Culluket

Mass Effect: Brink

Vol watched, slowly grinding out his cigar, his pressure-mask expressionless as his Vorcha welcome wagon was scorched, pulped and perforated by the enthusiasm of the suddenly-reformed Dashers. The lug, the lush and the loner, all together again, and all tearing through his carefully-laid plan like pyjaks through a food crate. Now everyone BUT Callaway would be heading toward his inner sanctum. The situation had spiraled out of all proportion. And it was all because of...

"ZIK!" bellowed Vol, wheezing and thumping one metal fist against the desk as a familiar shape cartwheeled across the camera's field of view, grinning maniacally.

---

A pair of seasoned thugs, one human, one Turian, glanced back toward the sealed door as they lounged against the alcoves to either side. The black marketeer's muffled rage continued to sound distantly through the blast shields.

"He sounds mad." crackled the human's voice from behind his helmet. "You think this Zik is gonna launch a counterstrike?"

"Nawww, there ain't no such guy." offered the Turian, smoothly.

"What, for real?"

"Yeah, yeah." he gestured vaguely. "It's some Volus thing, like if I was to say to you, uhhhh, 'the Devil made me do it' or something. Like, there's no literal actual human Devil, it's just a thing you say when things go wrong. Specter of bad luck, wrench in the works, you get the picture."

"Seems pretty worked up over a specter."

"Listen, I've heard the boss blame 'Zik' for everything from a reactor overload to not enough blue ice in his Matra Colada. It's a fairy tale, like Kalros, or Josef Stalin."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"...Those were both real, though."

"What?"

"Kalros and Stalin were both real."

"Get outta here."

"Telling you, man. Seen the vids."

"...Huh."

Both men stood up a little straighter, shifting their grip on their guns and watching the dim corridors with sudden unease.

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

I'm around. And also probably the culprit of Clocks woes.

@Savage

No, we already established that was the villainous Dok Klokk.

Def looking forward to the climax of the Bladeventures, however, and when you've got too much free time I do still want to get Erron to Asphodel in a chronicle to trash some rare and precious mythical creature.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

Me. If you want.

@Pirouette

Meat-eating zombie girl versus eco-conscious plant guy? Sounds like a perfect date.

Broker plays Mercy in the Devil skin

@Hellis

Ahaha yes. "Hmm..? You require healing? Very well. I'm sure we can come to some... arrangement."

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

@BCTheEntityI'm a bit lost on what to do really, considering I need at least someone else on Ullanor to do something/respond to me before I feel like I'm ready to make a decent post.

@ClocktowerEchos

It's straightforward. You either wait or you don't.

If it were me, which it is not, I'd press ahead as if something had prevented communication. Maybe you were being jammed somehow, by a villainous Mek (called Dok Klokk, imo,) or maybe a million stormboyz landed on you for an airborne jetpack fight before you could get a reply. Scrap it out, receive the Emperor's message, mow down the remainder as their morale breaks. Get creative. Do anything at all other than make yourself a prisoner to indefinitely delayed responses, hard as that can sometimes be.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

Our Characters after these events should take a break, with some Overwatch. Think about it. Heroes playing a game about Heroes.

@VATROU

Little do they know they're playing against villains!

The villains lose because Silence keeps lagging.

Mass Effect: Brink

@The Nebulous Good plan, good plan. If the guys can't persuade Vol to throw in, I already have a surprise motivation for him to do so.

And @DirtyDingo, yeah, don't worry about that too much. The opening escapade has been more lighthearted because it was determined by me, the Volus, and even in the darkest Mass Effect settings, those guys have generally been the comedy race. Once the VORCHA are dealt with, I have no doubt things will find their own temperature.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

ͬ̄͆̈́́ͤ ̛ͦ̓̚ ͌̋̈́̓͊͡ ̏̿̅ͦ ͆͐̑ͦ͂ ̈́́̌ ̆͐͋̇͆́ ͣ̈̾̾̐ͬ͜ ͦͩ́ ̉ͣ̔́͒͠ ̎ͭ̏̑͒ ̉̎͠ ̴̓͋̒̽̈́ ͊̐͑ͮ͌ ͧ̉ ͥͧ͆̆ͦ͛ ̔͑ͨͨ͒ ͬ͂ͧ̅͛ ͧ͜ ͮ̈́͒̐͌ͫ ͂ͥ ̧̏ ̿̓͑̔̽͞ ͮ̆́̀ ̓͒̉̚ ̀̓̍͑͑ ͑ͪ̊͋͆͂̈́

M͘E̛͟A̶N͏̨W̴̨H͝I͢͟͡LE

"--joyrider who crashed an out-of-service metro bus into the bay has still yet to be identified--"

Mike Jones, aka Killa Deth, lounged on an orange plastic wall-seat as the television chattered in one corner of the Donutcahedron, tapping out a rhythm on his enormous thighs. The warm air of the store smelt distractingly of batter, sugar and mouth-watering deliciousness, and if there was a better way to start the day in this town, he hadn't found it and hoped he never did.

