Stepping into the tunnels, I let my chip connect to the networks. It went through the usual verification process before allowing me access. Once connected, I pulled up the maps, very thankful I could.
This Tidefall configuration was one of the rarer forms, but in the past was one of the best for me. Instead of a few larger paths, it was a rabbit warren of tunnels, the main path splitting into hundreds of tunnels, which themselves split off into hundreds more.
This only got worse the lower you got. But there was a huge amount of materials to be scavenged.
With the map pulled up and displayed in a mini-map-like thing on my helmet, I connected to the internal sensors. Many of them were on the blink, but they were good enough to pick up the spike in psyker presence as our enemy moved through the tunnels.
I had no idea how he was choosing his path, but he was making clear progress. A bit of investigating showed he was heading to the deepest section, called 'Storage', which contained a list of vaults found within it. Like 'Cold Storage Archives' or 'Experimental Storage'.
Still walking forward slowly, I could feel the impatience of the people around me, particularly the Astartes. They tickled a memory I had from my last life, Knights, something. But I couldn't remember their significance, apart from how badass and intense they were.
I thought I would crap myself when all six turned and stared at me a few moments ago.
With a route now planned, I moved faster, breaking into a light jog, one I knew I would be able to keep up for the miles and miles of tunnels. I was shown to be on the right track pretty quickly from the number of slaughtered hivers we passed. Most of them appeared to have been burned from the inside out. Those that weren't had been horrifically twisted, looking as if they were a step away from turning into chaos spawn.
I decided not to hold back and unlocked any of the doors we came across with my access, allowing us to speed through the levels. Checking our progress, we were gaining on them, having taken a more efficient path than them.
Hundreds of turns in, and another security door opened. Zardelle voxed me on a private channel. 'How are you doing this?'
'A man needs his secrets.' I said, a smirk in my voice.
'Aleric…'
'I have access to the network.' I admitted.
'What? How? For how long?'
'A few years, and not a way I can share.' That was all I was willing to say on the subject. I didn't believe the channel was secure and didn't want to risk it.
Hearing her reminded me how annoyed I was when she volunteered to come. The entire point Selina and Lanto came to the underhive was to escape the Inquisitor's attention. And then she just walks up to one. Not that I was surprised.
Yeah not pleased. But it was her decision, and I was glad she did, probably saved our lives. No, definitely saved our lives.
That demonhost was horrifying.
Not in appearance, some of them were barely mutated, but in the presence they gave off. Even with my protection from the warp, I could feel it. A malicious hunger. Of madness.
It was only Zardelle's field that allowed us to defeat the first one. We were laughably outmatched. One wrong move and it would have been game over. We were also lucky that we finished when we did, as it was getting used to the field. Not countering it, but more coordinated.
When it first entered, it kept trying to do things or movements it could no longer do. That final leap was a good example. I very much doubted I would have been able to dodge it had it not been massively weakened.
The deamonhosts presence was equally as oppressive as the Astartes now travelling with us.
The Astartes presence pressed down on me, but I found it far easier to shrug it off for whatever reason. Same with the Inquisitor, she had the most bearable presence of all the psykers with us. I didn't know if it was strength or some other reason.
Thinking about her brought back the unease at being asked to be their guides. I damn near shat myself when I found out I would be meeting 2 inquisitors. Not to mention a demon hunter.
I would have preferred to be running in the opposite direction, thank you very much. But that wasn't really an option, and I was the only one really able to meet and greet them. I also couldn't really explain why I didn't want to meet them either.
I still kicked myself about wearing my best armour.
The praevestora armour.
Sometimes I forgot I was wearing it, it was that comfortable. It had taken a lot of work, but I managed to get four of the suits working. One went to Selina, the other to Zardelle and the final to Katra. I, of course, kept one for myself.
The two that were written off, I broke apart, learning a huge amount in the process, and this allowed me to slowly repair the others. Even then, it took a lot of time, over a year, but it was so worth it. They were unlike anything I had ever worn. Not just from the protection and sensors, but how it was tied to the nerve system, responding to your thoughts, not seamlessly like there was a slight gap, but pretty close.
