Within the Jericho Reach, there was a system that actively thwarted attempts at being found. A system of mystery and dread, centred around an angry, crumpled white dwarf orbited by seven rocky planets. Each planet was just a little larger than Holy Terra, and each planet’s orbit was perfectly circular, equidistant from each other. None of which support life, or even had an atmosphere.
All seven were covered in lifeless grey wastelands made of fine dust, undisturbed by wind, cosmic debris or teorites. A few human bootprints were the only signs that life had ever touched this desolate star system.
The sole standout within this system, that might as well have been made by a cosmic artisan aeons ago, was the titanic void station orbiting the sixth planet: Watch Fortress Erioch.
The watch commander of the station, a veteran mber of the Deathwatch, was an Astartes by the na Mordigael, originally of the Blood Angels Chapter.
He stood in the cavernous hall in which he had sworn his Oath of Vigil, a dozen of his most veteran Deathwatch Brothers standing around him while Lord Inquisitor Avarax of the Ordo Xenos stood to the side with his retinue.
“What does this an?” The Inquisitor Lord, perhaps the highest-ranking mber of the entire Inquisition within the Jericho Reach sector, asked with undisguised discomfort.
“It ans,” Mordigael said, slowly chewing through the words while he stared at the singular open door halfway up the wall. “That the hour of reckoning is upon us. The Oga Vault is fully open for the first ti in recorded history. Plans and sches that were dreamt up eons ago are finally coming to fruition. Soone, or sothing, whoever originally built this Vault, predicted that this day would co and prepared accordingly. All that’s left to do is see what they’ve left behind for these most dire of circumstances.”
Everybody knew what he spoke of. The Achilus Crusade was at an end, having t a foe it couldn’t beat and then crumbled. The Crusade had clashed with an unstoppable force head on and got torn apart, then trampled on. Watch Forts lost contact one after the other near the Canis Salient, and everyone knew it would only be a matter of ti until only Erioch was left.
Perhaps the Erioch system’s mysterious Warp phenona would defend this location from invaders as it had done for millennia, or perhaps not. All it would take for the foe to find this place was to delve into the mind of a Navigator to whom the thod of finding the Eiroch system had been taught.
“The hour of reckoning,” Inquisitor Abraxas repeated with a displeased frown on his half-chanical features. “You think the Oga Vault is reacting to her actions.”
“Perhaps,” Watch Commander Mordigael said, though he could tell from the Inquisitor’s tone that it wasn’t a question. “It reacts to the happenings around the Jericho Reach, it is known. I firmly believe that the Vault’s actions are based entirely on a pre-ordained sequence. Soone foresaw this, or perhaps they left a final contingency behind for if the Achilus Crusade crumbled.”
The Oga Vault predated the appearance of the Tyranids, and despite reacting to events of great import happening all around the Reach by opening a sub-vault, it has never reacted to anything the Tyranids have done. Thus, it wasn’t a large leap of logic to say it had a pre-determined list of conditions upon which it based its actions.
And now, for the first ti in as far back in ti as the records went, the deepest vault was open. Mordigael couldn’t help but feel both expectant and wary of what he would find inside. Perhaps a cataclysmic weapon of last resort to grant them a pyrrhic victory? It wouldn’t have been out of place; the Vault had given them an Exterminatus ordinance before.
However, he feared the possibility that it would be the exact opposite of that much more: a gift to curry favour with the Xenos nace that erased centuries of sacrifices and valiant effort.
She had a mber of the Adeptus Custodes with her, and the Lord Inquisitor had confird the golden giant’s authentication codes through his own channels. It was real. One of the God-Emperor’s own Custodes stood with soone who appeared to be, for all purposes, an enemy of Mankind.
Which was impossible. Thus, the only possible answer was that she wasn’t an enemy by nature, but one that’s been made into one needlessly. It was a possibility which Mordigael was most displeased with, yet beca more certain was the truth with each passing day that brought with it new reports.
Mordigael kicked off the ground, reaching the door with a jump-pack-enhanced leap and entering it on his own. As was tradition. The ranking Deathwatch commander of the station had to enter alone, most of the ti.
He passed through the barely illuminated hallway, under low arches and passed by thick vault doors. So were open, most weren’t. The architecture was simple, almost brutalist in style, were it not for the distinctly gothic arches decorating the passageways. Still, compared to even the blandest of Imperial architecture, it was simplistic. Function over form.
The Watch Commander’s twin hearts skipped a beat when the grand vault door at the end of the corridor ca into view. It was a massive thing, a monstrosity of tal and arcane technology held in place by a hundred bolts thicker than an Astartes in Terminator Armour. Those bolts had been retracting one by one over the last few centuries, but the last ti anyone had ventured this deep, they had noted there being more than twenty still in place.
Now there were none. A torturous creak of tal rang out in the hall, making the bones in Mordigael’s body vibrate painfully, but he rely watched on, unfazed, as the massive vault door shuddered. It was slow, but it moved, sliding across the deckplates almost ponderously.
Mordigael waited until it was fully open, until the shriek of tal dimd, leaving behind only blessed silence. He stepped forward, his steps asured and careful, his guard raised to the utmost. No man has entered the hall he stepped foot in for millennia, and it showed. Dust covered everything, the grand arches, the massive do hanging overhead, high above and even the half-circle of granite statues lining the walls.
At the centre of the room stood twin lecterns atop a raised dais. One of them held a piece of parchnt suspended within a stasis field. The other, a dataslate of so kind connected to a massive cogitator pressed against the back wall, the two linked together by a mass of cables stretched across the floor.
Mordigael approached it, and the mont he set foot onto the dais, the stasis field flickered and faded. The parchnt fluttered through the air, landing at the bottom of the lectern just as the veteran Astartes reached it, poised perfectly to be read by a man of his stature.
