Wiping the sweat from my brow, I used my mechandendrite to screw in the last remaining bolts and then lock in the magnetised sheet of metal over the servitor's chest, completing the repairs, mumbling the correct hymns as I did. That was still the hardest part of my new job as a Servitor Underseer.
Not just remembering the correct chants, hymns and rituals, but actually doing them. They wasted a phenomenal amount of time. Even small jobs that should've only taken fifteen minutes were dragged on for an hour or more thanks to the silly rituals.
Thankfully, many of the chants and rituals had the purpose they served in the actual chant. It was in binary of course, but now that I could understand it, it was fairly easy to know which chant was for what operation. Still stupid, but not as stupid as I first thought.
That advantage, combined with my incredible memory, meant I was quickly memorising all the idiosyncrasies I needed to.
The servitor I was repairing hummed to life, clicking back online. Dipping into the noosphere, I checked its status.
++Status: Active++
++Sub-Systems: Online++
++Power Core: Stable++
++System Integrity: 97.3%++
++Minor Damage Detected: Left Limb Servo Motor (repaired)++
++Neural Interface: Synaptic Response: Optimal++
++Cognitive Function: Basic Protocols Engaged++
++Pain Response: Deactivated++
++Memory Protocols: Restored to 98%++
++Processing Power: 82% Available++++Chassis Integrity: 85%++
++Servo-Motors: Functioning++
++Armor Plating: 98% Operational, minor scarring from previous engagement++
++Hydraulic Systems: Fully functional++
++Motor Function: Efficient, 85% optimal++
I loved the details it gave me, listing out all the information about the machine around it in a cloud of data. I normally didn't need to see such a detailed list and only focused on the important parts, but I was still struggling to control the flow of data, even eight months after I had received the noosphere connection.
I brought the Rite of Repair to an end with the cleansing ritual and gave it the signal that it could go back to its shift.
Done for the day, I slowly moved back to my quarters, flinching as I brushed my left arm against the wall, the clink of metal-on-metal echoing along the quiet corridor.
I glanced at it with a grimace. The bionic was serviceable, better than most I saw in the underhive, with smooth connection and decent strength. But its hideous and bulky nature was a serious detractor.
It wasn't terrible, but I couldn't say I was happy with the change, although it wasn't the worst bionic I had received. That went to the respirator and the vox grill that was now clamped over my face, covering the bottom half of it, sealing my mouth.
It was almost worse than my first bionic.
Sure, it was functional, impressively so. I couldn't say Viel skimped out when he provided my augments, but they were ugly—inhuman. I still flinched whenever I saw myself in a mirror, or when I bashed into it unexpectedly.
The bionic arm, bionic right eye, noosphere connection, mechadendrites and respiratory with vox grill were the only augments I had, but they were enough. Going from a small amount to what I was now was uncomfortable.
Almost like imposter syndrome in my own body.
I could have made better bionics, maybe not superior in function, but definitely more streamlined and nicer looking, but I held off for now. For the same reason, I had allowed them to be installed in the first place.
I didn't know enough about my new environment to understand what could and couldn't pass.
Considering the access I had, I thought they were a small price to pay at this stage, but you could bet I was looking forward to changing them out when I could.
Another reason I held off was that the STCs I had were far too advanced for me to make just yet, not to mention being very obvious.
So I was left with the bionics that made no attempt to be human-looking.
While I was unhappy with many of the changes, the mechadendrites were fucking awesome and were now something I could never do without. The way they were connected into the spine made them so intuitive to use.
They'd still needed practice, but now I had that, they were better than my actual hands in some ways.
At least I had started on my next fragment. All six of my sparks this time went into maths, which, in hindsight, should have been my first one. But never mind. Something to remember for the future.
Shaking the thoughts away, I turned to more pleasant things. It had been as brutal as I had been warned. Learning the rituals, rites, mannerisms and general knowledge of the Mechanicus was daunting.
While I knew they were not purely techies when I had first joined, I hadn't realised the Mechanicus was just a glorified religion in most cases, or maybe not to the extent it was anyway. All their work was purely in the quest for knowledge left behind by the Machine God. Or ancient humans, as I would say. Nor had I realised how serious they took hereteks.
I shudder to think how close I had come to death.
With what I knew now, I did sometimes have doubts about whether this was the right path. But then I remember all I have gained and knew it was. It had been a gamble, more than I would have liked. But I did not like the way the Inquisitors had been eyeing me up.