It did amuse me that the noble thought he could claim it. At this stage, it would be very hard to push us around, the amount of secrets we held… He was a no one anyway, a fading heir that missed his chance to get anywhere.
If he hadn't changed direction to go for the armour sets, he would have likely been deserted by his own family in favour of another candidate.
While I was mad I had met the Inquisitors in it, I was later very glad I had, what with the fighting we saw later.
Our elite teams were gutted; it would take a long time for them to recover. At least most of those I cared about survived, not a guarantee and a bit touch and go at times. We only really lost thirtyish percent of our number, but the casualties were far higher. I reckon a good forty precent of those left were unlikely to be able to keep fighting without major medical attention.
Stuff that was very hard for the Court to provide. At least to get them anywhere near in capabilities to where they were before. We would have to try though.
That ritual at the end was particularly devastating.
It was absolute fucking chaos, with cultists charging at us from all angles. Not to mention more of those demonthings. The fighting with the Astartes had been cataclysmic.
More than one ganger was killed in the crossfire. Big John was pulverised by some masonry that the Astarte smacked away when the demon threw it at him.
It was just lucky I got a milestone for defeating one, as that allowed me to get a spark and use it to form Glyphcraft. It very nearly knocked me out when it gave me a crash course in all things glyphs-related. That included runes, wards and even rituals.
I wasn't sure I would ever be able to make serious use of the knowledge, as you needed to be a psyker to really use it.
But it allowed me to see the weak points of the ritual and disable it. It did give me some ideas for the future. Something I was looking forward to exploring. Turning my attention to the map to make sure we were still going the right way.
More to the point, in the course of the day, I had gained several more milestones. The first for meeting the Inquisitors and gaining one's interest. For that, I got a new spark, tilted toward the social aspect, so that was left for now.
The demonhost's one was already used, but I gained another one for meeting and fighting alongside the Astartes. This too was a social one, so I left them both for later, not entirely sure how I would use them.
I unlocked the next set of doors. They slid open to a battle. On one side, there were some cultists, where they came from, I had no idea, on the other were some mercs there for the Tidefall and at the far end were some turrets.
Reaching out with my chip, I made sure the turrets saw me and the rest as friendly; they were the most dangerous things there, the way they were chewing through both sides. And then they were no longer the most dangerous things as the Astartes started to slaughter both sides.
Some of the cultists charged us, swords out in front.
I danced out of the way, and I was once again glad for my choice of sparks. It had taken eleven sparks in the end to fully form the first level of the physics fragment. And my god, was it overwhelming.
It was incredible, covering everything I could have imagined and some stuff I couldn't. I had severely underestimated what I would receive.
From the fragment, I got the impression of a secondary school level. Or at a level just before a degree from my old life, which might not sound impressive, until you realise it was like comparing the education from the 1800s to the education from the 2000s.
They were a league apart.
To be honest, it knocked me on my ass for several days, and I still wasn't one hundred percent a week or so later. I had been expecting it to some extent, so I made sure I wasn't needed at that time, but it felt terrible, like my brain was trying to escape through my ears.
Regardless, it was worth it; it had answered so many of my questions, only to open up 5 times as many. The discomfort certainly wasn't going to stop me from getting more. My next target was maths.
However, I did tweak my plans slightly.
I had planned to move on and keep improving my foundation. But knowing it was a thing that would take years if not decades, I spent the next few years point-shoring up some of the areas I had wanted to for a while.
With the leftovers from the physics fragment and the following years' sparks, I poured them into my Self fragment. It took all seven to push it to tier 3, even with all the work I had been putting into it.
But it was worth it.
I reinforced the previous tiers, strengthening my already defended mind and the rituals I had done to it. Then it gave me the next stages and steps for many of them.
I had been expecting all that, and if it had been just that, it still would have been more than worth it. However, it also did several things more. Firstly, it expanded on the knowledge it gave me.
It gave me several technological ideas for how to limit the warp in an area. Mainly around how and why they functioned, which was useful as they were not intuitive at all. But they also gave me technology that could strengthen the results in myself, making all the defences I had more effective.
It also hinted at ways of transferring it to others, which was particularly interesting. I could already do that to a limited extent, but not efficiently.
