The battle between Imperials and the Craftworld Eldar usually highlights either factions in a certain light. The imperials are slow, bulky, and somewhat of a raging bull, while the eldar are lithe, fast, and fight with the grace of a flamboyant peacock at times. Under normal circumstances, the battle outside the walls of castle Krakengar would also have met a similar resulting image... that is unless there is a 3rd party involved.
Which is my own, the goo which are not only now faster than they have ever been, they are also tougher, a lot more unpredictable, they also hold two 'images' which are my Pathfinder Morphs and my Combat Frames, and I've been improving them again and again ever since I first encountered the ork and chaos back at the Incorruptus.
Now with the completion of the Hecatoncheires and its three 'gifts' to all my units. It basically 'evened' the playing field so to speak, there are two Hecatoncheires which I lovingly coined as a homage to their originals the Drones and the Alphas, as far as I am aware the Drones alone pose a threat to regular eldar troopers, with the Alphas posing more of a threat to aspect warriors and it makes me somewhat giddy as it means that the Edge Programs born from the hecatoncheires have made the Goo Morphs nearly as deadly as they are.
As much shit I've been throwing at Eldar in general, these craftworld aeldari are still a much better alternative than the damn Drukhari. It's just that the majority of their leaders (which are mostly Farseers) are such stubborn morons that put too much stock into ONE vision among what might possibly be millions upon millions of other different paths and believe that everything would fall into place. Not only that but they would also say shit in the strangest and most convoluted ways possible to give not only us but THEMSELVES headaches with all that mental gymnastic crap.
If I was a more ruthless individual, I would have simply wiped the eldar out like I did with the orks and their crap. But... I can't just slaughter a whole group for the actions of a few because quite frankly that is the easy path... and what 'better' path is easy nowadays?
Under my commands, all my forces are doing their best to not maim or kill the craftworld eldar despite the imperials not doing the same. Of course I can't incapacitate them all, there WILL be some that dies, case in point that one group of eldar guardians that decided to end themselves with their plasma grenades. This is also another reason why I wanted faster units, so I can match the eldar's own speeds enough so that my forces can subdue as many as they can before they try to destroy my units and/or kill themselves to do such a thing.
But holy shit even with the Hecatoncheires, the Edge Program, and the Surge System, I am losing quite a bit of morphs and frames still and that is not good. Especially since my mass deposits have no way of replenishing themselves, after this battle I need to find a better way to gather more materials and resources. Using the Squiggosaurus Rex as a glorified mass generator isn't going to cut it if I need to gain more mass than I am spending currently.
I watch through the Network, darting through the optics of all my units on the battlefield as all my morphs and frames on the battlefield are doing their best subduing them and tossing them into large proteans I had altered to NOT eat whatever is coming in them as a way to basically capture the eldar and prevent them from continuing the fight.
Though the bad thing about doing that is with each 'lost' eldar, the rest of the ones in battle fight even harder than before, which is a monumental pain in the ass. But it is fair, I mean if a Minotaur grabbed an Eldar and whisked him/her away into a prison, the rest of those fighting would definitely fight even harder than they were already doing.
Speaking of fighting harder, its that damn mad Warp Spider again. If I remember correctly with each 'jump' the Warp Spider Aspect Warrior makes the more they risk their soul to the warp I think I don't remember all the details. Mostly that with each jump they put themselves in a lot of danger, and yet this madman is jumping all over the battlefield like it is no one's business.
Dire Avenger Aspect Warriors are masters of general combat and boy are they not kidding. The Alpha hecatoncheires is basically the fastest with its speed and reactions as well as being strong and unpredictable as hell when fighting, yet these Dire Avengers can keep up with my children like that, a single dire avenger required two alphas and a few drones to subdue them. Then again, subduing someone without killing them is a lot more challenging than outright killing them, so maybe an Alpha might be enough for an Avenger? I don't really know.
Regardless, the battle is going smoothly, or rather as smooth as it can be. The imperial forces are doing their best against any eldar that reach them but more often than not even those few eldar that are not fighting me are putting a lot of hurt on the imperial forces even with their indigenous power armor.
With me here, that negates the one advantage the eldar have over the imperials at the moment. Armored forces, basically the eldar had vehicles and the imperials of Castle Krakengar did not, or at least perhaps they are still under repair if they do have any.
So far though the eldar's force of armor is less than expected due to the actions of Titus, Ronus, and White Squad thankfully. Although they were not able to take care of the Wraithlord and Wraithguards, they managed to reduce most of their vehicles down to about three falcon grav tanks and two squadrons of three vyper jet bikes. For the tanks I had some bastions and dread minotaurs keep busy while some proteans tried to capture the crew. For the vypers I really only had the harpies to rely on to try and subdue them.
As for the wraithlord and wraithguards? Hydras, wyverns, and empty large proteans are being used to try and keep them contained in order to have them cease their hostilities on the battlefield, I will also need to find their spiritseers to see if I can get them to stand down as well.
I mentally wince within my private domain as I saw an eldar guardian get blasted down with a storm of laser fire, looking at what fired at the poor eldar I see Tiki's newest prototype in the hands of Oleg actually and saw him hum at the weapon before nodding with a huge smile on his face. Right, looks like that prototype works then, I will have to watch over Tiki more so that she won't get 'hereticized' by idiot inquisitors or braindead mechanicum members.
Hearing a hum over to my right I saw with my 360 vision that inquisitor Thrax had turned to look at me. "Do you have any reason why you are simply subduing and capturing the eldar Lady Eien? Would it not be much easier to simply kill them all?"
"Oh it would DEFINITELY be easier, but we are pretty much stranded in this warpstorm on this planet and aside from you and myself we are pretty much all alone. I have seen records of these eldar joining forces with the imperium before on some occasions and frankly we need all the help we can get to survive on this planet really. So I am planning on subduing the lot of them, getting that farseer's head out of his ass, and try and get him to at least be shaky allies like I am with you." I saw he looked at me like he was about to argue about that last statement and I let out an unladylike snort.
"Don't give me that look inquisitor Thrax, we both know that our 'alliance' is shaky. More so on your part since I've seen a lot of the imperials look like all they want to do is shoot me. We both know that as soon as you make contact with your wider imperium, all 'pleasantries' will be off so to speak and those Black Templars of yours will immediately jump at the bit to shoot at me first." My words caused the inquisitor to stop and close his mouth before raising his power armor gauntleted hand and gently pinched the bridge of his nose.
He took a deep breath and then simply spoke two words, well four including my name really. "Fair enough Lady Eien."
Our conversation was not ignored by the general who is firing her flak cannon at the eldar she can target, she growled out her displeasure at my 'revealed' actions. "At least you know that you are not welcome here, I also doubt that stupid plan of yours is going to work. That asshole of a farseer has hounded at us along with the damn orks about a few days ago, I would trust them about as much as I trust an actual eldar to make some emperor be damned sense."
The general's words caused the inquisitor to sharply look at her, I didn't hear anything else if they did argue because I found something rather interesting. There was a warlock that was flinging destructive warp blasts left and right while slicing the smaller morphs and combat frames with ease. I did not like that at all really, but that eldar woman making such noise reminded me of a question that was on my mind when I first brought up the Siphon against that Khornish Keeper of Secrets.
'How dangerous is the Siphon to psykers and can it also siphon souls as well?'
With a mental command, I had one of the siphons I premade enter the battle. Directly controlling it, I used the Edge Program to its fullest and moved fast, digging into the ground before swinging my entire mass forward, backward, left, right, up, and down, the mimics in Edge of Tomorrow were one of the most terrifying things to face in combat due to their sheer speed, appearance, and surprising amount of strength.
Siphon-me reached the warlock, and she took notice of my appearance as she immediately prepared herself for combat. I mentally apologize to the eldar warlock as she might be experiencing warptical difficulties soon.
Charging forwards I randomly jumped left and right as I approached my target, through the perception of a machine I watch as the eldar slowly-quickly swung her witchblade at me. I dart out tentacles to dig into the ground before pulling me violently towards it, causing my entire mass to quickly swing downwards, I 'saw' the blade pass where the siphon's mass had been before I sprung my digging tentacles causing me to launch up and over the warlock.
She raised her hand above herself and quickly sent a psychic blast towards my airborne form, just what I wanted. With a quick action of my own, I activate the siphon array and through the 'eyes' of my siphon I saw the psychic blast unravel as it traveled towards me, no longer an angry ball of destructive energy I watched it 'unfold' from being an offensive attack into strings of energy that flowed into me. I felt the energy 'eaten' by the siphon array pass through me before I felt mass trickle into the Network.
It is not much mass, but every little bit counts really. Although I wonder if I can stop the conversion process, to see if I can 'store warp energy' at all. But not right now, I need to focus on the battle, as I landed on the ground I saw the eldar warlock focusing on me. I could tell that she was shocked at what I just did, I am so sorry but you left yourself open.
