"Nakera Kaas, Mechanicus Neophyte, come forward." spoke the monotone voice of the Magus Ivanor Drol, High Mechanoseer of Carstorum IV, and overseer of the Adeptus Mechanicus College. He was a huge, unnaturally immobile man draped with reds, golds, whites, and metal. His cowl was drawn up over his face, hiding any features from view. Hoses poured out from the hood, however, telling her that there likely wasn't much left of his face beneath it. The electronic crackle from his chest told her that his annunciator was located far lower than her previous instructor's had been. His were folded across his midsection, sleeves meeting, with no sign of hands between them. Around him was a dozen servo skulls and mechadendrite arms, all moving, observing, or operating simple tasks like reading over the scroll held by one the skulls, or working autoquills on a document that would serve as record for this conversation.

The young woman stood, still slightly off balance from her surgeries. Her back burned still, where they had cut out a large section of her spine and replaced it with the True Flesh. Her body was still getting used to the changes she'd endured recently, and that was the most invasive of them. Her Cranial Circuitry at least FELT like it was a part of her. So far, the Cyber Mantle was more painful than anything. She pushed the pain away and moved forward, her white robes moving about her in the light wind. Carstorum was a wealthy world that didn't know the blight of hive cities, or the stench of industry. Instead, the Mechanicus Temple here focused on preserving the great artifacts and luxuries around the planet. Here, deep within the Temple's depths, she could still smell the fresh air and fragrant smells of the surface being pumped down. When she was before the Magus, she lowered herself to her knees, her robes pooling around her.

"You have proven capable of bearing the True Flesh and the Omnissiah's Will is that you will become an Adept. Shed the robes of the Neophyte and accept your calling." One of his massive mechadendrites moved towards her. She bowed her head, familiar with the ritual, and stood. The dozens of other students watched, each waiting their own chance to be assigned into the order. Easily fifty other members of the Cult Mechanicus stood in the stands beyond the students, familiar with the ceremony that they themselves went through at her age.

With a few buttons undone, she let the white robes fall from her shoulders and pool around her. In any other setting, she'd be incredibly ashamed at being exposed completely to the amount of people here, but this was the Cult Mechanicus, not one of the courts she fancied joining when she was a child. No one here cared about her flesh, only her faith. Her black hair laid messily on her head with one side was shaved to the skin only this morning and the other being her exposed cranial implants. From the back of her skull, where her cranial implants met her flesh, a thick band of dark copper ran beneath her skin. It looked dull, almost black as it ran down the length of her spine, splitting off towards her arms and wrapping around her ribs. The Cyber Mantle was visible, surrounded by the still red scar tissue that would eventually graft completely to it. From just below her shoulder blades down to the tip of her tailbone, her spine had been removed, replaced, and reworked with cybernetics. The chrome sheen of the metal gave motes of light to the floor as they reflected the lights overhead. The copper bands continued, around her hips, down the fronts and backs of her thighs, like some strange garter belt and stocking. On her arms, the bands moved across her biceps, down over her elbows, and zig zagged to her forearms before terminating in her palms. The bands were called Electoos. Strips of metal grafted under her skin. They all connected to her Cyber Mantle, within which held a device called a Potentia Coil. Since it's implantation, she was forced to quickly learn how to control the surges of power through her skin lest she deliver enough voltage to an appendage to cause burns.

She stepped forward and towards the four mechadendrites that were descending towards her. Each one bore a different tool of her office. The first was the final components of her Cyber Mantle. She knew this wasn't going to be pleasant.

The external housing of the cybermantle looked like a barrel connected two six round ports. On the body facing side was twelve inches of wicked looking needles, interface ports, and heavy duty bolts that would all serve to anchor the machine to it's host. Nakera bent forwards, crossing her wrists and touching her knees. The housing touched her implant and the sensation nearly made her jump. It was like ice cold quicksilver was being poured up her spine as the various interfaces connected and mated with the spinal implant she had. She braced herself for part two of the process. The implant settled, clicking it's final bolts over their holes, and with a scant second, the machine immediately started drilling into her to finalize the connection. She had subdermal mating points for the Mantle, but the time between them being put in and the mantle being installed meant that they would have healed over. Blood ran down her back and bottom, down her thighs. She did her best not to scream or cry - not that she was expected to keep silent - and held out as long as she could before the pain became too great. Lastly, the implant sealed itself in place. Chemicals reacted, quickly heating to the point of welding temperatures. There was no holding the screaming while this happened. The Magos's mechadendrites kept her from falling until the procedure was complete. Even then, she could barely support her weight and quickly fell to her knees. A medical servo skull applied antiseptic and cleaned her body of blood when she finally stood. It was an odd sensation, feeling the servos and motors of the Cyber Mantle whirring to life at her command. Currently, they had nothing to command, so it was fruitless.