"--downtown riots believed to be caused by panic due to the developing metahuman crisis--"

Carrie Crowley, the forty-something proprietor, heaved a wide cardboard box onto the counter, its base already beginning to turn damp.

"Here ya go, hun! Two dozen extra-hots."

"Mm-MMM, smells good!" He stood, stooping slightly to keep his head from hitting the roof, and lumbered over, taking the box under one huge brown arm and slapping a bill down on the counter. "Thanks, Carrie."

"Well, Shelly, I think it should be pretty clear to everyone that these domes are a false flag operation designed to draw attention away from the actions of the global Illuminati--"

"You betcha. Hell, I'll give ya the cop discount, too." She dinged the register.

"Uhhhh...." Deth rubbed the back of his neck, "...Yo, you know we all bad guys, right?"

"Sweetie, last week there was a guy in the next district callin' himself the Texas Battlesnake literally tryin' to drop Agent Orange on Mexico. You and your pals rippin' off a bunch of Wall Street parasites and spendin' the money on donuts just doesn't come close. Now g'wan and get outta here, you're blockin' up the entrance."

---

"Heyyy Killa Deth!"

A couple of local kids boarded the swaying, rattling subway train, heading his way and throwing high fives as the doors closed.

"Villinus, man!"

"Hey little brothers. You keepin' in school?" He pointed with both hands, giving them an exaggerated, interrogative look from under his brow. They chorused in the affirmative.

"That's good. I know it sucks, yeah? But you gotta learn. The more you know, the less ways the Man got of lyin' to you and keepin' you down."

"Just pile-drive him like you did t' Manifest Density." One of the kids piped up. Jones shook his head, chomping down on a donut directly beneath the No Consumption Of Food Onboard This Train sign.

"Man, violence ain't th' answer to nothin'," he said between chews, "That's just what you do when you got no options left."

"You cleaned out that Gene place, tho?"

"Yo, those guys were experimentin' on puppies and shit. I got no regrets over trashin' that place. Gave that money to a animal rights group, too." He licked sugar off his fingers, nodding firmly.

"Like, PETA?"

"Hell no not like PETA! A real one."

"But you beat up th' Anchorman, right?" asked another. "Davey was tellin' us about it."

"Well he didn't leave me no damn choice. Fool was bustin' up one little demo got a little hot, and starts disrespectin' women. In my neighbourhood. I ain't havin' that! So yeah, I called him out and then I kicked his dumb ass til he manned up and said he was sorry. You remember that, little brothers," He frisbee'd them a donut each, heaving himself up as the carriage slowed to a halt, stooping slightly to avoid banging his head on the roof. "Bein' badass ain't about pushin' folks around or gettin' rich. Bein' badass is about stayin' real and stayin' true, no matter how hard it gets, or how many damn cops get in your damn way."

---

There were several cops in his way.

They were arrayed all along the street as he emerged from the subway station, lined up behind a low wall of plastic barriers and parked squad cars, blue and red lights flashing noiselessly. The foremost raised his hand, the other already hovering over his gun.

"That's far enough."

"Man are you for real?"

"I mean it, Deth! Step back from the barrier or we'll be forced to, ah..."

The cop had the decency to look uncertain. One of the other officers shrugged at him, helplessly.

"Get outta my face, Johnny Law! What, you gonna arrest a brother just for headin on to work, now?"

"Lucky for, ah... you, we're not after you today, Deth." The cop rubbed the back of his neck, "Whole district's cordoned off, can't let you through."

"And why the hell not?"

"Ah, some kinda disturbance before sunup, commuters and night workers rioting over something, they hadda bring the water cannons out."

"Folks shook up over this meta thing, yeah?"

"Might be. Ahh, not supposed to talk about it, but they're not ruling out some kind of chemical agent. Terror attack, maybe." He sighed, deflating. "...Look, they don't pay me enough to take on guys like you and the department's overworked as it is. If you're set on going through, I can't stop you, but for your own sake, watch your step. If you get dizzy, if you start to feel abnormal in any way, get back behind the line as soon as possible. And try not to bust anything else, okay? My ulcer's killing me."

---

A few helicopters roared overhead, circling. Jones gave them the finger, chewing with his cheeks stuffed full. City was turning into a god damn police state.