He skimd the contents quickly, noting that a sizable chunk of the text written on it was unintelligible to him. There were words, sentence structures that were vaguely familiar, but might as well have been scribbles.
He focused on the parts that were not.
‘To Watch Commander Mordigael-‘
He froze, gauntlet-clad fingers curling around the edges of the lectern, and despite the imnse strength in them, not even managing to dent it.
He kept on reading, his blood freezing cold in his veins, and his hackles appropriately raised the further he read. It was a list of instructions on how to approach ‘the saviour wreathed in the argent light of restored balance’. How to ask — beg — for their aid. It nad the being a possible solution to many possible problems and troubles, among them the ones spoken of in the Derleth Lexicon. The sa problem which had been haunting the Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos in the Jericho Reach for centuries.
The Dark Pattern. The awakening of the “crippled-king”, whoever that was. So suspected it was a Necron Phareon, others thought it was so new Cosmic Horror from beyond the known stars. All they knew for certain was that its awakening had already begun, and that it would be heralded by an apocalyptic phenonon that might wipe the Sector clean of life.
Preventing that had been a primary objective for both the Death Watch and the Ordo Xenos in the Sector, but now it seed both would be neutered. Without support from the Imperium at large, their task would remain incomplete, their duties unfulfilled.
Perhaps the Jericho Reach’s fate should no longer worry him. It had essentially been passed over to a burgeoning Xeno empire. And yet, just leaving left a bad taste in his mouth. Worse, it would an leaving behind Watch Fortress Erioch and ignoring the final purpose of the Oga Vault.
The scroll, specifically nad Mordigael, was a letter addressed to him. He didn’t know of any witches with foresight potent enough to prepare such a thing millennia in advance, and that worried him.
His eyes lingered on the large, flowery signature at the bottom. He didn’t know the language the supposed na, or title, was written in, but the mont his gaze landed on it, a single concept crystallised in his mind — Revelation.
For a mont, the world held its breath as Mordigael felt an imasurable weight settle on his shoulders. He saw twin stars alight with golden fire stare at him without kindness or pity, and yet his twin hearts stuttered and his breast swelled with purpose. He knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was ant to follow the letter’s instructions.
Now then, how did one get an audience with a conquering alien warlord?
*****
I kneeled in the grass, smiling in what I hoped was an approachable and soft manner as I stared at the skittish little girl before , hugging a fluffy white rabbit to her chest like a shield against the world around her.
“Hi, there,” I said, and to my relief, the girl didn’t bolt to hide behind the nearest bush like she’d done the first ti I appeared in this peaceful little forest. “I’m Echidna. I kinda … live around these parts and saw you hanging around. I wanted to ask if you are alright?”
She leaned away from , and if that poor rabbit wasn’t made from nothing more than soul energy and a psychic imprint, it would have been crushed by now.
“I-I’m I’m fine.” She stuttered, her gaze dancing around and entirely determined to never linger on for more than a brief instant. “You feel … weird.”
“Do I now?” I asked with an amused smile. “Weird how?”
“Like, weirdly, uhm, familiar?” She said, her gaze lingering on for a mont this ti, weighed down by suspicion. “Who are you? What are you doing in my forest?”
I raised an eyebrow at that. Her forest, was it? Oh well, I did make it for her, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch. “I usually stay up there and just watch.”
Her gaze followed the way I was pointing, jumping up into the sky, and she squinted. “You can fly?”
“I can do a lot of things,” I said with a grin. “Want to see a trick?”
“What trick?” The little girl said, curiosity overwriting caution as she took a careful few steps closer to . “Can you do magic?”
“You tell ,” I said, closing a hand into a fist and then opening it again to reveal a small white kitten. It owed theatrically, then gave a feline stretch atop my palm and hopped off, strutting over to the now excitedly squealing little girl. Yep. Nailed it.
Mara’s little forest was basically a demi-plane in my Realm, so this form I was using to appear inside it wasn’t like my other Avatars; it was just an energy construct that I projected a sliver of my mind into. I could keep it up indefinitely.
The poor rabbit she’d been strangling thus far ended up plopped down with so care, patted on the head, and then she was upon the kitten, petting it gently with a single finger.
“You’re so cute!” She cooed, then glanced up at , eyes wide and pleading. “Can I keep it?”
“Sure,” I said with a smile. It was just another energy construct, not a real animal. She could treat it as a moving plushie as much as she wanted without having to deal with all the troubleso parts of owning a pet, like having to feed, clean, vaccinate, and house train it. “Be nice to him, he’s tiny. He isn’t as sturdy as your rabbit friend.”
“Okay, I promise!” She said with utmost seriousness, and I rewarded her with a regal nod of my own, inwardly struggling to repress the urge to coo over her just like she was doing to the kitten. Mara was just a delight, absolutely adorable.
I settled in, hugging my knees to my chest and watched the little girl play with her new kitten, all her previous worries and troubles forgotten as she giggled freely.
Rebuilding the defences around the Iron Collar and getting everything set up was proving to be an utter chore, so this side-tangent was very welco. This was important, Mara deserved to be happy and to have everything she could possibly dream about, but it was also … pleasant. I found myself smiling as I watched her play.
After a handful of minutes, she suddenly turned back to as if she only just rembered that I was still there. She blinked at owlishly, then smiled and asked, “Wanna et my other fluffy friends? I have lots, and they could use another friend?”
“Oh, I’d love to et them,” I said, letting myself be dragged to my feet and then down the small forest trail by the excitable little girl. It seed like my littlest ward was recovering from her ordeal quite nicely. I think I’ll keep this avatar manifested here … it’s good practice, and this little angel is a balm to my soul. “Lead the way!”
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