Then came the two most important parts.
Firstly, when the sparks settled into place, I could feel a qualitative change happening within my soul. When I looked for it, I couldn't find it, but something felt different. It had taken me a few days to determine what it was, but it was almost like a pool of energy that I could use to enforce my belief on myself.
I could use the energy to strengthen the protections around my mind, sure, but it was more than that. It was like I was fighting reality for what was real. For example, using a blade to cut my arm, I could use that pool of energy to resist the blade.
Right now, it didn't do much as the energy ran out too fast, but in the future… who knows. It did explain in the fragment that this wasn't the effective use for it, but it was a use.
Then the second part. This one forced a decision onto me that I had been putting off for a while. It covered pariahs, although it called them 'Shadows in the Warp' or 'Soulless ones'.
Which must be what Zardelle was. It didn't give any information about them, like what they were; what it did give was some techniques and technology for them. The technology could just enhance their abilities and was far above what I could realistically create at this stage.
It would take years of trial and error to make something even close to being usable. So that was off the table, the techniques though… that was another story. There were ones that helped her control her aura. Others allowed her to forcefully strengthen it by a significant margin for a short period of time.
There were even ones that might allow her to have a sort of IFF on it, allowing her to have people it didn't affect.
Needless to say, they would all be massively helpful to Zardelle. So, the only question was, did I tell her? And if I did, what was my excuse going to be?
I spent days going back and forth on it, but in the end, it came down to, did I trust her? And I did.
So I took her aside we talked. Of course, I didn't mention the whole truth, but I did ask her to keep it a secret. I explained I got them from a dive into the ruins and started to teach her them.
It became a staple of her training, and the results spoke for themselves. Even in the year and a half she had been training with them saw her control over the aura exploded. It allowed her to shrink the size of it, but increase its intensity, as well as do the reverse. Expand the size to almost twice the size, even if it was much weaker.
Not to mention the other skills she had picked up. Although the IFF one was still far out of reach.
The next year's point were the last I planned to shore up some weaknesses before moving back to my foundation. It had been a toss-up between Sharpshooter, Warrior, Hand-to-Hand and Blade Mastery.
I felt the combat-focused ones were realistically the only options at this stage.
If I carried on with my foundations like I planned, I wouldn't be putting any points into them for a long time.
I discounted shooting and hand-to-hand early. They just weren't that relevant at this stage. I almost went with warrior, but in the end, settled on blade mastery. So six points later, and it was just enough to push it to tier 3.
Compared to the physics fragment, it actually wasn't that impressive, just a lot of muscle memory. But it was still perfect for me. More to the point, it also allowed me to beat Katra and Zardelle once more.
Which in turn pushed their skill even further.
By now, Zardelle was already catching up with me. Admittedly, it was with one weapon type, but even so…
I did poke around the physics fragment when I got it, and I quickly came to the conclusion that I would not be pushing it to the next tier any time soon. At a guess, I would need 30, maybe even 40 sparks to push it up.
Not something I was ready to commit to just yet.
With the last hivers dead, the turrets fell silent. The rest of the group eyed them suspiciously. "It's alright, they see us as friendly."
"They do, do they?" Inquisitor Brigitta said, eyebrows raised. Nodding, I started walking in the direction we needed to go.
No one stopped to scavenge.
I led us through the maze of corridors; the Astartes arrayed around us. Although keeping their distance as Zardelle was running right next to me. The inquisitor and her retinue brought up the rear.
She had left some of her men to guard various points, but otherwise had them all with her.
We charged around another corner, heading for a narrow shortcut when the Astartes screeched to a halt. Peering around their armour, I could see why, as a party of tech priests and the other Inquisitor were coming from another path.
"Inquisitor Brigitta. Fancy seeing you here."
"Inquisitor Elion." She said, nodding at him. "Unfortunately, our quarry has fled into the depths. We think he is after one of the items stored below."
"They must be quite the quarry if you have enlisted the support of the Grey Knights."
Grey Knights? Ahh, that's what they were called, I remembered now. Still not sure what they did, demon hunters, obviously, but what else I couldn't remember.