Past the barricade, the street was mostly deserted. Some broken windows, a few smashed shop fronts. Smoke still trailed from a burnt-out cab that had been flipped onto the sidewalk, but as riots went, this one looked pretty tame. The weird part was that everywhere, brick and glass seemed to have been defaced with psychedelic, nonsensical swirls of graffiti. Some of it even looked like kid's drawings. Hell, the middle of the street was covered by a gigantic pink mural of a grinning cat.

Least it gave the place some color.

The sparse, withered trees that lined the sidewalk grew thicker as he got closer to The Rabbit Hole bar, mingling with the wire fences and rusting street signs, casting deep shadows over cracked concrete. It was getting colder, too. Shallow drifts of snow were heaped in the gutters and stairwells, and there was this tune in his head, old and distantly familiar. It was getting maddeningly harder to think about anything else.

Right as the thicket was getting too dense to negotiate, he saw the neon sign, its lights currently dark, its arrow pointing down and twined with the dim frames for the animated rabbit. That had been Black Rabbit's gimmick, of course, back when she was running the show. Jones started down the stairs into the alcove, licking powdered sugar off his fingers, humming that goddamned tune to himself, and that's when he saw it.

"Aw-- maaan!"

The bar's lock had been broken open. The door creaked faintly on its hinges, showing only a thin crack of darkness behind. And there it was again -- the random colors, and a weird-ass gang sign, like a crude archway formed of horizontal lines, the word BABE sprayed across the width of the door, followed by the letter L underneath it

"Buncha damn animals in this town," Deth mumbled in an affronted tone, cradling his box under one arm. "...When I find out who Babe L is, he better watch the hell out." He shouldered open the door, "I'm gonna bust a track and roast his ass but good..."

He stopped dead. The donuts fell to the ground.

"Aww hell," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "Aww hell, no, I always cry at this part..."

The bar opened into a clearing, the dark, cold forest framing an old, familiar scene, one he had long ago forgotten but which now flooded back in a torrent of raw anguish. Bambi's mother, laid out in the snow, silent and unmoving. And Bambi slumped next to her, weeping softly, now hopeless and alone in a bleak, uncaring world. The moment had unmade him when he was a boy, like it had unmade him when his uncle had taken him and his half-brothers on that first and last hunting trip. The terrible weight of the senseless, tragic loss overcame him.

"They killed her, man," he choked, "Just straight up killed her, in front of her little boy." Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, a reservoir of fresh childhood grief gushing to the surface. "That ain't right. It ain't right."

The music distorted, becoming off-speed, as though playing through a broken gramaphone. The scene melted and subtly changed, warping nightmarishly from Walt Disney to H.R. Giger. The trees grew ribbed and cadaverous. The doe's corpse now lay steaming and bloody, her beautiful head half-shattered by buckshot, her ribs exposed, her kindly eyes bulging and red, and Bambi was no longer sniffling weakly at his mother's side, but throwing his head back and screaming, and screaming, and screaming. The noise rang like a colossal bell, boring into Michael's skull like an industrial drill. He cried out and staggered, falling to his hands and knees in the snow.

"Jesus! Stop!" Panic strained at his voice. The noise was maddening. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry!"

The corpse of Bambi's mother lifted its ruined head a few inches, flopping weakly as though tugged up by invisible strings, its tongue lolling from the side of its exposed jaw. Something slithered from its torn nose in cold gobbets of blood.

"Michael." it rasped. Something dark and foul dripped from its single, sightless eye. The musician blanched, flinching in raw horror.

"Oh god, no!" he shouted.

"Michael, I need you to listen to me carefully."

"Oh Christ." His stomach heaved and he retched, his last three donuts gurgling from his lips and staining the snow a sick yellow-brown.

"Michael, I am actually in a whole lot of pain here, so if you could just stop acting like a retard idiot for once in your goddamn life that would just be swell. Do you see the teapot to your left?"

"I know, I know they hurt you, I was just a kid--"

"Do you see the teapot, Michael?"

He saw it, through the blurred flood of hopeless tears. A piece of bright pink plastic, a child's toy, fallen to one side.

"Yeah. Yeah, I see it." He wiped vomit from his lips and clawed at his face, his hands shaking. The fawn was shrieking like a gale force wind now, quivering in grief, the noise lashing at his sanity like a rowboat in a typhoon. "--God please make him stop I didn't do it I couldn't stop it I don't know how to make it--"

"--Michael, if I get the teapot, I can make it stop. I need you to pick up the teapot and bring it to me. Can you do that for me, Michael?"

