words.
"They are here."
- A Few Minutes later -
Here we stand again, with myself, Inquisitor Thrax, General Maiori, Magos Aronna, the two Black Templars, two IG Power armored guardsmen, and two Myrmidons. On the other side of the relatively flat plains were the Craftworld Aeldari, Zalava, five Dire Avengers, a Warp Spider which is the same madman that telewarped like crazy during the Khalkotauroi's field test, and a... I do not recognize this eldar's color scheme- hold on. Wait a minute, that is a damn Shadow Spectre! How far up is this farseer to be able to get even one of these! There are so few of them in existence due to that path of Aspect Warriors just being newly rediscovered!
This is kind of bad, if Zalava has more of these guys in hiding then I might lose a lot more than I thought, this isn't even counting his damned wraith lord and guards, on the bright side I will see now if my dumb project is hidden enough with the amount of siphon arrays covering the damn thing. Hopefully, since I have no idea how the hell Farseers are able to peer into the future, it has something to do with the Warp, and so far I only have like one piece of Anti-Warp technology and that is my Siphons.
So the brute force tactic of slapping several siphons together to make a warp proof room and area should hopefully keep the Farseer's 'Far sight' a moot point.
"So, it has come to this." Seems like Zalava started us off here.
Inquisitor Thrax nodded at him, and each of our guards started getting anxious. The Black Templars and the two power armored guardsmen are shifting slightly while they prepare their weapons, the farseer's guards on the other hand look like coils ready to spring into action in any moment now. "It has. A shame really."
Farseer Zalava began speaking once more. "Surely I can convince you all to lay down your arms and let me and my forces search your stronghold of the evil I mentioned a few days ago?" He seemed to be pleadi- wait what. Was the Man of Iron NOT the evil he was wary of? Well shit.
Ok, I do not want any chances. I sent my three Khalkotauroi to scour the depths of the castle to find out what this evil was, damn it I was careless. Of course it wouldn't be Ronus that caused the eldar worry, if anything it might be something to do with either the Necrons or maybe Chaos, and I do not like either of those outcomes.
The convoy is dashing through the coast line circumventing the mountains, well aside from the Purger it is staying there since well any normal attack would be kind of useless against it due to its size alone. So with the frames reabsorbed and the morphs basically swimming their way here, they would arrive a lot sooner than they would have previously.
I saw General Maiori step forward once before she spoke. "If I had my way, I would shoot you right now." Short and to the point, I kind of appreciate that. Though it seems the farseer and his retinue did not agree with me.
Thrax gave his own reply. "Forgive me when I say, I don't exactly trust you farseer. You see, your kind among the eldar have caused nothing but grief to us, not only us but also to yourselves even. So I believe I speak for every imperial in Castle Krakengar when I say. We'll take our chances."
His reply caused our guards to start aiming their weapons but I sent a command just as the Farseer and Inquisitor raised their hands in reply to their actions. With the three of us commanding them to hold, the astartes, the guardsmen, the eldar, and my myrmidons stand down before the farseer turned to me. "Eien, the Mother, Life Bringer and Life Reaper. Had you been a warp entity, I believe you would have been similar if not equal or greater than Isha, as well as much easier to understand."
Wait what, hold on. Why is he comparing me to the eldar goddess of life and harvest? I was about to speak but he continued. "Your creations are... unique, but they certainly have life to them, especially your newest creation. They will be a test for my own forces. I bid you goodbye, and hope that perhaps both of us will live, and that the next time we meet it would be under better circumstances." With that, the eldar party faded from existence, a cloak.
As we moved back to the primary battle line, Inquisitor Thrax turned to me. "Did you understand what he meant?" I look at the inquisitor as we jogged back towards the defense and tilted my head side to side.
"I think I understood, but I am not sure." That is enough for him it seems, since he turned back forwards and I like that. We are about to fight, no need to start anything at the current time, we shall have the talk later after this battle. Whether we win or lose, but I think we might win. With all the bonuses the Yggdrasil Network and my Goo received from the creation of the Hecatoncheires, I might be tempting Murphy but I don't think this will go horribly.
RANDOM ELDAR POV
I stood tall, with my fellow guardians as we stared down the field at the monkeigh settlement, along with the strange tide of grey, silver, and blue that is ever shifting. It reminds me of the stories my elders told me of the Sea of Souls long before the Three and the Fourth.