That came next.

When she stood, she looked up at the Magos and spoke her part. "I accept the gifts of the Omnissiah, and swear from now until the day my mind passes, to uphold the Truth of the Machine. My flesh will fail, but the Omnissiah will guide me in all things, and I will guide those to the Omnissiah's wisdom."

Another Mechadendrite was lowered as she spoke. It connected a small coil of tubing to one of the ports in her Cyber Mantle. With a jolt, it unraveled and fell to the floor. She collected her wits and recalled the litanies she needed to recall to control her new appendage. The long tube, now much like a tentacle, lifted and coiled like a scorpion's tail. It's end had no device on it, no feature, just a collection of interface ports.

The last Mechadendrite lowered to her a red robe. The fabric was heavy, warm, and smelled of sacred unguents and the forge. She let it fall over her shoulders and concentrated on making the mechadendrite maneuver through the fabric and out the overlaying square of cloth cut specifically for the device now apart of her. Clothed once more, she bowed again, feeling a bit more confident with the movement of her clothing. From the left, a cart was brought out. On it were a number of technical tools, devices, and parts.

"Now begins your trials. Use what you have learned here, and apply the knowledge practically. Take these tools. Follow Adept Kormath into the libraries and prove your worth to the Cult Mechanicus.

She nodded, grabbing the assortment of tools. She could remember so much from her training. The Biologis rites, the Incantations of Sacred Ignition, the Cognitos Veritas, all of it was in her head...and now she had a chance to prove her worth.

******

Nakera awoke from her dream - a familiar one - with a slow realization that she was no where near home, or a member of the Cult Mechanicus. She looked at her wrists. Still chained. Tried to move her mechadendrite. Still bound. She still smelled of filth and mildew. It had been nearly a month they'd kept her in this cell. Throne-Forsaken pirates.

She remembered back to her trails and laughed at her hopefulness to make an impression on the Cult. Instead, she became a Lexmechanic, assigned to collate and organize data, transmissions, communications, and records. No great adventure, no heroic technologies recovered from long forgotten colonies. No grand mystery...just a life of data analysis and entry. When they told her, she felt...crushed. She left a life of nobility, of importance, of beautiful dresses and handsome husbands behind so that she could do something meaningful with the Adeptus Mechanicus. Her family refused to talk with her after she took her vows. She remembered crying, as a teenager in the College, after reading how her Father insisted that she never speak to them again, and must choose a new name to have her flights of fancy with. Now it all seemed so petty.

She'd been on this world - a frontier world set to receive nearly five hundred thousand occupants in less than a year - barely a week when the first raid came. Her office, literally six adepts and a Vox Caster, was asked to organize the defenses while the Militia was formed against the heathens that were coming. She'd fired a lasgun before, but overseeing defenses was not something she had any skill at. The three hundred people living in this colony stood no chance against an organized strike.

Which is how she ended up here. She did what she could from the Communications Office - even managed to scramble the raider's own Vox system. When they kicked down the door, she was shot almost instantly. To everyone's amazement, she lived. One of the raiders patched her up and they decided a pet Mechanicus Adept would be far more valuable than another corpse.

That was a month ago. She was exactly that, too. A pet. She was brought out to impress other pirates, or to fix minor issues. Even now, on the fringes of space, away from all that could be considered law...guess what her job was.

That's right. Data processing.

She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Who knows, maybe tomorrow a Vox Caster would need to be re-calibrated.