The doe's sightless eye stared at him through a film of blood, its jaw crackling unnaturally every time it spoke. Jones stared at it, gasping, sobbing wordlessly like a lost child.

"MICHAEL PICK UP THE F***ING TEAPOT!"

The baby deer shrieked in unison with its dead mother, unsettling the snow, shaking the trees to their withered crowns. A chorus of lost lambs and wailing children bleated plaintively in response from the hidden depths of the wood and Jones screamed in anguish, clutching at his head and scrambling to his feet.

"Alright ALRIGHT! I got it! I'm doin' it!" He stumbled through the bitter snowdrift, seizing the plastic container and limping back toward the talking carcass, turning his head away and covering his eyes in revulsion and pity. He set it down at arm's length and retreated, falling, scrambling away from the morbid scene on his backside until his spine met the cold wood of the twisted forest and he could go no further. He shrank down on the ice, hugging himself and rocking back and forth.

"Hell is wrong with us?" he wept, brokenly, tears streaming down his cheeks, "Why we gotta do this to ourselves?" He started sobbing like a child, heaving down lungfuls of air as the murdered doe tried feebly to drag the teapot to her shattered jaw with her broken leg, her son's screaming growing unbearably louder, splitting open his mind.

"Why can't people just eat beans and shit?" he babbled, through the film of tears, "They taste good. They got protein. We don't gotta hurt nobody." He collapsed, shaking, crying helplessly, "We don't gotta kill nobody..."

The dead doe swallowed, hideously, making a strangled gagging sound in its throat, and finally lay still. And when it seemed the appalling din could be borne not one moment longer, Bambi's unbearable screaming at last began to subside, becoming a keening, then a wailing, then a gentle, snuffling sob. The little fawn laid piteously down in the snow beside its mother as the trees faded into the dark shadows of the unlit bar, and little by little the ice began to melt, disappearing, leaving only dank wooden floorboards and a thin puddle of vomit.

Michael's hysterical misery began to recede. He took deep, hard breaths, heart still pounding a million miles a hour, wiping his eyes on his shirt and his nose on a discarded paper napkin, mopping his sweat-streaked brow. What the hell had come over him? It wasn't real. It was a story. Just a fairy tale. He was a grown-ass man, for god's sake.

"Ho... Haah.... Holy jeez..."

The shaking stopped. His vision slowly cleared.

Where Bambi's mother had lain rotting in the snow, a scrawny, unpleasantly familiar punk girl in a pink catsuit and a pair of glossy black stripper boots now draped herself face-down over a sticky public-room couch. She was pale, damp and breathing weakly, and she looked as though she had the mother of all hangovers. Little pieces of the scene continued to warp and flicker, subtly, at the corners of his vision. But even in the day-glo getup, even after all this time, he recognized her immediately.

"Hi." she said, in a dry whisper heavy with sarcasm.

"Aw, no. No, no way," he held up his hands, dragging himself unsteadily to his feet and struggling to reassert himself, "I don't need your kind of trouble, girl!"

"Well that makes two of us, asshole, thanks so much for the warm welcome."

"Screw yourself, Lewis!" He scrubbed at his eyes furiously, stepping around the acrid puddle that had been his brunch, "You show up outta nowhere in some porn-ass clown suit, bust up my door and drop a mindfuck on me and think shit's all cool?" He lifted the plastic bottle of nupharamine, shaking it in her face, "Oh, and you off the horse and back to the pills, is that what this is?"

"HEY!" Babel snatched the bottle out of his hand, smacking him across the knuckles on the backswing. "You don't know ANYTHING. You have NO IDEA what kind of night I've just had, Michael, so just shut the hell up and back the hell off!"

"You ain't even screwin' Vallis no more, so I got no reason to have to put up with your skinny white ass. And what the hell did you just do to me, huh? Bambi?? You think that shit's funny?

Caroline responded the only way she knew. She lashed out.

"...Watching an ex-gang rapper cry over a cartoon animal? Actually, yeah, that was kind of funny, thanks for asking--"

"--That was you, right? You terror gas me or some shit? There better not be no gas in my bar--"

"--The only gas in this downstairs toilet is the hot air pouring out of your fat stupid face--"

"--I got a reputation here--"

"THERE'S NO FREAKING GAS IN YOUR FREAKING BAR, MICHAEL!" She half-stood and swung at him, pounding his enormous chest awkwardly with both fists. "IT'S ME. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? IT WAS ALL ME! MY SHITTY, MESSED-UP HEAD IS EVERYBODY'S PROBLEM, NOW! OKAY??"