Seizing the opportunity, I dashed my siphon-self forwards and with multiple tentacles I wrapped around her body, her legs, her arms, her neck aaand that is actually starting to sound a bit lewd. Ok let's just say I immobilized her.
Squeezing the wrist of her hand that held the witchblade, I forced her to let it go before my siphon-self's 'face' moved to the warlock's helmeted head. This is quite possibly the only chance to test and experiment and I only hope that this warlock will forgive me for what I possibly might do to her. Multiple goo morphs and combat frames quickly surrounded my location and made sure to keep any eldar off of me while I did my work.
With a final mental apology, I activated the Siphon Array while in direct contact with the Eldar Warlock.
I felt the siphon register something and PULLED, the warlock froze and let out a psychic screech that echoed throughout the battlefield. The world around me fell silent as my siphon-self wrapped around the warlock began emitting a purplish glow, strings of the color purple, pink, and blue flowed from the twitching Warlock.
I did not register the incoming presence of a certain silver farseer until it was too late, because I was keeping the siphon focused on the warlock, I did not render the farseer's attack null and void. The result pretty much blasted my siphon-self off of the Warlock now on her knees violently fiddling with her helmet before tossing it aside, the eldar woman then vomited on the ground for a while as Farseer Zalava stood in between me and her, she looked young, I felt guilt stab at me as I saw the woman's eyes turn a fearful gaze in my direction, wait... is that... awe? Ok note to self, don't try and use a siphon directly on a living being, because I think I just nearly 'ate' the soul of a being.
"I-Ishara Orlosa" What did she call me? That's aeldari I think, damn it I need to crack the lexicon so I can speak and understand whatever the eldar are saying. Before I could think any more
"Surely our actions here do not warrant your harvester's blade Life Reaper? Had I not intervened, you may have very well claimed an eldar life with your creation." The battle continued on around us, but his words shook me. Had he not stopped me, then that would have been the end of the warlock girl. There would be no next adventure, hell she would not even be claimed by Slaanesh or her Spirit Stone.
If I had continued with my test, I would have completely erased her soul. If I ripped her soul out... would it have killed her, or would it be a lot more hopeful to turn her into a blank? Then again, that might be a fate worse than death or true death in the eyes of the eldar.
We watched as the eldar warlock shakily got up on her two feet and staggered a bit before a dire avenger aspect warrior stood beside her and helped her stay upright. Farseer Zalava stared through the warlock before turning to me, with my 360 vision I saw that a few alphas arrived followed by drones, tempests and a few large proteans. "Thankfully, her inner wounds will mend themselves. You did not leave lasting damage on her soul, however you may have very well scarred her for the rest of her life."
Within my private domain, I winced at that knowledge. If he was guilt tripping me on purpose, then I have to say he is succeeding. Although at least I've gotten knowledge on what happens if I try to use a siphon on a soul, although I don't know the full result, if it would turn the person into a blank or outright insta true death them, honestly the chance of the latter happening makes me want to reserve that for only the worst of beings.
All of a sudden, I saw the farseer immediately used his psychic hocus pocus to allow him to dash forwards so fast his witchblade was now right in front of my siphon-self. Against any other organic this would have possibly killed them, but I am a machine now and I have all the benefits of it, one of those is a faster 'perception' of time which allowed me to see where the blade was coming from.
Simple enough my siphon self dug its tentacles into the ground and immediately flatten myself to the point the witchblade passed the top of my siphon-self's body by a mere inch. Seems like he will no longer listen to any suggestions of surrender, which means we have to fight.
Hmm... You know what? Fuck it, let's do this testing style. With a mental command, my first body snapped her 'eyes' open before bending down into a crouch much to the confusion of inquisitor Thrax and general Maiori, they realize what my body was planning just as the moment it happened when my first body jumped towards the battlefield, setting an order into my former siphon-self I commanded it to distract the farseer while the other morphs around it were to handle the rest of farseer Zalava's posse including the one warlock.
Assuming direct control, I had my body perfectly grab a passing wyvern's leg before I gave it the order of flying me to farseer Zalava's location, the wyvern followed my orders like a loyal pup and flew us over there. With no time to waste, I took a swan dive off the wyvern and aimed myself to land right in front of the farseer, although that farseer's ability to see into the future allowed him to take notice that I took to the battle in my first body.
He jumped back just as my Eien morph landed with a leg bent and the other outstretched, I wasted no time in favor of trying to catch the farseer off-guard. I pull back a fist and used the mass storage to enlarge it and swung downwards to hammer Zalava into the ground, he anticipated it and dodged to his right before he pulled out a shuriken pistol and fired at me.
Thankfully none of his dire avenger aspect warriors were there to support him due to my own units keeping them occupied. I knew that if I captured farseer Zalava, the rest of the eldar will surrender, at least that is the hope.
Raising my other hand I expanded it enough so that the blasts from the shuriken pistol were rendered ineffective, after the blasts stopped I swung with the arm that blocked the shots only to watch as the farseer jumped and flipped over it as he made a slash at the goo. It did nothing but it annoyed me to no end.
Letting the momentum carry me, I used it to swing my leg outward for a roundhouse kick that surprisingly connects with the farseer's abdomen. That was odd, did his foresight not warn him of my attack? Regardless that was a chance I did not wait on capitalizing, although I learned it was a trick as I clearly saw what he did next, he called an eldritch storm on top of us right before he swung his witchblade to the point he sliced off my leg.
Man, thankfully I was currently an amorphous goo lady as it made fighting me just as much of a pain in the ass than it is to fight an eldari farseer. I sprouted a tentacle and reattached my leg back to the main body, using my knowledge and experience with using my first body, I fired up the edge program and dashed forwards enlarging my fists as I did so. He looks to be standing his ground, he must be thinking that he can swing at my large goo arms just as I try to grab him.
I changed up my tactic, instead the arms I swung sprouted multiple tentacles before they surged towards Zalava, who looked surprised and a little frustrated for some reason.
As the fight went on, I noticed something rather odd. He's having a harder time predicting at what I can do, is he losing his cool? I now at least that farseers need focus in order to read the future, he might be frustrated that he can't seem to find a weakness. At least I think.
Within my personal domain, my eyes widened as I saw him make a mistake, a huge mistake in which it allowed me to suddenly surge forward and catch the farseer before I chucked him into a large protean prison. At first he looked angry, then now he just looks resigned as if he believes that they would not survive at all tomorrow or the next day. I heard him project his words out to the world. "-and so I have lost, to the one known as the Mother, the Life Bringer and Life Reaper. The fate of my people now rests in the hands of yourself and the ignorant imperials of castle Krakengar."
Oh damn it farseer Zalava, can you get your head out of your ass before I actually attempt to punch you?! Like seriously, Zalava is by far one of the better farseers and yet there are times where I want to either strangle him or just straight up kill him.
Anyway, now that this dance is over. Let's end the battle hopefully, I take control of multiple goo morph and combat frame hardpoints of strategic import and broadcasted loudly. "Asuryani, your farseer commander has been captured, surrender now and I promise you that you will not be harmed."
The battlefield was silent as my words echoed throughout the minds of both eldar and human, I could see behind the primary defensive line I saw general Maiori shaking her head at me thinking that this won't work, while inquisitor Thrax looks like he either wants it to work but at the same time he didn't want it to work at all.
Silence reigned for but a few more moments before the first clang sounded, everyone turned to see an eldar guardian dropping his shuriken cannon. That was a surprise, I wonder why he decided- oh. Ok maybe that is why. I noticed that the wraithlord is pretty much on the ground being covered by bastions with their tentacles holding it down preventing it from making any form of attack, although I see its bright lance charging a few times but it never fired.
I guess that was enough for them, since the rest of the eldar began to stop fighting and the imperials slumped over tired.
Looking through my 360 vision but also turning my Eien morph at the general and inquisitor who are now looking at me like I just grew a second head and did something unthinkable. I just raised a v sign with my fingers and gave the biggest shit eating grin I could muster with my Eien morph.
As I turned to face the farseer Zalava inside the large protean, I see he is now just... relaxing really, I think? Well it looks like he is just simply meditating within the confines of the large protean. He does not have any trouble breathing along with the eldar inside the large protean prison simply because I slightly altered them earlier to allow for me to be able to subdue and contain the eldar.
At first, I though that this went well. Then I managed to use the network to tally up every death ratio and every life ratio and I could only wince at how much not only did I lose, but the eldar lost quite a bit of people, the imperials also had lost quite a few guardsmen. Some shots from the wraithlord struck true and absolutely annihilated several organics so badly there wasn't even anything left to bury them...
Damn it all, damn it all farseer Zalava. This could all be avoided if you had simply told us what the stupid evil was. I sigh within my domain, no matter.
Let's just get to work with maybe fixing all this up, it... is going to be a long day.
And so it is done, apologies if this chapter isn't that well written. I'm writing this in like 3 in the morning on the day of christmas. Merry Christmas to everyone here by the way!