There was no mention of them in any of the data I found in the hive, but that was pretty common; most of the Space Marine chapters barely got a mention. Only the few that had an outpost on the hive got any.
And the last time a chapter had arrived for recruitment was over a hundred years ago.
Apart from the Inquisitor, there were a dozen or so tech priests, all clad in red robes and more metal than flesh. There was a clear hierarchy, with those more biological lower on the totem pole.
I only recognised the leader of their group. Archmagos Viel.
One of the leaders of the tech priests within our hive, and not someone I wanted to meet.
"What are you searching for?" Brigitta asked, ignoring the question.
"In the vault, deep within the hive," Inquisitor Elion said, his voice a grating, high-pitched and simpering. "That is where we will find what we seek… though the maze is… convoluted." If he weren't an Inquisitor, I would have dismissed him outright.
"Good, that should be in a similar destination as us. Join us?"
The Archmagos turned to Inquisitor Elion and released a heavy static burst, like nails on a chalkboard board and sent shivers down his spine.
"Quite… quite." He simpered. "I believe it will be the other way round. You are welcome to follow us. Archmagos Viel has been guiding us unerringly, and we are surely to find the chamber soon."
"No need." The lead Grey Knight rumbled. "The ganger has not led us astray."
I did not want that attention.
Another burst of static bounced between the Archmagos and his party before he spoke in a raspy robotic voice. "As if a ganger could understand the complexities and holiness of such a place."
"Maybe…" Brigitta said. "But when did you enter?"
"As the defences lowered." Elion said.
"And yet we entered hours after that and arrived here before you…"
"It matters not. Come with us or don't. Ganger lead the way." The Grey Knight barked, his patience through.
As I turned toward the passage, I heard an extended burst of static and crackles behind me, some even coming from Inquisitor Elion. We made it a few steps when the tech priest and their inquisitor fell into step with us.
"We would be happy to join you."
After the standoff was resolved, the two parties joined together following me and my path. Although the tech priests were very begrudging, so I hoped I was reading the map right. We kept plodding along, moving through tunnel after tunnel. They changed from dirty, dilapidated ones at the start to the ones I had seen before, with the white lab-like ones.
I carried on making our journey easier, opening a locked door, or changing the IFF on an active turret. I did try to take a step back and let the tech priests now with us to deal with it, but when they got stumped, a surprisingly often occurrence, I subtly fixed it.
I tried to hide it and play it off as best I could, and I don't think anyone really noticed or gave it serious thought, but I did see the lead Magos give me a few odd looks. Like he was inspecting a particularly interesting specimen in a petri dish.
Gave me the creeps.
We ran into a few groups, some hivers who were quickly slaughtered, and some lost raiders from the group we were chasing. How they lost their main group, I didn't know, maybe a door shut on them? Whatever the reason, they didn't put up much of a fight and were killed easily.
We were just coming to the end of my shortcut, and we turned onto a new corridor, different from many of the others we had been on. This one looked older, narrower, with pipes, cables and vents lining the walls. Not in a mess, they all looked very organised.
If anything, it reminded me of a ship.
At the far end of the corridor, we could just make out a large group of mutated raiders, and at their centre, the psyker we were chasing. The Grey Knights charged off, the female Inquisitor and her retinue only a few steps behind, although that gap expanded rapidly.
The tech priests and the other inquisitors seemed to be inclined to take their time, but they still advanced faster than they had been. Zardelle and I took the middle ground, running but staying behind the kill teams of the Lady Inquisitor.
For obvious reasons.
I didn't particularly want to die. I had come too close already and had no wish to repeat the experience.
When they saw us, they started shouting and firing. The psyker, though panicked, and hit the door control they were just passing through. The huge metal cylindrical door started to swing shut. Many of his raiders were locked on the outside.
Which they only realised when the heavy doors banged shut behind them, thick bolts clicking into place.
Unsurprisingly, six very pissed-off Grey Knights were not good for one's health, and the raiders were killed in short order. When the last one fell, the lead Knight marched up to the tech priest who appeared in charge.
"Magos, unlock the door." He demanded.