Gareth stopped at the sound of gravel shifting up ahead and brought his lascarbine up to his face, one eye closed, the other keenly peering through the sight. He relaxed when one of his squadmates rounded the corner of the broken rockrete wall; only slightly, though, for it was Apollyon Kaicero, the man of their motley crew that he knew and trusted the least. The grizzled soldier hailed Kaicero with a quick wave and he responded in kind, a condescending smile on his lips. A few hand signs later and it was clear that Kaicero hadn't found their objective either. Gareth suggested continuing on together and Kaicero agreed.

Like many ex-Guardsmen, Gareth had kept his old combat fatigues and flak armor, though all Imperial livery and symbols had long-since been removed. From the top of his bald head to the soles of his bootstrapped feet, he looked like the walking stereotype of soldier-turned-mercenary. The man opposite him was very different. Kaicero looked younger, handsome, with smooth and fair skin and his hair was beautiful – gold, with a silken shine to it, and trimmed to perfection. Neat, pearly white teeth were visible when he smiled and his eyes were bright blue, though the soldier had a sneaking suspicion that they were high-end bionic implants. Something in the iris seemed to shift every so often and Gareth could swear that they glowed in the dark. Kaicero wore what was obviously a very expensive outfit, featuring a slim, high-collared black overcoat, strategically padded with ballistic fiber, beneath which the soldier could make out a form-fitting flak cuirass. His hands were gloved in black leather and his feet were clad in steel-tipped combat boots. Tying the whole ensemble together was a bright yellow sash worn around Kaicero's waist, adding a dash of colour. Bizarrely, he smelled like flowers.

All of that was unusual by itself, but what made Kaicero really extraordinary was the weapon he wielded. It was expertly crafted and obviously of xenos-make but Gareth had never before seen anything like it. The rifle-sized weapon consisted of a sullen grey metal body that reminded him a little of Eldar weaponry in its design; there wasn't a single straight line or hard edge to be seen and the design was dominated by soft, round shapes and curved tubes. Contained within this metal framework was an exotic capacitor of some kind that glowed dimly with an electrical, blue light. The wide barrel was slitted and vaguely hexagonal in shape.

The two men had met only a few days before when their employer's shuttle had come to collect the squad from the spaceport. Gareth had asked Kaicero a few questions in an attempt to get to know the blond man a little before their mission but Kaicero's answers had unsettled him.

“I hail from the hive world Aphrodus IV,” Kaicero had said. “It is a fine planet, make no mistake, and I was born into a very privileged position there, but I outgrew its limited potential some time ago. The Ghoul Stars are so much more... interesting, don't you agree? Look around you, my friend. Such variety! On top of that, not having to deal with the Adeptus Arbites at every turn is very refreshing – and do not get me started on the Inquisition. No, my friend, the great Imperium of mankind did not agree with me at all. I am here because I need the freedom to do what my heart desires.” There was a slightly dramatic tone to his voice but the wrinkles around his bright eyes and the curling corners of his sculpted mouth had betrayed his amusement.

“You came here because you were bored?” Gareth had replied and narrowed his eyes, incredulous. “Are you telling me you're one of those spoiled aristocrats who joined a death cult for shits and giggles or something? Explains the fancy gear, friend, but you're in way over your head if you think the Ghoul Stars are a great holiday spot,” he said and shook his head. Kaicero reminded him of Chaos-worshippers, who Gareth mostly knew as the worst kind of employer. Their mercurial and devious nature made them unpredictable and if there was anything the soldier hated, it was unpredictable.

Kaicero's reply had been short. He'd tilted his head and smiled. “Very perceptive of you, my friend, but I feel like you might be too quick to judge.”

In the here and now, Gareth made sure to let Kaicero take point. The soldier couldn't help being impressed by Kaicero's noise discipline and feline grace as the aristocrat navigated the debris-strewn ground. He barely made a sound. They were walking through the empty ruins of an old techo-library in a human settlement on a desolate Dead World, abandoned due to the unknown threat that had cleansed the Ghoul Stars of human occupation, and looking for a cogitator room where an ancient artifact was supposed to be located. Their employer had been suspiciously scarce with the details and only given them a description of what it was supposed to look like; a black, avian skull about the size of a walnut. That Gareth couldn't guess what made it so valuable worried him and the rest of the squad. Kaicero did not seem to share their concerns as the blond man had merely winked when Gareth brought up the topic and said: “Interesting, don't you think?”