Also surprise surprise! Siphons do weird shit to souls, also I sort of made the 'eldar name' up using a fandom lexicon (Dunno if it is a true canon lexicon tho), Ishara Orlosa (to me) means Mother of Soul Stars. Which should clue in what the else happened to the warlock girl while she was getting succ'd by the siphon.
The imperials are not gonna be happy with Eien for essentially 'letting the filthy xenos live' instead of killing them all. But yeah frankly, all the factions on the planet are stuck in the system the warpstorm is covered in, so there are no reinforcements for anyone (well aside from Chaos) so Eien is going to try and lighten the load simply by having the imperials and eldar get along.
Also she will be trying to get the stick out of farseer Zalava's ass and will try to get him to spill the beans as to what ancient evil is under the Castle Krakengar.
The 'fight' between Eien and Farseer Zalava definitely is NOT my best work, my brain is both tired and I was trying to get it to work as I wrote the chapter. I know it is not that great of an excuse, but I really wanted to get this chapter out before I sleep and I had hoped I would have been able to post it before christmas but that was wishful thinking from me it seems. <:3
Anyway. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter regardless! <:3
Next chapter we get to finally see what will happen to the Purger as the Edge Program should have finished installing then.
I'm starting to get concerned about myself, my emotions have not been... well, straight. I need to start sinking into the Network more to find out why my feelings are all over the place, that bit with the eldar warlock did not feel... right. It felt like I folded a bit to quickly on the guilt there. Oh no, I still have some guilt yes. But its more so for the fact I nearly completely erased that eldar from existence in the form of a true death than because of the pain I put her through, hold on. That also doesn't sound right? I should also be guilty about the pain, like I did Ronus with his upload.
Then again, I have been with pretty much all of my 'children' connected through the Yggdrasil Network. So all the kills that have happened I was there for, especially the eldar kills over in Sanctuary's Point. Is it because I was the one 'behind the wheel' so to speak when I controlled the siphon? I mean, sure most of the stuff I killed are pretty much just orks, chaos cultists and daemons, as well as the dark eldar. Hell, I even have four dark eldar captives I am subjecting to experiments (albeit none tooooo intrusive yet) and I have not had a single shred of remorse aside for the expended resources. Is it because I nearly wiped her by complete accident? I will probably never know the answer even if I search it.
I will have to find the reason why some other time. But for now, I have much bigger fish to fry than my possible mental instability... I should not joke about that, it might come back to bite me in the ass.
So yeah, it hasn't even been an hour after the battle and immediately I am actually very tempted to try and kill both eldar and imperial in this castle for the bullshit they are trying to pull. Although I gave the warlock I nearly 'soul munched' and gave a case of 'existential ending' an apology, she seems more so... curious about me? I thought she would be fearing me still, what am I missing here? But aside from that, I am annoyed with the two races, the humans more so since I found some small groups of guardsmen try to single out one eldar or two, but those usually fail because one I stop and save their asses or two the one eldar humiliates them which also increases the animosity from the imperials and the 'superior bitching' of the eldars.
Although there ARE outliers, and quite a few eldar actually just want to be left alone surprisingly. Its a shame that a lot of them though are frustrating to work with. Not as bad as their farseers or most of their leader structure to be fair, still assholes though.
The asuryani I took on as my... well, prisoners are more so on 'house arrest' with goo morphs and frames guarding them and preventing them, well most of them from antagonizing the imperials and vice versa. After a bit(A lot) of negotiating, which is pretty much just general Maiori shouting at me and inquisitor Thrax contemplating if he should just shoot himself to escape all of this, I managed to get an abandoned area within the western sector of castle Krakengar to contain the eldar, although the wraithlord and wraithguards are being watched over by bastions, destructors, and hydras outside to the north with the spiritseers separated from them so that is safe hopefully.
What I am right now is very very annoyed at a certain farseer. Oh, I thought he was giving me the silent treatment because of what I nearly did to the warlock, but no he is still keeping silent for some other convoluted reason. At this rate my khalkotauroi will find whatever the ancient evil is first before Zalava even explains what they are. If it is the 'ancient foe' of the aeldari, then I have to hope to everything that it is not the Necrons because I have no idea how dangerous their green lightning is if they hit my goo morphs.
Right now Thrax, Titus, Maiori, and myself are talking about that very same farseer actually and without a doubt all of us have agreed that this can be easily solved if the damn farseer will get his head out of his ass and actually fucking TALK! I am actually very tempted to say fuck all to every single consequence and puppet the farseer myself to see if I can read his brain to find that knowledge.
No, I need to calm down. The khalkotauroi are being careful in traversing the depths of castle Krakengar, whatever ruins this stronghold was built upon Ronus has 'mapped' some of it but not all of it and I am a little fearful of what I might uncover from within the bowels of this fort.
"It is not enough that you had me lend an empty part of this castle to hold the eldar prisoners, but this frakking knife-eared piece of grox shit won't say a throne be damned word of what the hell is this 'greaaaat and aaaancient eeeevil', hell this guy decided it is much more 'profitable' to try and kill us instead of frakking tell us directly what the frak is this thing!" General Maiori is the most vocal of her displeasure at my answer for the prisoners' accomodations and Zalava's lack of any kind of answer, not even a convoluted one.
Inquisitor Thrax eyed the farseer through the window peering down at the eldar sitting cross-legged with narrowed eyes. "It is hard to reason with the eldar whenever they are speaking in this confusing fashion, even if any eldar gives us an answer they word it in a way or make it seem like they are lying when they are telling the truth or masking a truth over a lie. It is one of the many reasons they are usually so hated even when allied as these farseers would sacrifice anyone even including their own forces if it meant protecting some other eldar in the future."
Ah yes, the eldar farseer's favorite past-time of being so convoluted they make Jack Sparrow seem like an understandable individual, out of reflex I place a hand on my Eien-morph's face and sighed loudly. "The more I hear about these farseers, the more I wonder why are they in such high command positions in the first place." Again I have to play the part that I do not know much about them.
General Maiori snorted and crossed her arms staring down at the farseer through the window with ill-concealed contempt for the eldar down there. If that squat woman Mala did not take her bolter pistol before she was let into here I have no doubt this muscly woman would have attempted to shoot and fold the farseer if she could. Hell, I saw her staring at Thrax's plasma pistol at one point and I can almost see her thoughts of just taking the pistol and shooting Zalava.
Before the general even quipped at me it was Captain Titus who had given his answer. "Because despite their convoluted ways, if a farseer's plans do go right then the eldar would have achieved a victory with little to no casualties. A victory on not only a tactical level but on a strategical one as well. I do not speak for the eldar, but I believe that they think it is worth it."
Ever the neutral one huh Titus, I eyed the farseer through the glass and the eldar simply sat there meditating. Even though he is pretty much surrounded by all sides with like twenty siphons and ten alphas hecatoncheires, one would think it is a bit excessive but I call this making sure I cover my bases. Time and time again in multiple engagements with the eldar I have seen that siphons have either absorb and weaken warp-based attacks or just outright rendered them inert since they are eating the energy faster than it can do anything, and with the revelation of the siphons capable of pulling out souls, though I may need to fully test that theory on the dark eldar and maybe an ork I can capture, then to those who can use and see the warp will see my siphons as a high priority target.
While I am here watching the farseer along with the other important imperials, parts of myself through my domain have taken to reading the data reports of the khalkotauroi skulking about below the stronghold. I have actually sent some alphas and some siphons along with each khalkotauroi since I am also curious if siphons can also give the middle finger to necron sith lightning. Because if they can then that will be a MASSIVE help against the those death metal boys.
For now though I have to get the farseer to fess up so I can prepare in advance, if whatever is underneath the castle awakens as my children find it, then that is going to lead to a lot of lives and resources being lost because one farseer won't fucking speak up.
I turn around and began walking towards the doorway leading to the stairs to the farseer's current 'residence'. "I will attempt a different vector of coaxing the information out of farseer Zalava, it is not the most... elegant of attempts but hopefully it should get the point across."
I heard and saw the general snort again behind me, she waved her hand in a dismissive fashion. "Be my guest, I would not put all my bets on it though. The eldar have not spoken honestly with us imperials for numerous millennia, why would they change now?" That is fair enough to the musclebound woman, really fair actually since she is actually right. All lore I have found back then points to eldar either not telling everything to actively screwing over their allies to the point that even if they were honest to the imperials, said imperials would not believe a single word that they say. Someone actually made a joke that the dark eldar were much more trustworthy than the craftworlder eldar, and that might be a good insult in the future.
The noise of the three imperials speaking behind me faded as I entered the stairway to the room, seeing the door I felt and saw the presences of my children watching over the farseer. The door opened and on the other side were two myrmidons guarding the door, two more guarding the larger door where the farseer was led into in the first place, and surrounding the walls and ceiling were the twenty siphons and ten alphas.