It looked like the magos wanted to say something spiteful but appeared to think better of it. Waving his underlings forward, they started to gather around the door control. Whatever the psyker had done did no favours to the ageing door controls as they were flashing errors when I got a chance to peek over one of the tech priests' shoulders.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but for them to bring out oils, incense and some iconography wasn't one of them. I had done my research and knew they were a religious institution first and foremost, but even so, it was a bit surreal to watch.
They started to chant together, smearing oil and burning incense as they did. I thought it was all silly, but to my surprise, they actually achieved something. The flashing pass slowed and then stopped. I couldn't connect to the door, even if I could unlock it, so I couldn't see what they were doing, but their chants seemed to be working.
I could see binary scrolling past on the door panel. I couldn't make out much of it, but some of it I recognised, like the self-diagnostic checks and cache clearing.
But it was all for nothing as once they finished, the door still beeped red, denying them entry. They tried various rituals, taking the next few hours trying to get the door to open, the head tech priest even stepped in to take control. But even with them, they didn't get far.
Some of the locks did uncouple, but the door still refused to budge.
Archmagos Veil moved over to the Inquisitors. "The machine spirit is agitated and hostile; the heretic has caused it pain. It will take significant appeasing to open the door." He explained.
"Can you get it open?" the Astarte rumbled.
"When we have calmed and appeased the machine spirit, we will be able to get it to open the door."
"How long?"
"The spirit will be appeased when it is."
"Not good enough. Ganger. Can you do it?" The space marine said, turning to me.
Freezing in surprise at suddenly having all the attention on me, I blinked, thinking fast. I could, with ease. The door was on the blink, but whatever they had done to it had mended it enough that I could now connect to it, so it would open with a simple command.
But I wasn't sure if I should. Which is why I hadn't volunteered. Getting more attention from the Adeptus Mechanicus seemed like a mistake. But with all the attention on me, did I have a choice?
Making a snap decision, I nodded. I was probably already in too deep anyway.
"Good." He shifted to let me through, glaring at the priests as they looked to be complaining. Unlike other times, I wanted this to be somewhat theatrical. So, following the priest's silly example, I laid my hand on the controls, whispering platitudes to it for a few minutes and then activated the door with my chip.
Blinking green, the door started to open, the bolts clunking as they disengaged.
I wasn't sure what I expected to see on the other side of the door, but before I got the chance, I found myself flat on my back staring at the ceiling as I was pushed aside by the Space Marines as they charged in. By the time I found my feet, with Zardelle helping me up, everyone was in the vaulted room.
There was no gunfire or any signs of the cultists, just a massive room.
It appeared empty until I saw what was filling it, and it nearly took my breath away. Row after row of tightly packed square crystals, like the ones I had found years ago. They went for as far as the eye could see, both into the distance but also into the darkness above us.
There were also large mechanical arms scattered about the room, constantly moving, picking up the crystals, cleaning them and then placing them back. Further in the room was another vaulted door. As large as the outer one. The marines stomped up to it.
As soon as I stepped into the room, I felt sparks blossom in my mind. The largest I had ever seen. Like suns compared to the bonfires from others. I glanced at them and felt my heart rate spike, but I pushed them to the side for now.
"They have gone through here." The lead Astarte rumbled. "I can feel their taint. You ganger. Open it." He said, turning to me and waving me over.
Even as I approached it, I knew I wouldn't be able to. It was on lockdown, and whatever had caused it needed a greater security clearance than what I had. It needed three to four days before it cycled off and could be unlocked again. But I dutifully placed my hand on it and whispered as I had before, then tried to open it.
It beeped red as expected. "It can't be opened; it is on a cycle of some kind. It needs some time before it will open again, I think.
"You understood that?" the Archmagos demanded.
Blinking, surprised at his aggression. I nodded. "Mostly."
Pushing me aside, he and his acolytes did their rituals but came to the same conclusion. Or I assume they did, he said he did, but again, I had no idea what the rituals were doing.
"Fine we wait." The space marine said, kneeling where they stood in a half ring around the door.
"Agreed, search the rest of the facility, then set up around the door. Find out if there is another exit. I will not have him slip past us." Inquisitor Brigitta said.