"Hell are you--" He swatted her hands away, tried to hold her gaze and failed as some crucial part of his brain spasmed. Being around her was like being around a migraine. His vision twitched and splintered until he was nearly blind, white noise tearing at his inner ear until he looked away, rubbing his eyes. "God damn girl, I can't even look at you right, what the hell?"

Even with the medication, her willpower was cracking. The bar pulsed like a racing heart. Pink mice swarmed over the furniture, whispering a hundred different nursery rhymes in little girls' voices.

"I don't. Know, Michael, I'm sick, okay??"

"You were always sick, Lewis." He shoved her back onto the couch as gently as he could bring himself to.

"You may not believe me, you fat, sanctimonious prick, but I am doing my best here."

Understanding dawned. He stepped back.

"...You went meta."

"Yeah. I went f***ing meta."

"Tell me you didn't get messed up by one o' them dome things."

"No, it was..." she pressed her hand to her face, groping at the memory, "I don't... Some guys, like government or something. They did something, just... People, you know? I was kind of in this..." Her eyes slipped away, "...At a friend's house."

"Uh-huh," he said, not buying a second of it.

"OKAY, fine, I was high as a frickin' kite, okay? Look, we got arrested, but they didn't... I don't know okay, there was a truck, I got like stun-gunned and it was like a secret lab or something, and I woke up on a table and now this happens:"

He reeled as his ears blared with the sound of every carnival on earth and the bar exploded into pink, nonsensical chaos. It lasted less than a second. He was still screaming when he came to.

"DON'T..." he flailed, pointlessly, "Just DON'T!"

"Yeah." she said, bitterly, subsiding wearily and letting her head and arm flop over the edge of the couch. "Yeah, so it turns out I'm a freak like the rest of you, now. Figured I'd come join your little idiot clubhouse and at least maybe get some kind of roof over my head."

He gave her a look of avuncular disapproval. "That ain't nice."

Babel threw up her hands. "Holy WOW do I not care about your feelings right now."

Jones cursed, trying to force his eye to stop twitching. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly -- he hadn't been since he'd got near the bar, and being around whatever Lewis had turned into was pulling at his reason like taffy. But he couldn't help thinking back to the kids on the subway. The lab thing. Rich men with money doing any damn thing they wanted. His brass-knuckled hands ripping open white cages filled with tortured, vivisected animals. His heart breaking the whole time. He had never been that angry in his entire life. He was a criminal, sure. But that?

That was pure evil.

And even though he didn't want her within a hundred miles of his business, when he looked over the pale, malnourished girl hung over his couch, he couldn't help but see it all over again.

"...They all just gotta keep makin' this meta business worse, don't they?" he said, his voice rough.

"Yeah." she sniffed wearily, massaging her eyelids.

"Messed with your brain but still left you a damn bitch, huh?"

"Guess so."

"Okay, listen... You ain't crashin' here. This ain't a hotel, I got a business to run. And even before you got all f***ed up you weren't exactly welcome."

"Yyyyyeah." Her head flopped over to look at him, her black-smudged eyes flitting open, "That's why you're gonna let me use the trainyard."

His face went blank in a flat admission of guilt.

"...I don't know what you're talkin' about."

"Oh, I think you do."

He rubbed his mouth uneasily.

"...Amstrad ain't gonna like that."

Caroline explained, in detail, what the Professor could do with very specific portions of her anatomy.

"...Naw." he hesitated, shook his head. "...Naw, look, Lewis... I feel you, yeah? You got a bad deal, and it ain't no secret we all birds of a feather round here. But you got serious problems ain't gonna get solved just hangin' round a bar all day poppin' dope. 'stead of comin' here, you oughtta go find some actual friends."

"I don't have any actual friends."

"Yeah." He stepped over his own puke and recovered his fallen box of donuts, sulkily. "Wonder why that is."

Caroline bristled. "Do you want Bambi to come back, Michael?"

"NO!" he shouted, panicked. "Damnit girl! The hell is wrong with you, huh?" The keychain jingled instantly in his free hand. "Hell can't you just be normal??"

The girl made a thin, wheezing noise. And then she laughed helplessly, a weak, unhinged giggle on the brink of unreason and despair.

̺̞̗̤̘̫͞ ͞ ̱̖̱͢ͅ ͙͇͇͟ ̮̣̘͔̺͕̬ ̟͔̜̺̀ ͎̠̞̠̀ ͕ ̨͎̰ ̗̲̯ͅͅ ̵̼̼̠̫͇ ͉̦̳͎͡ ̰̟ ̱̖͉͎͞ ̨̠͙͇̥ ̱ ̴̖̹͕̤͚ ͕̼̲̤ ̦͢ ̟̹̙̥͍͖̬ ͈͇ ͕͚̻͚͓̤̕ ̡̰ ̸͕̟͍͍̤ͅ ̣̠̗͈ ̥̻̘̠͜ͅ ̴ ́ ̞̤͈̳

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

Somewhere along the process Mnemosyne basically came out as a female Palpatine, and I decided to just run with it.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

"Had War-Pulse gone too far?" is going to be one of those things that just gets thrown up on the screen at the end of every episode by default, while they're telling you to tune in next week, same time, same channel.