The squad had initially fanned out to search the wide corridors and empty halls of the subterrenean ruins as the auspex seemed to indicate it was devoid of life. Gareth and Kaicero quietly crept down a series of stairs, delving deeper into the complex, and came upon the lifeless corpse of their Vespid squadmate at the bottom. Gareth cursed and felt his heartrate spike – they were obviously not alone. Kaicero was unreadable as he crouched next to the Vespid, lifting the xenos' arm to get a better look at the wound that killed it. Gareth kept his rifle up and scanned his sectors obsessively – the dark hallway was only lit by their flashlights and he felt like the oppressive shadows were about to materialize into a lethal threat. His breath steemed in the cold air, cobwebs danced from the barren, stone walls in a thin breeze and Kaicero's creaking leather gloves made the only sound. Nothing happened.

Gareth unclenched. Kaicero stood back up in a single, fluid motion and Gareth looked at him, expecting a hand sign to tell him what had killed the Vespid, but Kaicero just shrugged. No idea. Annoyed, Gareth motioned for Kaicero to step aside and knelt down at the Vespid's corpse himself. Kaicero raised his exotic weapon and stood watch. Gareth idly wondered what exactly it was that Kaicero's rifle did when fired as he aimed his flashlight at the Vespid's side. Blue blood leaked out of the serrated wound and Gareth prodded it with his finger, lifting the skin and digging in. He pulled out an extremely thin projectile, circular and featuring a heavily jagged edge. It almost seemed to disappear when he looked at it head-on and Gareth immediately recognized it for what it was. He sighed deeply and slowly got to his feet. It was Kaicero's turn to look at him expectantly now and Gareth made the appropriate hand signal, a beak-like shape with all his fingertips pressed together. Eldar.

Kaicero's eyes came alive with interest. Gareth could see something shifting and turning in the aristocrat's irises again and grimaced – enthusiastic curiosity was not the appropriate response to learning they were being hunted by psychic space-freaks. The ex-Guardsman had only dealt with Eldar a few times and was glad he made it out alive on every occasion. Gareth shook his head, shot Kaicero a last disapproving glare, raised his rifle to his face again and set off at a snail's pace. He was determined not to be ambushed this time. Kaicero followed with a spring in his step.

They met up with two more of their squadmates. Gav'althir, the Kroot, was distraught to learn of the Vespid's death, and Mika shook her head. Neither of them indicated they had seen the Eldar and were immediately overtaken by a healthy sense of paranoia, much to Gareth's satisfaction. At least they had the sense to be wary. The four of them continued, each carefully watching one direction, their backs to each other as they crept through the facility.

For the longest time, nothing continued to happen, until the four of them came upon a large, circular chamber illuminated from above – the roof had caved in, allowing the pale silver sunlight of the planet's distant star through. Rockrete rubble littered the chamber in huge chunks, some of them more than fifteen feet high. To his relief, Gareth saw rows upon rows of cogitators, some of them smashed by the debris, but the room fit the description provided by their employer. The sooner they found that damned skull and got out of here, the better. They approached the center of the room, sticking to the shadows cast by the largest rockrete chunks. Kaicero took point.

He rounded a corner and laughed. It was a bright, pealing sound that made Gareth's hairs stand on end. The soldier was about to punch Kaicero in the neck for breaking noise discipline when he realized Kaicero must have found something. He peered around the stone edge and saw an Eldar slowly rising to its feet, its back turned to Kaicero. The xenos was tall, unnaturally thin and entirely covered in blood-red armor. Gareth willed Kaicero to fire his weapon and kill it, but the blond man spoke instead.

“Eldar,” Kaicero said, smiling. He cocked his head and laughed again, quieter this time. The Eldar turned around, its hands still holding a shuriken rifle, and Gareth swore he could see the creature's disgust and disappointment through the tall helmet that covered its face.

“Mon-keigh,” came the reply.