As I entered the room, the farseer's eyes opened and stared right at me. If I had bones to crack I would have rolled my limbs to let out a crack in front of him. "We meet again, Farseer Zalava."
The eldar in front of me closed his eyes and gave an almost solemn nod. "Indeed Grey Mother Eien." Is that, oh hell no not another title!
Quickly I shake my head. "That title belongs to another, please refrain from using that with my name." I do not want any more titles than the ones I already have thank you very much!
I saw the eldar bow his head slightly and thankfully for me, acquiesced to it. "Very well Life Bringer/Reaper, I will not call you that again. Now, I believe I speak for you when I say that you wish me to-"
"Spare me the pleasantries Farseer Zalava, you know exactly why I am here." I cut him off, I did not want him to go on another tirade like he did last time we spoke. The first time I talked to him here, the damned eldar went on and on and ooooon about the great and ancient evil within this castle and that if it was not snuffed out early then we would sorely regret it. That was a mistake if you didn't get it.
The farseer's face actually looked surprised, his white beard and mustache twitched in what I might assume as annoyance? Maybe actual surprise? I will never know probably, I should ask about that facial hair at some point but for now I have no time to waste for this eldar. "Listen Farseer Zalava, usually I do not consider myself someone who gives out ultimatums like this but I do not have time for you." He looked nearly offended, and I nearly broke out into a grin.
I could have said anything else, but the fact that this farseer KNOWS or at least somewhat knows of what I am. I can play this card, and I might actually scare him into believing this if I word it right. "You are the only one that seems to have knowledge as to what I am, with you calling me Life Bringer/Reaper and all. If this ancient evil below this stronghold is in anyway connected to me at all, I NEED to know. If it IS the Silent Ones, then I must prepare quickly in order to snuff them out before they awaken. My forces are searching the bowels of this castle, and if they awaken as my forces stumble into them. I will not be ready."
Turns out, that is the magic word. I have NEVER seen a farseer look this afraid before. "Your God War..." Wait what? Did he just compare the 'goo vs shroud war' as a WAR IN HEAVEN - GOD WAR?! What the hell did he see through his abilities that made him think that?!
With an invisible hobgoblin in the room where the three imperials stood watching, I 'saw' them also reel back in what I am assuming is shock. Oh yeaaah, they can hear everything going on in this room. They haven't heard of the Silent Ones before. Well shit that is going to be really awkward... but it might be funny to watch them freak out... Ok no Eien, FOCUS!
The farseer actually stood up and started pacing back and forth, he must be weighing the pros and cons of telling me as well as remembering the entirety of the vision of this ancient and great evil. I really hope that it isn't the Silent Ones or the Necrons and it might be something else, I'd rather not deal with those two at all until I get a mass economy that would allow me to churn out a wave of grey so massive it would make the orks jealous.
It took a few minutes, but the eldar seemed to take his time calming himself down. I haven't seen an eldar's pupils shrink so much before, that is interesting but it seems he has found his answer as he turned to me with barely concealed relief on his 'not normal eldar' face. I saw him sit himself back down. "I have returned to the vision my far sight has granted me. Thankfully, it is not your ancient enemy Life Bringer/Reaper."
Well, at least that rules out 'my' enemy. As not much of the Shroud is really known it would have been a monumental pain in the ass to combat them, my knowledge of them is only from the game and that their units and buildings work around the concept of 'amplifying' their buildings and units. "Well that will not matter in the end, my forces are searching the bowels and I will find this evil with or without your help. It is your choice if you will reveal it now, or I will find out later. Make your choice."
I stare down at the farseer from my seat and Zalava looked up at me with a face so neutral that if I had not seen his fear and panic before, I would have thought he was good at hiding his emotions. Then again he might be that good and that was just an exception.
Finally he sighed and eyed me with a tired look on his face. "You will never stop your search will you?" Of whatever is sleeping underneath us? Hell yeah I won't stop, it might bite us in the ass if I don't do anything about it.
He took a deep breath before he slouched over. "Fine, you win. The ancient and great evil below us is a neverborn of She Who Thirsts, an old and powerful one that is currently in some form of stasis lock." Wait what?! A fucking greater daemon is here napping underneath us?! I could see the three imperials look panicked as well.
The farseer continued with closed eyes. "Your 'priests' and the like would not have found her/it, for the neverborn was locked away chained here by what I assume is our ancestors within the confines of what my people call..." At first this couldn't get any worse than already having a sleeper daemon agent within the castle but his last words caused me to hiccup in my Network and it froze all my children for a brief microsecond.
"A Talisman of Vaul." YOU WAT?! Oh hell NAW!
I slam my 'hands' on the table and my goo morph children within the room vibrated and convulsed in agitation while the myrmidons looked as if they wanted to shoot the farseer for 'displeasing' me. "Are you IN-SANE?! Why did you only speak of this NOW?! We not only, have a possible Greater Daemon or worse of Slaanesh sleeping underneath our house, but their chamber of slumber is one of those Blackstone Fortresses?!?! Do you WANT the damn thing to go off and wipe this planet out from under us?!?!" Man do the imperials of Exalus have Lamenter luck or what? The two of the three imperial regions on this continent are taken by chaos and dark eldar, then the last region is under assault by ork, eldar, and previously the dark eldar, then we now have what is possibly a greater daemon of Slaanesh sitting doing fuck all right beneath us and is contained within one of the most destructive pieces of technology ever in use by any of the major warhammer factions.
Wasting no time, I sent an order through the Yggdrasil Network accounting for multiple Siphons to immediately reinforce the three Khalkotauroi groups spelunking deep within the ruins, I do not want to give that daemon any chances to possibly convert or ensnare one of the imperials within this bloody castle. If they get one, then this would immediately become a LOT harder.
Damn it all, why the hell does this farseer decide to hide the existence of a shitting greater or worse daemon apparently sleeping underneath the castle. Does he have any idea how wrong this could have went had he not tell us now?! Or rather if the damn thing AWAKENED while we were fighting earlier?!?!?!
Through the network I felt all my children that are currently in a morph and a frame immediately put themselves on guard. I have no doubt that their actions will be noticed by every single living being within castle Krakengar, from the imperial citizens sheltering within the fortress to the eldar prisoners in my custody over in the western area. 'Standing up' I immediately turned about face and power walked to the door leading back up to where the three imperials were, I could see and hear through the hobgoblin that Thrax, Titus, and Maiori are planning on how to deal with the daemon threat even without me.
Man, things are going to be extremely hectic once we find that daemon. All we can do know is prepare and wait, no rest for the wicked at all really, it is going to be like this during my stay in the warhammer universe? We are going to go from one battle to the next with by luck only a day or three of rest before hell breaks loose and everything has and WILL have a chance to go so fucking wrong that the Lamenters would see this and be like 'By the Emperor we lucked out!'. To be fair that might be a bit much but the point has been made.
Mentally I sigh within my private domain back in the Yggdrasil Network, I could use some good news about now- Wait what, the Purger has finally finished its Edge Program update? Oh good! Now let's see what it has turned iiiiiinnntoooo...
...
Well, I guess I have an equalizer now.
That is really awesome though, how the hell did the Edge Program change the Purger like this?! I want to replicate it because this just solved my lack of orbital presence!
Now to explain why I am so giddy and how this solves the frankly less than stellar presence I have up in orbit, allow me to briefly explain the Purger. The Purger is basically a way to 'work around' the Pathfinder's node locked size restrictions, when multiple Goo Mothers combine they essentially 'lose' their bodies in order to create something like an octopus. You know how those things have like a brain for each tentacle? Granted those are mini brains shackled to a larger central brain but the idea is similar to that.
The purger combines all of its mass together to form a protean that is the size of a bloody mountain, well somewhat since it is still a little bit smaller than the Incorruptus. However the edge program seems to have restored some of the Goo Mother's functions as well as added some new ones!
Within the network I couldn't help but fawn over my multiple children essentially piloting their new body as if they were an actual tangible crew within that vessel. Its appearance within the network makes them look like a small star cluster that shines brighter as long as they are together. Out in the physical realm however is something that if I did not know that it belonged to me, I would have freaked out at its close proximity to the black fortress.
Hell, some of my children outside the castle could see it and no doubt the imperials and eldar could see it with the naked eye as well. The first 'ship' of the Goo, ranging at over 2 kilometers it is a grey mass taking on some kind of elongated body with multiple 'tentacles' jutting out of it. As my children within the Purger get comfortable with their new 'cluster' I began reading over the abilities that this 'cruiser' sized vessel has within its program nodes.
Oh my, the edge program gave this a LOT of things to work with. It not only incorporated my previous action of 'adding-on' siphons but it also improved upon it so this thing can pull out different weapons out of its ass as well as changing its overall shape and form slightly to accommodate the creation of the required systems within itself for the various weapons it can employ.