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

"I don't understand," The Admiral had insisted, after one too many, "Surely the Emperor has the technology to treat conditions such as this. Why does Primarch Magaera not simply have this defect corrected?"
Everything stopped. They were all looking at him. The hag leaned close, and spoke, in that dreadful voice of hers.
"The Lady," she said, with the most terrifying softness you can imagine, "is not defective. Nor is she in need of correction."
She stands up, rests her hands on the table.
"...Though perhaps you are."
He knew the awful mistake he had made. It was clear in his blanched face before he made his excuses and ran. Me? I kept my fethin' mouth shut, refilled my drink and tried to forget my own name.
--Remembrancer Kessig, Apocrypha

ALWAYS WATCHING
--Graffiti, Byzanthrian reconstruction zone

---

It hung in darkness, a hidebound tome of some dry, unnatural blue, its cover branded with a twisting sigil and embossed with the image of a single closed eye. It was impossible to look away.

Do not ask which creature screams in the night.

Gradually, the eye embedded in the book's cover opened, revealing a glimmering blue iris, a warped, goatish pupil. The symbol began to burn. The book's latches unhooked of their own accord, falling loose with a faint metallic jingle.

Do not question who waits for you in the shadow.

Slowly, inevitably, the tome began to creak open.

It is my cry that wakes you in the night

The cover turned with a sepulchral groan. The first page was almost visible. Something slithered within it. Something she did not want to look upon but could not turn away from. She struggled to speak, but there was no sound.

It is my body that-

A great golden hand struck down upon the flickering tome, slamming it shut. The thunderclap that resounded from it boomed through the black void, joined by an enraged, animal scream that tore her mind from sleep.

---

Lydia Magaera sat upright upon her couch, gasping soundlessly, her heart thudding in her great chest. She was in the foundry's observation tower, its lights dimmed, its consoles darkened and arrayed with white and black candles in their place. The wax had burned low, the slender radiance guttering. She had claimed the iron bower for a time of contemplation before the rites and libations of departing. Had she fallen so easily into sleep?

The conquest of the Ork machine must have wearied her more than she believed.

She rose, composing herself, looking upward and taking a long, quiet breath. A short jump, and her hands gripped an embossed crossbeam that would have been a body's length out of reach for any normal woman. Muscle tensed beneath olive skin as she lifted herself from the floor, straightening her legs out in front of her at a perfect 90-degree angle, holding the position without as much as a quiver.

It was not the first unsought vision she had endured. But it had been different from the others. More alive. More aware. Changing shape and darting into shadow when she groped for it in memory. She had sensed hunger, and death. Some great disturbance had reached through the stars, stretching out its hand. Perhaps seeking her. Perhaps not. Still the certainty lingered that there had been some great secret upon that page. Something that had been kept from her, beckoning. Insisting.

Hard, quiet anger burned in the Lady's eyes. Meat in a trap. She was not a fool. Such gifts had too high a price.

She lowered herself from the beam and pressed her hand to the floor, inverting herself and balancing one-armed, bending one leg acutely behind her with her other arm. She was her father's child. She did not waver in the belly of Asphodel, and she would not waver now.

She lifted her head at a familiar mental shadow, wordlessly announcing itself as it drew near. She responded tolerantly, beckoning it in, straightening her leg and bending the other.

The wheels built into the great doors rotated and slid away, the barriers parting to admit the first chief librarian, Mnemosyne, the telepath, robed and shrouded in her dark armor. She was pale as death, her face creased and aged, and her eyes, always hidden beneath the shadow of her priestess's hood, were a sere, unnerving yellow. Thick cables ran from the sides of the cowl, linking her brain to Threnos's memory banks when aboard, physically tethering her to the ship's library. Forgetting was a luxury she had long ago denied herself, and some said that it was this, and not a quirk of her genetic treatment, that had drained her vitality so.

"Lady Magaera... is all well?" Her cracked voice, so disturbing to those not accustomed to it, was uncertain. "We felt..."

Lydia nodded, not turning to look at the withered librarian. She hesitated a moment.

(Tall, pillared cavern in a great, green field. Dark entrance cold with dread.)