“Drop it,” Kaicero quipped cordially. He motioned with his weapon for emphasis. The Eldar obliged after a few seconds, understanding that it had been outplayed when Gareth, Gav'althir and Mika came into view, their weapons aimed at the Eldar's face. Gareth swiftly swept past Kaicero and forced the Eldar to its knees. “Why are you here?” Kaicero asked.

The Eldar made a noise of disapproval. “You would not understand,” it spoke, its voice high and cold. “You are blind to the future.”

Amused, Kaicero tutted. “Cute. Do not make me ask again, Eldar. You will regret it.” However threatening the contents of his words, the tone of his voice did not become any less polite and conversational. It unnerved the hell out of Gareth. Who the hell was this man anyway?

Gav'althir screeched and collapsed. Shuriken rounds whipped by soundlessly. “Ambush!” Gareth yelled and dove for cover – that, at least, was plentiful. A bright flash of blue light flared, accompanied by a harsh, electrical sound and a loud thunderclap. The lifeless corpse of the Eldar, its armor shattered, flew out of sight. Gareth initially thought that was Mika's doing, the group's psyker, but quickly realised it was Kaicero's rifle. It dawned on him what the weapon must be – a Xenarch death-arc. He whistled appreciatively.

More Eldar were coming. Gareth could hear one of them howling and cursed. He hated the Banshees. He poked his head out to get a read on where the rest of the squad was and saw Mika's corpse. Kaicero had disappeared from sight, but another loud bang and flash of light, bright enough to illuminate the distant walls of the chamber, meant that he was still putting that death-arc to good use. Gareth spotted two Eldar running between the rubble and lined up his shot – two quick bursts of lasfire put one of the Eldar warriors down as the other lept for cover. Gareth took this opportunity to sprint towards the location of the last death-arc discharge, hoping to link up with Kaicero.

What he saw when he found Kaicero beggared belief. The blond man, his death-arc now slung around his torso, was engaging the Howling Banshee in melee combat. Kaicero had produced a combat knife from within his coat and was evading the whistling edge of the Banshee's pale wraithbone blade while making the occassional jab himself. That he was even keeping up with the Eldar's speed was remarkable and Gareth quickly realized that it wasn't just Kaicero's eyes that were bionics, and from the speed of his reflexes it was obvious he was glanding something more potent than adrenaline. Gareth attempted to line up a shot but Kaicero and the Banshee were dancing around each other too fast for the ex-Guardsman to fire without fear of killing his ally. Instead, he whirled around when another Eldar appeared with the intention of shooting a distracted Kaicero in the back. Gareth didn't doubt that the xenos would be precise enough to get the killshot. Gareth beat the Eldar to the punch, however, and gunned it down with a barrage of lasfire. The Banshee, distraught, turned her head – just for a split second – to look at her fallen comrade and Kaicero did not waste the opportunity, plunging his combat knife into the Eldar's abdomen. The Banshee gasped and staggered back. Kaicero, still smiling, unslung his death-arc, casually aimed it in the general direction of the xenos and pulled the trigger.

Several tendrils of lightning exploded from the barrel, spidering across the rockrete in search of a target, and when one of them connected with the Banshee it pulsed with power and blasted the Eldar's armored form asunder. At such close range, the thunderclap was almost deafening. Plasmic discharge fell to the floor along the length of the fatal lightning tendril's path and ate into the rockrete.

“Holy Throne,” Gareth stuttered.

Kaicero turned to look at him. Unbelievably, the aristocrat hadn't even broken a sweat. “Neat, isn't it?” He laughed again and said: “Oh, how exciting!”

Gareth was immediately furious. “Exciting? Most of our squad is dead and you would have been too, if I hadn't covered your back,” he spat and jabbed a finger in the direction of the dead Eldar that had attempted to shoot Kaicero, slumped against a chunk of debris. For the first time, Gareth saw a crack in Kaicero's demeanor, and the aristocrat frowned. “Yeah, that's what I thought,” Gareth continued. “Not so fun when it's almost you that hits the dust, is it? How much experience do you have with this line of work, huh? Even with all those fancy implants and that gear you still behave like a thrice-damned amateur.”

The blond man opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when Gareth held up his hand. “I don't want to hear it. Let's find this damn skull and get the feth out of here.”