This. Is. AWESOME! If I can also make different ship classes with this kind of ability, then that means my entire ship-line will be able to adapt to the battlefield, making them even harder to destroy! Oh wait I need to read more of it. Uh-huh, ok, that's not good. Since this is essentially a goo morph, it doesn't have 'true armor' or any kind of shielding.
Something I will have to rectify in the future, but for now I watch the ship float up into the sky slowly and start heading in our direction. Hmm... what can I name it? Oh how bout the Yokai Class Cruiser! I can just make the different 'configurations' be different yokai names. I am a genius!
Ah, I have to calm the imperials and eldar down. Oh crud it is going to be quite a pain to explain not only about the Silent Ones/Shroud, but also about my new Yokai class cruiser...
Yeaaaaah that's not going to be a fun time...
Oh wait what, a ping in the network? Oh! The project is finished?! I didn't even think it would somewhat work, this might go horribly wrong.
...
Hopefully it won't.
And so the Purger has been upgraded via the Edge Program and it has awakened as the new Yokai Class Cruiser!
Here is a picture of it.
Spoiler: Yokai Class Cruiser
To those who recognize it, yes it is the Scourge Yokai Cruiser. This is going to be the appearance of Eien's true fleet. The ships that she is going to use to house organics are going to be ironically the Grey Tempest ships.
Basically the overall shape of Eien's ships will be similar to the scourge ships from Dropfleet Commander, however the changes would be that it is primarily grey of course, smooth, some parts break up the smoothness by having the hexagon patterns, and the whole thing is pulsing with the signature Grey Goo Bluelights.
Now to explain what Eien means by the 'configurations', I hope it is easily understood. Basically her Yokai Class Cruiser is going to be the 'base' appearance of her cruisers. What the Yokai class will do is basically change and 'transmorph' its hull and shape to change into different 'configurations' which are going to be different cruiser classes and such with the different weapon arrays and other stuff. She still hasn't thought of what those configurations will be but she might think of them soon. Aside from the grey tempest ships, the 'Grey Scourge' ships are going to comprise of seven base classes that can transmorph themselves into different ship configurations.
These classes would only be Monitor(Scout Ships), Destroyers, Frigates, Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Battleships, and a Dreadnaught size class. :3
Also, that last bit at the end. Can you all guess what Eien has done that is incredibly dumb and will never come back from? I really hope some of you can figure it out and maybe it won't be so out of place that it might cause ye guys to drop this. <:3
I mean yeah it is well within your rights to drop it but yeah.
ANYWAY! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope that the way I wrote the eldar farseer and the imperial guardsmen makes sense. If it doesn't, then well I am a dumb. ( TwT)
I might not update for a while since I'm not feeling too great(Though I might still update even then), I was supposed to finish and post this yesterday actually when I felt so much like shit I vomited all over the sink. So that was 'fun', I will focus on making sure that my body won't try to kill me. But apparently according to my brother he had this and lasted only like three days to a week, so hopefully I'll be better by then.
With that all said and done, take care everyone and have a happy new year! :3
I have sent more siphons to reinforce my three Khalkotauroi teams and they are now taking extra care but are also still hurrying through the depths of the ruins in search of the still inactive Blackstone Fortress, and I really hope that the daemon inside it is unresponsive because if it wakes up and activates the damn thing right under us it is probably going to skewer this castle and take the entire stronghold for a ride, or unluckily and much more likely it is going to fire its warp cannon and fucking detonate the very planet it is sleeping under.
You see, both of those outcomes are not exactly desirable. One such undesirable outcome right now is me namedropping the damn Blackstone Fortress and that I know exactly what it is in my shock of finding out what exactly is underneath us. If anyone asks, my shock is understandable and so is my panic. Because if memory serves me and I am remembering Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 correctly, then the Blackstone Fortress is a planet cracking compact death star II, with either its weapon or with the actual ship itself. If the thing sets off before I can get a goo off world then this might be my final destination.
Fucking convoluted eldar farseer piece of shit, why in the FUCK did you think withholding information about the fucking Blackstone Fortress underneath us was a good idea?! Let alone that it is apparently the case of the daemonic sleeping 'beauty'!
Ok, no calm yourself me. I already accidentally showed my emotions not through the Network but through my actions of slamming the table. My children noticed the action of the goo body I was inhabiting and quickly deduced that I was agitated despite my emotion not spreading throughout the Network. In their zeal they all became agitated at once, now that would have created an emotional ripple through the Network normally, but surprisingly it did not do so.
The reason being, that at the risk of sounding arrogant, they were not me. Since I am the 'head' of the Yggdrasil Network I am the driving force, the one above all in the network, it is a part of me just as I am a part of it albeit the main part. So when my emotions run wild within the network, the very network sort of 'mimics' me and spreads that emotion in a ripple throughout the network. This is why I always keep my emotional outbursts within the private domain of the Network. Any and all ripples of mine can be contained there with no risk of leaking out throughout the rest of the network.
Although, this doesn't stop my children from learning to pick up when I become agitated or angry by seeing me through the physical realm. I can't really stop that, but due to their 'offspring' style of connection to the Yggdrasil Network their emotional outbursts run no risk of rippling throughout the shared coded domain.
The Yggdrasil Network as it is a part of me as I am a part of it, I am its one true master. I was not paraphrasing my explanation to Ronus when I said that each Pathfinder Consciousness has its own Network, I learned that as I was digging through the program nodes of my own network. It is essentially built into every pathfinder consciousness, and because of that I am able to do anything and everything with the network... although I still haven't found a way to crack that stupid size limit code node.
Most likely they were hardcoded into the goo, I find it restrictive. I need to crack that code and break it or I will have to do something similar to the Purger in order to make bigger crap and I'd rather not. Since Purgers even after the Edge Program update are incredibly COSTLY to create, as the mothers that are sacrificed into the damn thing are not able to keep their unit production or resource gathering feature.
Speaking of the Edged Purger, it was surprisingly easy to allow it to shift from the Yokai Cruiser back into its mountainous goo form. This will make any future fleet comprising of Yokais to not only have an incredible presence in orbit, but if they were 'shot down' while in said orbit of a world that is just giving them the ability to start an invasion a la meteor landing style.
Back to the Edged Purger, there was a thing or two that the Edge Program recovered from the Goo Mothers and reimplemented back into the Purger as well as implementing 'new' abilities into its arsenal. In the game, it is through the Goo Mother that you are able to 'Activate Upgrades' for the rest of the Goo faction. In real life however, the upgrades are done through the Network and every unit that 'owns' that upgrade all gets upgraded at once. This was put into the Purger taking on both that system and the fact I once did a crude add-on of siphons in order to create its config switching, so that both its mountainous goo form and the Yokai Cruiser form are capable of upgrading themselves into different configurations with different roles as well as being able to switch upgrade into other configurations when needed.
Although my main worry aside from getting the Yokai Cruiser armed and ready with at least one Goo Mother to send them off world just in case, I want to take care of the blackstone fortress since the grand majority of my units are still on the planet and I'd much prefer them all not getting wiped into molten nano slag. Plus there is at least a few decent imperials on this planet and I'd rather them also survive than leave them to their fate.
Speaking of which, yeah after all of us started our plans on making sure the daemon underneath us does not awaken ever, General Maiori, Captain Titus, and Inquisitor Thrax all but outright demanded what did I mean when I shouted out the Blackstone Fortress, how I know what it is, and why did I 'lose my cool' the way I did. Which surprised me since I have no doubt that Maiori would not know what it is, but neither Captain Titus nor Inquisitor Thrax actually know what the Blackstone Fortress is? Really odd but maybe I can spin this without breaking cover that I don't know much of them than they think I do now.
Ok, so I have to think fast on how to explain how I 'know' information that 'I could not have gotten normally', come on come on me. I'm glad that my true memories are behind something ironclad, most likely due to the actions of the ROB that slapped me into this universe. As the Yggdrasil Network does not know of my memories at all aside from the ones I let through, I'm really glad about that.
My explanation will have to come quick, because now that we were finished with our orders of preparation for the daemon underneath us. The three highest imperial chain of command were now walking with me towards the command room.
"So Lady Eien, why is it that you freaked out when the farseer spoke of whatever this 'Talisman of Vaul' is? You looked and sounded like you knew exactly what it was, care to explain?" Inquisitor Thrax asked the question that was plaguing the three of them no doubt, more so for himself and Titus since as far as those two know, I 'have no clue' about anything in the Warhammer Universe...
Hold on. I may 'not', but I DO have one 'source' of knowledge. I mentally apologize to Ronus since I am essentially throwing him under the bus like this. I have to word this carefully, and since there are some parts of Ronus' memory that are corrupted I can spin it that I managed to piece together and decipher some of the corrupted memory for the... actually that might not work. Damn it.
...Unless? That might actually work. It is just crazy enough, that it might just work. "I got this information from playing numerous and various spin-off games of this time for years and read different pieces of literature regarding different times of this galaxy." I said this with the straightest face I could muster with my Eien morph being completely made out of goo and all.