"Ah." The shadowed hood stopped mid-turn, the dry voice guarded, yet strangely mollified. "Yes. I understand."

(Wryly evocative memory. Great shield embossed with monstrous female visage. Blood trickling from its surface.)

"Sweet Whispers..." Mnemosyne's lip curled. "It is fortunate you compel the gifted to confront the truth of them so early. Alecto's whelp should be next, and sooner rather than later. I can feel her hatred..." she whispered it, almost hungrily. "...Her body will welcome your blood, but Sibyline has foretold that she will inherit more. She must be watched until her training is complete."

(Faint question: Red-figure painting of a heavily-armored woman bending over a round pool. Sudden, deep crack running through the clay, bisecting her.)

The librarian's hood paused, her pale lips twisting uneasily "...As well as can be expected, my Lady. She... takes her food, if that pleases you."

(Pity/Disgust)

"...I know, my mistress." Mnemosyne's breath hissed through her teeth, "It is a thing for which justice can never truly be done -- though I feel the Eldar cowards will bear that wound for the remainder of their pitiful existence. Ahh, and I sense the first legion carving some meat of their own. Ancient blood ripples through the aether even now."

Lydia gave no response, completing her exercise and drawing herself back to her full height before moving to the vaulted observation window. The librarian paused, long armored fingers closing around her raven-tipped staff.

"...Divine Lydia, what troubles you?"

The Primarch folded her hands behind her back, gazing out over Harkonnen. The lights were being shut down, one after the other, in preparation for the funerary ritual. Her mind was closed, but Mnemosyne could feel the weight upon it, the tension within her like the lashing of a cat's tail.

"The rites...?" she hazarded, "Nay, surely not. This is a day of glory, whatever price was paid. Your guidance was flawless, our sacrifices were few. Those who surrendered their lives did so gladly, and perished with your name upon their lips. This is a victory that will echo through the millennia."

(...Arrangement of golden pitchers overflowing with rich wine. Simple wooden cup, dry and empty.)

"Ahhhh..." Mnemosyne's head tilted back in consideration, the dim candlelight dancing in her pale eyes from below. "...The meeting with your brother did not unfold as you had hoped."

The giantess exhaled, silently. Frustration and reluctance twisted in her mental aspect. Her mind pushed the librarian away, gently.

"Well, what did you expect? Too different." she shook her head, "Too different. Best leave that one to his own counsel. Wounded your pride, did it?"

Magaera's silhouette continued to stare out over the darkening manufactorum, her mind walled off. Mnemosyne felt the air turning dry, like a gathering storm. She pressed on, knowing the dangerously thin line she walked but determined to see it to its end.

"...You have brought the greatest world in this system under your father's heel. You have drawn the worst the Ork scum had to offer to its battlegrounds and in seven days wiped them from its surface like filth from a boot, and still you brood over a stilled tongue -- as if more wasted breath would change anything at all."

The tension built unbearably.

"...I see what you hide in your heart. You are not alone. Thousands flock beneath your banner. You have all your legion. You have--"

Her feet left the ground and the far wall slammed into her back, knocking the words from her body as the candles simultaneously snuffed out. The Lady turned on her, blue eyes hot and pitiless, and she was lifted higher, pressed harder, the unseen weight bearing down on her remorselessly, the dark metal of the wall creaking as it slowly warped with the horrible pressure. The librarian grasped uselessly at her throat, forced what air she could from her empty lungs, fighting to speak aloud through the breathtaking punishment.

"You..." she gasped, drawing on all of her bitter determination in the face of the Goddess's anger. "...are not..."

Her armor creaked under the torturous compression. She forced one last, heroic breath as the pressure threatened to break her in two.

"...Gorseval!"

The pressure relased her immediately, and she slid from the wall, collapsing to the floor with a metallic clatter, clutching her throat and coughing bitterly. The titaness turned away sharply, braids swinging, fixing her eyes again on the twilight view from the observatory window. Her face was drawn with tightly concealed emotion. Remorse and pain washed out from her.

The first chief librarian dragged herself to her hands and knees with trembling arms, a thin patter of blood dripping from her nose and lips. She heaved shaking breaths through her wracked lungs, slowly gathering enough strength to speak.

"Forgive my temerity... beloved mistress..." she coughed weakly, pulling up her hood, "But I would sooner die at your hand offering you the truth... hssst... than live an eternity with the knowledge... that I had failed you... haah... in the smallest conscience."

(Bleak aspect. Downcast eyes. Dark disc slowly moving to cover a vast white sun. Thin crescent of white fire flickering at its edge.)