The battlefield was silent. Until the first shot was fired, not from the side of the monkeigh, but from our own. As it was the Wraithlord which had began the battle by firing its bright lance, the blast arcs through the air and slammed into one of the larger masses of the solidified silver goo(?) and by all accounts that should not be possible as the beam of highly concentrated light splattered on the surface of the shape.
With that signal, both sides charged, myself with my fellow aeldari, and the monkeigh with those strange grey beings. Something caught the corner of my eyes however as I saw the ground began shifting, I immediately started yelling for my brothers and sisters in-arms to notice what I was seeing as I aim my shuriken catapult at the shifting ground. Only to see multiple grey tentacles lash out around the mass that started jittering and swinging itself around quickly, in fact it was nearly as fast as the honored Dire Avenger aspect warriors.
I dashed backwards away from the creature as it swung violently around with an echoing screech, grabbing other aeldari close to it as the silvery grey creature with blue highlights fling my brethren left and right. The glowing blue 'face' of the creature let out a screech as multiple tentacles came from its roiling smooth gooey mass as it dashed and skittered along the ground in a highly unpredictable fashion.
Even when our shurikens landed all it did seemed to agitate the creature as it expanded its tentacles in multiple directions almost explosively before it began dashing towards myself and my fellow guardians. Carefully in the heat of battle we heard everyone and everything fighting around us, but we were focused on taking down this one creature that has already incapacitated quite a few aeldari.
We tracked it with our aim as we fired our shuriken catapults at it in hopes to simply overwhelm it before it wiped out the rest of us. I have no doubt in my mind that the Dire Avengers would have no trouble taking care of this creature, but I and my fellow guardians are militia, we may be trained but we are simply protectors of the craftworld, not true combat tested aeldari.
In the end we damaged it enough that it let out a final screech before it slumped and started losing its shape. We laid against a stone and sat down eager to catch our breath before we heard a noise and a large tentacle dug into the rock before a tentacle dug into the ground before us.
We watch as a far larger version of the creature we encountered moved forwards surveying our area of combat without looking back towards us. I looked at the only other guardian to survive the ordeal, she clutched her spirit stone just as I clutched mine. Together we nod before taking a plasma grenade in a hand each and turned to the larger creature, three more of those creatures surrounded it and noticed us, flaring their tentacles in what I assume is agitation.
Staring into the 'eyes' of death, we saw the larger creature's form ripple and what almost look like blades expand from its body and tentacles before it dashed towards us. Together we raised our grenades and in that brief moment it was on us, we closed our eyes as our explosives detonated, taking us and the creature along with them.
Spoiler: The Guardians versus the Hecatoncheires
Behold! The Hecatoncheires are the Mimics from the movie Edge of Tomorrow! I'm kind of weirded out that ye guys didn't immediately figure it out from my introduction of the Sentinel what name I gave them and what name I chose for this buy eh I think that's just how my brain works.
Also, HAH! You thought the full battle would be now? Nope, that is for the next chapter. This chapter is just going to be the completion and debut of the Hecatoncheires, and hopefully this murderous death machine will scratch the gooey itch of those who want to see Eien's 'roots' get more love.
I hope I delivered on that front. Also dun dun duuuuun, Ronus is not the 'Evil' hinted by the Eldar! Which I assume you guys already figured out since well Ronus is kind of a bit too obvious to be what is truly hinted at.
Also I just did the 'comparison to Isha' on a whim. I sort of have an idea as to where I want to go with that.
As for the 'stupid' project Eien is doing that requires her to basically cover it in Siphons to try and make sure farseers can't see it, weeeell that is for another day. Also the Purger is going to be EDGED in maybe a chapter or two after the next one so stay tuned on what will happen there. :3
The change to 'Nikusa' appearance well, I'm a bit sorry for that since that is kinda more so a whim. Since the Edge Program is upgrading all the goo morphs in Eien's arsenal including the Proteans, well her Eien morph is also gonna be affected and it gave me the excuse to change her appearance quite a bit. Don't worry! She can still be the half goo half humanoid or full goo she is, she's just getting an upgrade to her humanoid form.
Also here is a pic of said 'Nikusa' form.
Spoiler: New Eien Look
Spoiler: How Ronus and all of Eien's children see her.
Anyway! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to the next one. :3