Not needing another excuse to escape the focused eyes of the Magos, I left, looking around the facilities. They were like what I had seen before, but most of them were storage of some kind. Advanced weapons, cogitators, machines, the list went on and on. But none as large as the crystals and the data they stored.
In my exploration, I found a small room off the main crystal vault, with banks of cogitators. Above them read 'Storage Retrieval'.
While no one was looking, I slipped in and had a poke around. It was as I had hoped.
Before anyone noticed, I locked the cogitator again and moved out. By the time I was back, several crystals were scattered around the priest as they almost lovingly inspected them. I'm not sure how, but they sounded like they had worked out what they were.
"Access denied." the Archmagos intoned, vox-grill crackling with rising static. "This sanctum is forbidden. You tread within a sacred vault of a standard template construct. The data sealed here is beyond your remit."
The Inquisitor simply stared at him, expression carved from stone. The lead Astarte stepped forward a precise half-pace, towering over the robed priest. Servo-skulls hissed in agitation as the Archmagos finally registered who he was addressing.
A long moment passed, and his metal fingers clicked together.
"…Very well. Your clearance is acknowledged." He still bristled, augmented optics narrowing. "But I will not suffer rad-soaked gangers within this sanctum. Their presence would profane the machine-spirits."
The Inquisitor's eyes tightened, seconds from snapping back, so I stepped in before she did.
"Very well. If we go to one of the side rooms while we wait?"
"Acceptable." he said, as if it pained him.
Pausing to wait for the Lady Inquisitors' nod, I part-walked, part-dragged Zardelle with me. I didn't really need her, but a lookout would be helpful. Well, another one, as Snuffles was with me as always.
As we entered the little room, looking out onto the crystal floor, Zardelle spun round. "What was that about?"
"I need a favour. Keep a lookout and let me know if anyone is coming."
"What?"
"Not the time. I can explain later. Please."
"Fine, but you'd better tell me." She muttered as she moved over to the door and windows to keep a lookout.
"Thanks." I said. Hurrying over to the cogitator. I logged back in, sitting down as I did and started to search through the list.
As the name suggested, it contained a list of the data crystals in the large room. And there were a lot of them.
Too much to read through right now.
So I had to quickly narrow it down. Picking something almost at random, a fuse and locking in my choice. I saw a mechanical arm in the distance move a slate, and instead of cleaning it, slotted it into a machine which buzzed to life. As it did, the schematics appeared on the screen.
But not just how it was made, but with what, why and explaining the reasoning behind it in detail. It was a mind-boggling amount of information. It was way more than I would easily be able to memorise, even with my incredible memory. Especially if I want to make use of this opportunity.
I would never get a chance to look at these again.
As I sat looking at it, another spark blossomed.
I brushed over the three new sparks, more like stars, in my mind. Discover an STC, Discover an STC cache and recover an STC.
I threw all three points I'd just gained, focusing my thoughts on storing that information. They vanished in a flash, and in their place a dull crystal fragment flickered into existence. Feeling it out, I got Blueprints.
It was blank, but as soon as I started to read through the fuse again, I could feel the knowledge getting stored into the new crystal fragment. Fifteen minutes later, when I was done, I reached into the fragment and could read it word for word. It was like I had my own encyclopedia of it.
Excited, I got to work. I didn't know what I wanted to look through, but I started with the basics, materials, and small components. It made the most sense to me, with them I would be able to build my own stuff, particularly as with most Golden Age of Humanity's tech, it was scalable, so I could scale them up to ludicrous sizes but keep all the efficiency.
Actuators, super capacitors, circuit breakers, inductors, resistors, diodes, ceramite, pistons, motors, relays, wires, and so much more. I spent hours reading one diagram after another. I didn't just look at parts either; I looked through materials and chemicals and how to make them. I only stopped when I felt like my head was about to explode, a pounding headache from staring and concentrating for so long.
Over fourteen hours in fact.
Groaning, I leaned back, stretching for the first time in hours. Locking the cogitator, I stood, my back and shoulder clicking and popping nicely.
I needed a break.
Collapsing next to Zardelle and lying against Snuffles, I stuffed a few nutrition bars down and fell into a deep sleep as soon as my head was resting on the wall.