Kaicero fell in line, sullen-faced, as Gareth stomped through the chamber, his lasrifle at the ready should there be any more Eldar. Their employer had described the resting place of the avian skull as a small safe plugged into one of the cogitator rows instead of a screen. It should not be too hard to find.

Quietly, Kaicero lined up his death-arc and aimed it at Gareth's back.

Harvin Freimasen is a thirty one year old man raised on the Civilised World of Slome, a place possessed largely of technology similar to what might be found within the first century of M03. With fairly light skin, a somewhat thin build, unkempt dirty-blonde hair and green-blue eyes, he would not nominally be anything special to look at; however, this is countermanded by both the crazed expression of vague fear constantly plastered to his face, and the immensely oversized robotic arm in place of his normal left arm, adding disproportionately to his mass for a total of about 100 kilograms, complete with support implants between it and various points on his body to let him move somewhat normally. The reason for this artificial arm's absurd weight is rather apparent, being as large as his torso on its own; further to this, however, it is overloaded with, and can shift apart its external plasteel plating in various ways to reveal, a variety of weapons, including a number of las and solid projectile weapons, up to and including a Hellpistol and a heavy stubber, and two drive-linked chainswords on both the underside and overside of the arm. Most precious of all, the arm hides an Angelus Bolt Carbine, making use of expensive and illegal bolt rounds intended for Astartes rather than human use.

Naturally, the ammunition and upkeep costs for all of these weapons would be extreme if he were to use them constantly, and so he often conserves ammunition against less threatening foes by simply charging arm-first into close combat, using his artificial arm like a shield (the armaplas proving effective against light las and solid projectile fire as well as many close combat weapons and even chainswords, though less so against stronger assaults like bolter rounds and power weapons) before bludgeoning the target with incredible force, though this is naturally an idea to be avoided against greater threats. Other than this, his protection is limited to flak armour, and the fairly plain beige clothing worn underneath, and the arm itself could easily prove to be volatile for all the ammunition stored within both attached to the weapons and ready to be loaded in, should its defenses be pierced.

Naturally, people are inclined to wonder what necessitated the robotic arm in the first place, and those rare few who espy the Bolt Carbine to ask how in the Warp he got one of those. It all started, as they say, at the age of about twelve, when a Chaos cult invaded his home town of Silentumo. Naturally, the majority of the townspeople knew nothing of this cult until it was too late to protect themselves from a horde of cultists in the dark of the night, but Harvin in particular failed to awaken until the attack had actually reached his home's front door. Though he did his best to find a way out before it was too late, he found himself cornered by a man with a heretical symbol across his chest, like a circle with eight arrows pointing from it, and an immense axe which smelt of death and made Harvin want to throw up. The cultist was shockingly fast with the weapon, and if it had struck his body, it would have dealt mortal damage; yet for his youth, Harvin was rather agile himself, and managed to dodge the weapon's blow to some extent, merely losing his arm at the shoulder instead of his life.

Even that would have been fatal were the injury inflicted by a normal weapon, or if Harvin were a normal human. However, the axe was a weapon with a daemonic force bound to it, and Harvin was a latent psyker. The combination of the two forcibly awakened Harvin's psychic power then and there, reflexively searing his new wound shut and blasting the axe wielder into giblets in a single burst of energy. Whilst it saved his life in the short term, in the middle of a Chaos attack is not when any psyker wants to awaken, and Harvin found himself only halfway conscious from the searing ache of the Warp pressing against his mind as he made his way out of his house, through the streets, avoiding contact with everyone and using his psychic abilities to kill the few cultists he encountered, though each use of his power only worsened the headache. Through luck or the Emperor's mercy, he managed to get out of town otherwise unscathed, and then ran another few miles before unconsciousness finally took him, barely avoiding the wrath of the Astra Militarum force consequently sent to cleanse the town of everything in it, heretical or not.