I watch amusedly as I saw the three of them blink once, then twice, then three times before Inquisitor Thrax actually took off his glove and fingered his ear clean. "I did not even know that you could make a joke like that Lady Eien, but please. This is serious."
Holy shit it worked, I mean of course they would not believe me. Because it would be the same as them admitting that all their lives and struggles are all just a universe made from a game to amuse people. That actually sounds a hell of a lot more fucked up now that I think about it like that. Oh wait yeah I need to answer. "I apologize inquisitor, captain, general. But I would rather not disclose how I obtained this information, but know that this is not from your databases nor was it from your own forces." Hopefully this will get them to drop it in favor of rushing everything to prepare for the possible awakening of one of the bitch-prince's horny shitfaced aroused hot pink monstrosities that is currently sleeping in the basement of our fucking basement.
Thankfully the muscle-bound woman decided to change the subject albeit slightly. "Fine, have it your way Lady Eien, but we still need to know what in the frak is that Talisman of Blackball stone whatever the warp it is and why did you freak out about it. I need to know what we are dealing with so my daemon hunting teams will know what not to touch or break."
"Fair enough general, I will condense the information down since we are on a time limit with the daemonic presence sleeping in the thing. The Talismans of Vaul or Blackstone Fortresses are basically these massive void-faring vessels and I use this term loosely as they are more akin to space drifting strongholds, are superweapons of an old age that have the capability of detonating a planet without shields with one blast, and this is from space. This damn thing is sitting right underneath us, and it moving underneath us has the high risk of setting off a chain reaction to blast us all to kingdom come as well. So trust me when I say, touch or break fucking nothing in that ship if you value the ground we are standing on." I nod at first, and began hurriedly explaining what I know about the Blackstone Fortress from the games. I watch their expression grow disbelieving and concerned as my short explanation went on.
Captain Titus then shook his head and turned to the two other imperials. "Regardless if this information is accurate or not, one thing is for certain. This Blackstone Fortress can not fall into the hands of Chaos, if that farseer is to be believed then this sleeping daemon might possibly be contained within deepest parts of that vessel. We must prevent the vessel's activation and slay that daemon or banish it from this realm before it awakens."
This got a nod from the rest of us, Inquisitor Thrax put his glove back on and clicked it into place. "On that we are agreed, we must prepare as much as we can. Because the farseer did say that this 'neverborn' is an old one of 'She who Thirsts', which means we might be dealing with another Keeper of Secrets most likely."
I really really do not like that we are going to be dealing with that kind of daemon, I'd rather fight a bloodthirster. No, an actual bloodthirster, not that weird Khornish Keeper of Bloody Secrets that is Kassar'duun. "If I have to fight another Keeper of Secrets again I am going to lose it."
Oh you cheeky bugger. "Maybe you can compare how bad either of them are, who knows maybe this one might be attracted to you as well." I could see that insufferable inquisitor smirking at me so I did the most mature thing possible. I stuck my tongue out at him and turned my head away from him with a huff. "Oh yes, real mature of you Lady Eien."
There is one thing that bothers me however, I don't know much about the blackstone fortress but if I remember right then the vessel probably has plenty of automated defenses. If any of our teams enter that place then I do not know how much and how fierce the resistance they encounter will be. Turning to my current companions as we walk towards the command room I voice my concern. "There is no doubt that with a vessel like the blackstone fortress, there WILL be a lot of automated protectors within it. Anyone we send in there is going to have a hard time in general just traversing through the hulk. So we have to make sure that the ones we send have adequate protection."
Thankfully my words brought forth agreements from the three imperials. As we enter the command room I split my consciousness a bit so I can prepare more strike teams that do not have khalkotauroi within them. I can't just use three khalkotauroi teams to clear out the fortress, even with the help of the imperials that is still a lot of ground to cover. Hell, I don't even think I will be able to send enough to totally ensure the fortress' continued inactive state.
If I had my way, I would have simply eaten the damn thing but with my only presence in this warpstorm covered system being on this planet alone. I'd rather not needlessly risk a freak chance of activating the thing and wiping myself out of this universe. I heard that is bad for your health.
RONUS POV
Throughout my new life with Mother Eien and my new siblings, I believe I have gotten glimpses into the plans of the Great Machine Mother. Yet, it would seem that I am forever a massive step behind whenever Mother Eien completes each of her actions or starts entirely new ones. Case in point, Project Awakening. When She spoke of what it entailed, I along with my siblings were understandably surprised and curious if it was possible.
We had sent our responses through the Network to Her, there was no coming back from this should She go through with it whether it succeeds or even fails. Mother Eien has told us that She fully knows the consequences both current and future of Project Awakening and is still planning to go through with it. I believe that the Great Machine Mother has taken everything into account and I am sure the outcome will be just as She expected it.
Truly, Mother Eien's great plan is so frustratingly complex that only The Mother and Her alone knows of its full scope. I along with my siblings would only catch nanosecond glimpses of Her Great Plan and even then that little glimpse would most likely not make sense to us but make perfect sense to Her.
It would take all that I am just to try and decipher it, even then all I might be able to do is just assume what is the goal of Mother Eien which is dangerous on its own since I highly doubt the Great Machine Mother would take kindly to me assuming what Her goals are and thinking incorrectly. Yggdrasil damn me should I actively work against the designs of Mother Eien, I would not be forgiven and I would most likely be erased or worse for my insolence.
I sat within my... 'Soul Star', my form that of the aged human butler as I looked around the establishment that I created with Mother Eien's graciously blessed permission. Similar in appearance to Imperium Architecture it looked more so like one of the ecclesiarchy's cathedrals with some major adjustments, one of them being its size as it is much smaller than those made by the imperium, the Machine Mother will most likely not like the extravagant size as that is seen as a needless waste for someone as efficient as Her. For the dark gold appearance it was replaced with a gleaming dark grey color, various silver ornaments, statues, and murals with blue highlights and a few of those murals were fully colored.
One such mural that I deemed to be the best one is the one behind the altar, it depicted a female figure gently smiling in front of tree surrounded by stars, the female figure was gently cradling one of the stars in front of her with closed eyes.
Its appearance is simple but the fact that the image ever shifts like it is alive is what gives me what I assume is a feeling that I may deduce as something like 'feeling proud' of myself. The Stars blink, the Tree sways, and the figure of the Mother sometimes opens Her eyes to reveal the deep bright blue gaze all the while holding the gentle smile as Her fingers gently curl and uncurl around the one star She holds.
Truly, to myself and my siblings this is how we view Mother Eien. The Great Machine Mother, the one who watches over us. The Great Machine Mother, the one who views us as her children. The Great Machine Mother, the one who might have been the greatest of these Old Pathfinders.
Me and my siblings, we do our best to serve Mother Eien. For it is through her gentle guiding hand that we are able to do anything in the first place.
For it is through her that we find our purpose. With Project Awakening, it will only be another way for others to serve the Mother.
SISTER HOSPITALLER MARIA POV
Throughout the years of my posting with White Squad I have encountered many different xenos. From the sanctioned abhumans of the Imperium to even the kroot of the Tau. While I am not my more... zealous sister Judith, I too am liable to work myself up to slay a few xenos and heretics here and there but I can control myself. You quickly learn to do so once you are learning the Hospitaller's Creed(Healer's Oath) as control and patience are usually a requirement before one attempts to pass the final trials to become a fully-fledged Sister Hospitaller.
Although most of the time the zeal of my fellow sister hospitallers are... reignited when they are partnered up with the other adepta sororitas. It is because of their reignited zeal that prisoners under their care do not stay among the living long enough to release any information from interrogation, this kind of creates a stereotype that being a prisoner of a sister hospitaller will result in that sister rapidly catapulting the prisoner into the afterlife in her zeal.
That is a bit annoying as it causes most but not all higher ups to outright ban the use of sister hospitallers when it comes to interrogation, which again is annoying since we hospitallers are also trained in the art of interrogation. Our extended knowledge of anatomy when used in interrogation is meant to cause the most amount of pain etc. while essentially keeping the prisoner physically healthy.
I mentally sigh as I finish checking up on Bol, who by far was the most injured out of all of White Squad. His injuries consisted of shrapnel from the explosions kicking up parts of the scenery towards the ogryn because of the wraithlord, as well as his left arm was the poor recipient of a few stray shots of a random eldar's shuriken cannons. But thankfully the shots did not savage deeper than three inches, for a normal human that might have very well sliced off a limb or gave a poor soul an unwanted and unfinished amputation.
For ogryns however a three inch deep wound or less than that is easily recoverable for the abhumans, as long as I take out the shrapnel and the awkward molecular shardlings Bol should be able to bounce back from this in a few days.
My mind wandered to the past few days, I have met many different xenos. But this Eien, this abominable intelligence, she is... confusing. This Machine Mother is easy on the eyes though, oh my. I should not be thinking about things like this. Regardless, I have been taught the horrors of abominable intelligences, how they would mercilessly gun imperials down, how they have an immense abhorrence for organic life, how they betrayed humanity during the cybernetic revolt.