"I know, my Lady. I know the strength of the bond you share, but you are not like him. You have compelled nothing, forced no one. You inspire and enflame. These girls turn to you as flowers seek the sun, and you offer them something the hollow universe would see them denied at every turn. They struggle and suffer for the right to transcend their weak flesh and mete justice at your heel."

Lydia took a deep breath, mirrored by her ghostly reflection in the observation window. The eclipse lingered between them, paused at its midpoint.

"Tchh. If even Victory doubts herself, what hope for the rest of us?" The dark librarian drew herself up, painfully, shuffling to the doors. "The rite is near, daughter of the Emperor. We must both prepare, and now it seems I must have this armor mended. I beg you, my Lady: put this sorrow aside." Her mind opened to the Primarch, revealing genuine care. "Do not allow this dark dream to unbalance you."

The doors opened and closed with a mechanical groan, the wheels turning and locking behind her. The Lady's honor guard stood flanking the corridor, staring at her in hushed silence. Mnemosyne wiped blood from her nose with the hem of her cloak, regarding them scornfully.

"See to your duties, children." she scowled, making her way to the elevator. "...Leave me to see to mine."

---

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,

Lydia stared down at the slim bronze coin in her armored hand, her own carven face glittering on its surface in artistic profile, ringed by an old Asphodelic invocation of triumph. She turned it over, revealing the aquila, symbol of her father's house and mark of his empire. A newer minting, one made after her ascension to the stars. In the still twilight, a glowing ember settled into her open palm from above, burning from hot orange to dull red. She watched it die, dwindling into black against burnished metal and white ceramite. So bright and hot. So fragile and brief.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

the Lady placed the coin beneath the dead woman's tongue, gently closed her mouth and pressed a white-armored finger to her pale lips.

Ad te clamamus exsules filii

She raised her head, regarding the ringed ranks of the thirteenth legion, now the veterans of Harkonnen, and the envy of those who would come after them. They bowed their heads solemnly, save Polyhymna and her apprentices, who intoned the ceremonial dirge of departure. At a respectful distance, they were watched by hundreds of the victims of Killkrazy's rule, beholding them with silent awe.

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes

The manufactorum lay beneath a pall of grey ash, its lights dimmed in reverence, its fans and machines stilled in this moment of silence. Glowing embers drifted gently from above, their gentle fires flickering, fading and slowly going going out. And all around the Primarch, the dead were laid in ranks atop makeshift biers. Bodies swathed in white. Bloodless faces turned to the black sky. She walked amongst them like a pensive giant wading through a pale sea, bending to pay each their final respects and slip her obol beneath their silent tongues. She was trailed by the cloaked figure of the Keeper of Memory, who marked their name and deeds upon a scroll held by a floating homonculus.

It was an old tradition, one her father had permitted her to retain. He understood the importance of commemorating the dead, even if belief in the Underworld, and the faceless oarsman who plied its shores, had long been done away with in his name.

In hac lacrimarum valle.

As she held the final coin, the fire came upon her, the message ringing through the stars. Lydia lifted her head, expectantly.

A council is being held. Gather on Ullanor Prime, at the tower once held by Overlord Urlakk Urg. You have two solar weeks before we start.

The words were broadcast, declamatory, from her mind to the minds of her legion, solemn but radiant, a slow, bright dawn over a grim and silenced battlefield. From Lydia's mind, the waters of Asphodel parted, and the dead marched proudly into the sea, unafraid, with faces raised in peace and satisfaction. The 13th legion saluted and closed in, bearing away their fallen, reverently, into the waiting transport ships which would carry them to the isle of Erebus, and their final rest.

Polyhymna's voice echoed throughout the manufactorum's address system as the first of the Thunderhawks lifted from the surface, kicking up whirlwinds of ash in the white shafts of light.

"Victory is ours. The last and foulest head has been cut from the Orkish serpent, and the Emperor summons the Lady to his side. The Empire has triumphed, and all are now free, by her grace, to choose their path. Choose well, people of Harkonnen. For we will always be watching."

---

They withdrew, and only Lydia herself remained, standing at the edge of the primary magma canal holding a golden ewer, lit from below by the distant fire. Alone, she upturned the vessel, pouring a red trickle of rich wine into the burning chasm. The heated air rose around her, rustling her skirts and playing at the loose strands of her hair.

When the last drop had fallen to the depths of the planet, she stepped back, and turned to look at the gathered citizens, their eyes all upon her. Slowly, one of the young men in the front row lowered himself to his knees, followed by another. Gradually, like a quiet wave over a calm sea, the others followed suit, until every last one knelt before her distant figure. Their faces were solemn. Worshipful. Terrified.

Lydia smiled, faintly, and turned toward the floodlit shadows of the departing airships.