Though physically, all he had lost was an arm, and he managed to walk his way to a town unaffected by the madness and live there as a basically homeless person for another few years, his mind never really recovered from the trauma. Aside from anything else, he desperately feared his own abilities as a psyker, knowing full-well that whatever force had led to his home's destruction that day could just as easily take notice of him and crush his psyche into nothingness on a whim, and so refused to use his powers unless it was absolutely necessary. That in turn focused itself into a form of directed obsession - through luck and self-education, he scavenged enough materials to build himself a new arm, only to become concerned that maybe something like what happened before would happen again, necessitating the addition of a hidden weapon, then another, then armour plating, and so on, and the arm soon became obnoxiously bulky, to the point of needing hydraulic supports to be welded into his flesh and to the arm to keep him stable. And even then, he carried more than just his own self from the ruins of his hometown: though to this day he is unaware of it, the remnants of those souls who had died in Silentumo both good and evil latched on to the energy emitted by the newborn psyker as he ran, feeding off his power like parasites to sustain and protect themselves, and in turn inflicting upon their host hallucinations of a gore-covered dimension made of metal, often infested with monsters which were and are just as capable of injuring him as anything in the real world, being essentially minor manifestations of Silentumo's dead in the fabric of the Warp.

Time passed, as it does, and it eventually happened that Harvin, at the age of nineteen, found himself stowing away on some rich noble's spaceship, acquiring access (albeit painfully, thanks to the influence of leaping through the Warp on his mind) to the wider galaxy, only to learn just how backward his planet really was by modern standards... or, more accurately, how ineffective and primitive his cybernetic limb was when faced with modern armour. And yet, how many Tech-priests there were! Scions of the Omnissiah, seemingly a counterpart to the Imperium's ruler known only as the Emperor, and masters of its technology to an insane, impossible degree. If he had their knowledge, just a bit of it, surely he could make his arm better than it was, rebuild it to match up with the threats faced by humanity? Naturally, finding a Tech-priest with the relevant information to do so was a difficult feat in itself, and trying to convince them to fix up his arm once found was all but impossible with no Thrones of his own, leading to building frustration and, ultimately, a thought too insane to contemplate for long without discarding it.

Alas, Harvin did not have time to contemplate it for very long. He had a chance encounter with a Tech-priest in a lonesome corridor of yet another starship, and the thought occurred to him like a near-irrefutable argument: before he could convince himself otherwise, he used his psychic power to knock out the Tech-priest, then dredged every ounce of data from the priest's mind, copying it over to his own, but knocking out a good half of the priest's own memory in the process (including, coincidentally, the priest's entire memory of the past twenty four hours, Harvin included) and severely messing up his own thought processes for a time. Far too much of the information gained was unworkable for lack of training, advanced tools, and Warp static, and was eventually discarded, but what he could utilise was more than enough to achieve his rebuilding dreams. Naturally, since he'd already done something rather abhorrent, he figured frisking the offline cyborg for items to sell was no further issue, and in doing so acquired easily the most valuable personal item he'd ever encountered: a gun with an immensely wide barrel and room for just three massive bolt rounds in its clip, which he would later learn was an Angelus Bolt Carbine, one of the stronger human-portable weapons in existence, which would eventually be built into his future arm.

With everything said and done, Harvin realised he would need much more advanced materials to perform his rebuild... and to acquire those, he would either need to find scrap and weaponry to build from, or get quite rich, and the former was ironically less prevalent on a galaxy-wide scale than it had been on Slome. So, naturally, he began to put himself out as a mercenary at the earliest opportunity, because there was no other way he could reasonably function in his state, and even the role of mercenary was rarely good for his mindset what with the blood and gore involved, as well as the surprisingly-high degree of politicking involved in payment negotiations. Small jobs at first, of course; then, as he acquired his materials and a few new guns to replace those of his homeworld, steadily increasing the amount that the jobs he took were worth, until he reached about the middle class of "society" beyond the Imperium's laws - in other words, with enough money to subsist comfortably, minus the reputation needed to become truly notorious, though in his mind, this is perhaps for the best until he can find a larger group to become part of. Now, in his early thirties, Harvin remains an individual who is, not broken, but somewhat cracked as a result of his experiences, and further bent and deformed so as to fit into his role: friendly enough on the surface and reasonably skilled, yet unhealthily paranoid, obsessed with his arm's continued functionality, liable to experience yet another hallucination of faceless nurses or oversized worms split in twain at any moment, and generally likely to emit a range of high-pitched screeches whilst in combat. Funny to watch, not so funny to be on the receiving end of.