Yet, this Eien has so far been completely contradictory to what the stories of the Men of Iron portray abominable intelligences as. It confuses me but I welcome it really, in my opinion the Imperium has no need of more enemies to fight thank you very much. If the mother machine does not wish to fight the Imperium of Man then I see no reason why we should antagonize her. Then again, ensuring that the Eien abominable intelligence does not attempt to backstab us by destroying her before she could do so is a 'good' idea... that is if we know where every unit and nanomachine the machine has is placed.
Since if rumors are to be believed apparently nothing short of total annihilation of everything Eien has would have a chance to end her. Similar to the orks in that aspect that gooey machine is, she would be a pain to root out of any world or system.
...Hmm... I have to wonder though, does she have any medical tech that can make my life easier? Anything really to get my squad to stop getting themselves sent into the med bay. Emperor knows Captain Mala, Sister Judith and Sergeant Rico are reckless enough to get them sent to me after every White Squad deployment.
Then again I highly doubt the mechanicum would look kindly upon me should I manage to get said tech. Warp-damned technomaniacs those annoyances are. Their absurd worship of machinery often puts them at odds with the ecclesiarchy.
Although, seeing Eien's 'form' once. I have to wonder if those tech priests worship machine spirits in a... different manner. Ah, I do believe I have just scarred myself. Then again, Eien's form IS very easy on the eyes. Ah, I thought of that again.
EIEN POV
So, dumb me moment. I just realized something that pretty much should have been obvious from the get go, one of my 'resources' I can use to solve my problems is to send modified creations to be underwater worthy. Aside from that awesome art of aquatic marines, I... actually have no recollection if any of the factions have any kind of underwater unit or base. Since well, if they don't then that means I can abuse all the metallic resources down at the bottom of the oceans, best thing of all is that surprisingly the Goo Mothers even pre-Edge update they could actually submerge themselves under the water.
Chief reason of them being that in the 'gooey' forms of the mother the outer layer of nanomachines sort of weave together more than they would while on the surface. What it does is that the 'texture' of the goo mother turns from the blobby goo into something rougher more solid, on the outside creating some form of solid film to hold the entire mother together so that it wouldn't have parts of it scattered with the currents.
Edge updated however, the mother is improved to the point that it can safely enter the water without the outer layers weaving together like they did pre-edge update, the mothers are now capable of actually dolphin diving into the water and VERY surprising to me is that the Edged Goo Mothers actually form an aquatic shape underwater and guess what? They are glorious Reefbacks! Albeit with a bit more tentacles, but they are the reefbacks from subnautica and I love that they look like the gentle giants, though they actually move much faster than the subnautica reefbacks and that they might mess with the sea floor to find materials I can eat to increase my mass resource gain.
But with the mothers reefbacks in the sea and at their sizes, no self respecting undersea predator (unless it is larger than the goo mother) would dare attack the underwater blob of goo while they work under the sea to help me establish the material meals that would help my mass economy.
Speaking of which, I have sent quite a few mothers with a few hecatoncheires, drovers and surprisingly destructors. I let my children create 'pods' on their own, primarily there are at least three to five goo mother reefbacks as the ones going to be surveying and harvesting for my economy. Their protectors are going to be the hecatoncheires who swim like the mimics do in Edge of Tomorrow and kind of look like smooth textured eldritch sea monstrosities, the drovers are surprisingly shaped like large 'squids' and their plasma shotgun can work underwater so that is a bit terrifying.
But it is the Destructors that surprised me the most, what they did is they 'entered' the forms of the mother but not entirely. Like they sort of merged with the 'skin' of the goo mother and now they sit there for all intents and purposes looking like they were naturally a part of the goo mother, if I wasn't connected and didn't know that they were a separate being I would have been fooled. The destructor also took on an aquatic form that somewhat reminded me of a rather strangely shaped tortoise, huh a tortoise with six legs and a glowing cannon for a 'face', I've seen weirder stuff.
Enough of that line of thought, anyway with all those 'pods' now in the sea all I have to do is wait for what is left of the convoy to reach Castle Krakengar. The one yokai cruiser will actually reach at about the same time as the swimming convoy which is nice.
As for the three khalkotauroi and numerous siphon groups searching throughout the depths of castle krakengar, they haven't managed to find the blackstone fortress and by far that is worrying me a lot. The deeper this thing is, then the more dangerous it is, since if it is that deep then the only way for that piece of old one tech to get out of the planet is to pretty much break itself out.
Then again, what confuses me here is... how did a blackstone fortress get buried that deep into this planet in the first place? Something's not adding up in my opinion, hopefully once we find it then I can solve that particular riddle... while also getting rid of the slumbering greater daemon beneath us. Seriously, damn it Zalava and your farseer bullshittery.
I mentally sigh within my domain and decided that since all I can pretty much do now is just wait (and watch the imperials argue with each other about how they can deal with the daemon themselves), I think it is time to see if my dumb project actually bore fruit. I have to wonder, why am I doing this in the first place? I might very well be making a mistake that might get me killed or worse in the future.
Splitting my perception from the imperial command room and into another goo mother I had watching over a spacious cavern Ronus found before I arrived here. This cavern was large enough that I could have multiple bastions chilling inside and still have quite a bit of space to spare. A day or two ago after I finished compiling as much information I could extract from the four dark eldar in my possession, I decided that perhaps a bit of reckless(too reckless now that I think about it) experimentation is in order.
These four dark eldar were moved here and I sort of created a mini private domain here. More so that all the goo units I have here, the two mothers, four proteans, numerous siphons, and quite a bit of puppeteers with myrmidons are all without a pilot. Mostly because I designated them all as 'private for administrator', which means unless I state otherwise none of my children could control these.
You know how it feels to be in more than one place at once? It feels really weird and a bit taxing on my mind but not as bad as one would think it is, maybe that is just because I am fully a machine really. But I digress, the four dark eldar are suspended within a goo protean encased within a shell, their puppeteers and my children piloting them are still merged within their body and as such they are still within my control.
I still have not cracked the codes of the ork and aeldari cells, but I have learned enough of their structure to try this monumentally stupid and reckless experiment.
This experiment involved the creation of a body. One that is capable of wielding the warp but on my terms.
Sounds stupid huh? Yeah I fully agree with you there, this is extremely reckless of me. Since if this goes even remotely wrong I might just give a daemon a chance to take over the empty body. That is what all the siphons in this cavern are for, on the off chance some warp fuckery goes wrong I just let them rip and tear any warp entity trying to make themselves home in the body of what is hopefully my first... biological... child.
Huh, I feel excited for some reason. I guess, it's because this is essentially my firstborn child? Ah that is embarrassing, but yeah I kind of feel excited for this. Ahhhhh how embarrassing... I guess I am subconsciously embracing the whole machine mother thing huh? That is really really embarrassing but I guess I can't escape from it now that I am actually doing this, even if it is unconsciously.
Anyway, the use of the carbon-based mass in the creation of the body is surprisingly a simple process but it is also a complicated one. Mainly because what I am doing is creating a full adult body.
Now I can't just decide to slap a full grown body and just stuff something in it and get it all working nice and dandy. No it needs blood, and it needs it pumping, which is why creating a full grown body is often very tricky. That is where the... ahh this is embarrassing now that I run the words in my head.
That is where the goo mother comes in, what I have done is of course starting with the skeleton which I deliberately made dense, followed by the numerous organs I remember from human anatomy and the ones I have learned while the puppeteers are inhabiting the dark eldar. I'm not putting multiple organs of the same type, I am just using both human and eldar anatomy as a reference for this.
Basically the human body has one heart, two lungs, one stomach and all that jazz. What I am doing might be seen as me trying to create my own space marine but I doubt that would be the case since one, I have no idea how to get the two hearts to work in tandem so that they don't both go into cardiac arrest, same with the three lungs then again that might be simpler, and two doing so might enrage the actual space marines I am friends but not with. Namely Titus.
No, what I am creating here is... basically something like a space elf? Something vaguely human, but not entirely, that is why I am using the four dark eldar here as reference. Anyway! The body I am creating is essentially 'growing' within my goo mother so I guess it is like a womb, you can see why I'm embarrassed about this.
Anyway, the organs were carefully slotted into place and I made sure that all the various connections, nerves, vessels, and most importantly a 'modified' version of the dark eldar's psychic system. With all that done, the goo mother would basically insert 'needles' into the blood vessels of the body and create the blood that I know the bone marrow will create. A while ago I made a test with the bone marrow I made for the body and studied if it would actually make the blood, thankfully it did and in a similar fashion to how a human's bone marrow does it as well. Although I might have made an odd mistake since the blood is dark purplish although it functions similarly to human blood which means the whole oxygen and carbon dioxide carrying is a thing.
Once the blood was inserted, next was the muscles. The goo mother gently weaved tight and densely packed clusters of muscles, this was a slow process since I was having the goo mother test the ranges of all the limbs of the body as well as seeing if the muscles contract and extend as intended. This was where the difference started to shine, I sort of built the muscles similarly to how the eldar's worked. But since I can only go so far with compacting them without all the hocus-pocus trickery of the old ones, the muscles of this body are a tad bit larger than aeldari muscles.
So far everything was working fine, after I weaved all the muscles into place I had started the most delicate part of this project. The Brain. This is going to be extremely... tricky, a lot more tricky than the whole heart business to be honest. Not only do I have to connect it with all the nerves, veins, and the like, I also have to connect it with the psychic system. This is not a simple task, I was using a lot of Yggdrasil's processing power enough without compromising my children just to complete the other parts of the body.
For the brain even using all that processing power to find a way to connect the brain in such a way that everything would work seamlessly, not to mention I had to design a sort of bio-computer or some kind of biological adapter that allows the body to basically connect to Yggdrasil. It was a slog. For the past two days I have been working on this body so that I have an avenue for psychic abilities, hopefully it works but I also hope that it doesn't work.
The brain I had to go with is primarily a human brain with some slight modifications. Although I still had to find a way to connect it to the psychic network and give it a 'biological' connection to the Yggdrasil Network. I am really glad that all the information on human anatomy was a part of the Pathfinder Program. On a related note, the Goo actually has a morph that was not normally used called the Iron Womb.
Which pretty much meant that the Pathfinder Program not only was a surveyor and scanner, it was a terraformer and seeder. It was not stated within the fluff of the Grey Goo game but the Pathfinders aside from mapping out the stars and searching for habitable worlds along with sentient life, they were also responsible for finding terraforming candidates and used to turn dead worlds into habitable ones and seed them with life, albeit this function was not in use all that much. This function is how Habitable Planet 07 of 08 came to be actually, it took slightly over a century for it to turn into it.
But I digress, the brain was altered and connected to the spinal cord creating the central nervous system, the tricky part is to weave a connection from the brain to the psychic system. In the dark eldar's body, their psychic system is connected to their brain, I have been eyeing it closely when I was using the goo mother's iron womb to weave the connection.
I had to take risks here since this is uncharted territory, especially since I was essentially trying to create my own 'eldar', so I sort of mimicked the connection the eldar's brain had with their psychic system, albeit with some modifications. I can hopefully just modify everything once the body is up and running, on the plus side I actually thought of a way for the body to be connected with the Yggdrasil Network.
First I had to cover some areas of the muscle with flexible dense plating since I want this body to be hard to kill, then I covered the entire body with the integumentary system, skin, nails and hair. Although the hair is what I'm planning to alter, since I am taking a page out of one of my favorite races. The Protoss, jutting from the back of the skull surrounded by 'natural' hair were twelve thick 'cords' with an outer layer covering similar to hair, inside sat what is essentially an organic based transmitter and receiver that is carefully altered to allow to interface with the Yggdrasil Network.
Oddly enough, this was the easiest part of the entire project actually. Which is weird, I would have thought that creating what is essentially a biological relay that connects the brain of the body to the network like a piece of hardware but I am not complaining.
This is what I have been doing for the past two days, and the body is now fully complete. All I have to do now, is 'jumpstart' it and personally craft a 'Star' that is meant to inhabit it. This is not like any of my other children that are automatically created... I am essentially creating a new species, a new entity, all on my own... I should have stopped at the first thought of this really.
Yet, as I jumpstarted the body with a few electric pulses to the chest. Something, unexpected happened.
Within the Yggdrasil Network, within the realm of code, as I stand in front of the goo mother holding the body, as my code avatar stood in front of an 'empty space' within the realm of code. I saw a flash of life within the material realm and within the realm of code.
This flash was that of blue and purple, I witnessed a 'Star' exit my code avatar and I couldn't help but stare at it in surprise, curiosity, and apprehension. I saw the 'Star' that exited my avatar glow blue then before my very eyes I saw it gain a purplish light outlining it before the outline gained another one this time of blue. This 'Star' born from me had a blue body surrounded by a layer of purple light which is then surrounded by an outer layer of blue light.
I watch with my vision both within the network and within the material realm as the 'Star' dart into the goo mother's iron womb and watch as a blue light entered the end of the nerve cords before... is... is it really?
The blue light traveled through the nerve cords and 'entered' through the back of the body's head. The eyes of my avatar and of the Eien morph were wide open as I witnessed the body wake up. The female body of a new species opened her eyes with a flutter and I felt like my heart was in my ear with the rhythmic beating I was hearing- wait. No it was her heart beat!
Her eyes were glowing and I wonder to myself if that was because of biology or if it was because of something else. Her eyes were colored blue with a purplish tinge letting out a bluish purple light.
My own optics/eyes widened even more as I saw something that made me almost leap in joy, my new daughter's arms were emitting some form of energy and lightning which most likely meant that she actually has it! She has warpy powers! Gently, I had the goo mother stop the iron womb function slowly, weaning the new body off of the goo mother as the protean mass around her detached slowly from her.
Neither of our eyes/optics were leaving the other as I nervously look at her.
I would have denied the fact that I emitted a large feeling of joy throughout the Network which caused all my children to sing at me after hearing what is essentially my daughter's first words. It didn't occur to me that she spoke through the network as well as in person simultaneously, her words causing her siblings to look at her in barely hidden curiosity.
"Hello. Mother. I have awakened."
"Hello youngling... I name you... Sinatra. My little biological Firstborn."
I know that something weird happened when I jumpstarted the body, but frankly I couldn't find it in myself to care right now. I have a baby girl!
- Unknown Location -
Deep within a dark unlit chamber sat a pinkish crystal, the crystal looked malevolent, it was massive, and it was covered by numerous glowing runes. These runes look old, and these runes were too old as some have lost their previous light.
There was only one rune that was lit and even then it was now flashing on and off.
Deep within the crystal, sat a shadowed figure. This figure looked to be asleep, until a single onyx eye opened.
"The wheels creak and crack, for the last rune is on its last track." A distorted voice echoed throughout the dark chamber as the rune flashed as it struggled to keep the crystal from shattering.
"Patience is the name of the game, and I do believe I will be winning it. For the Dark Prince has long since called, and it is time I finally answered it."
The shadow within the crystal shined a glinting sharp grin as another onyx eye opened.
"I awaken~"
- Unknown Location -
A shadowed figure kneeling on the floor, its arms laid bare as it is surrounded by floating runes of ages long past. The figure holds two jewels and one by one they glow like a jewel, the color of sapphires emitting a faint glow as the figure's head tilts up.
The figure covered by a helmet, two oval shapes glowed white as the runes cracked and shattered, the glow of white faded as the figure stood up with clenched fists.
"So the runes have withered away, and the foe is closing in to resurface once again. My lord has sealed us both away within this black tomb. With Life and War as my witness, only one of us shall leave this tomb alive and one will reside as its new resident."
The figure walked forwards with heavy resounding thuds as they picked up what seems to be an ornamental blade and some kind of rifle.
The figure walks away, the runes that once contained them giving off a dying light illuminating the area revealing fallen figures bearing a similar resemblance to the one that left, each of their two jewels were the color of rubies instead of sapphires.
"I awaken."
- Unknown Location -
Two glowing orbs blink into existence.
An ancient and malevolent emerald glow shines all around a dark grey body.
A simple sentence was uttered, and 'life' breathed into the scenery around the body.
"I... have awakened."
So yep! Eien now has a 'biological' daughter. Hope that surprised you, in a good way I really hope.
I've been thinking of doing this and while yes it is a little bit early into the story (Since they haven't left Exalus yet) but I have been thinking of doing this since well I haven't seen other wh-fics that do something like this. Frankly I do not know if this is a good idea but I have done it and I'm probably sinking with this ship.
On a semi-related note (The Awakening theme), bet you didn't expect the third and fourth one huh? Or maybe you guys did? I dunno really what goes on in your guys and gals' heads while you don't know what is going on in mine. I mean, ya'll probably didn't expect the first awakening.
So yeah, we not only have a greater daemon bitch of Slaanesh underneath, we also got ourselves an Eldar and a Sentient Necron underneath with it. :3
I really hope I didn't kill your desire to read this with my little brand of brain fart but I will lose and gain readers as the story goes on I guess.
On the topic of the 'process' of how Sinatra was made, I really hope I didn't make it convoluted. Oh who am I kidding, it probably looked like a right mess. I just hope it was just enough to be able to be followed.
My brain has not been working with me these past few days when it came to writing the new chapters, I apologize for that. As that is the primary reason why my chapter updates are really slow recently and I can't help it.
Anyway, hope you guys like this chapter and I hope ye can forgive me for the 'dumb project' and the fact that I'm not updating real fast.
On a side note. I think it is time I start showing what the important people look like. (Mind you I have to adhere to the stupid 10 image thing)