Nor had I missed the gentle probing by the women in the Lady Inquisitor's retinue. It wasn't my affinity to technology that had them interested, no, it was my soul. Which, if I thought about it, made a kind of sense.
I'd never considered that someone would be able to sense the differences and defences in my soul. It was something I had taken steps to correct, even if that was years away. Some of the new and old rituals from my Self fragment mentioned being able to cloud my soul, making it harder to detect at first and then in later stages being able to obscure it.
This was brought a few years closer when I added to the fragment.
With the defeat of the heretic, I had gained another immaterial-based spark. There were only two real options, Glyphs and Self, so it was easy to decide.
It didn't push me into the next tier for Self, but it was right on the cusp.
Apart from progressing my rites, it had strengthened my soul. Or maybe deepened was more accurate. Whatever the case, my willpower and that pool of energy had significantly increased.
Back to my decision to throw myself in with the Mechanicus. It was mostly down to freedom. With the Inquisitors, I doubted I would be able to experiment like I wanted. At least not in peace, whereas with the priests I should be able to, in time.
Particularly as I rose up the hierarchy of them, hence my demand to progress fast.
Could I have used the STC fragment for a warrant of trade or something? Maybe, but I wasn't convinced it would have been enough; there were always stories, but it never went into details. And say I got it, I wouldn't have the ships or crew to actually use it effectively.
No better to stick with the slower approach.
The noosphere connection came in conjunction with another chip that helped me to pick up and understand binary that most adepts spoke in. The burst of static I had been hearing was actually information being transferred.
When Viel had left, he had put me under the charge of another priest. To give him his due, he laid out some plans and directions I could work to. He could have been manipulating me and holding back some information, but his initial plan did sound best.
Once I was truly part of the Mechanicus, and with a few years under my belt, I would have more freedom to ignore him and go my own way if I needed to.
We settled on a servitor underseer. A position that managed and maintained servitors. It didn't create them as such; that was normally left to the next level up in overseer, but it wasn't unheard of.
I thought it was best because it was both very similar to what I had been doing before with maintenance, but had more interactions with machine spirits, which I was good with. Unlike something like an enginseer, which was more mechanical in nature, although that didn't stop them working on them if they needed to.
I had started with only a handful of servitors, but as I proved my competence, this increased with more and more placed under me. From there I was given some assembly lines of the manafacturum.
Each time I proved I was in control, I was promoted to learn more and more. Adding rituals I should know each time. It was effective and in less than a year, I had thousands of servitors under my care and a dozen assembly lines.
It was six months in when I did my first conversation.
A truly uncomfortable and gruesome experience.
I passed another priest, similarly low-ranking as myself; we exchanged a brief nod, and our mechadendrites twisted into a greeting pattern, but otherwise carried on with our tasks. I found it surprisingly similar to the gang in that respect. The hierarchy was very strict; those above you rarely acknowledged you unless they needed something.
At the same rank as you, there might be a greeting, but most of the time, it was just a nod or some other gesture. Of course, this was slightly different for me as, funny enough, again similar to the gang, being Viels' apprentice, even if it was in name only right now, came with a lot of perks.
I was also part of the expedition that found an STC fragment, which raised me further. This, combined with my obvious skill and my fast rise, was giving me more attention than I should otherwise have for a lowly tech priest. Although if I stayed the course, I should become a true member of the tech priests and be promoted to adept soon. It would be within a year, an almost unheard-of speed. Some of the other acolytes had been in the role for fifty years and had little hope of ever progressing.
Stepping into my quarters or sanctum, as they were called, I greeted Snuffles, who must have been bored out of his mind, poor thing. I had been tempted to leave him with the gang, but I had no idea when I would be back or if I would have time to collect him when we left for the forge world.
I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him behind, so I asked him through his impulse unit and got my answer. I was just lucky to get a nicer room near the Archmagos sanctum, instead of the tiny boxes in the manafactorums that the rest of the adepts got.
This actually had space for research, not that I had time for such things. Sixteen hours or what they called cycles, on shift, working with the servitors, then four hours learning and memorising the multitude of rites and rituals I needed. After that, I just collapsed into bed, ready to do the same the next day.
It had been a grind, certainly wearing me down, but it had shown promise, with many of the rites, chants, cants, and rituals needed to become a tech priest memorised. It also got me used to doing the chants mindlessly as I worked on autopilot, ingraining that behaviour in me.
When I wasn't working or learning, I was doing one of two things. Either helping the gang or building some blueprints from my STC archive.
The gang was surprisingly easy. As part of the Mechanicus, I had access to a lot of the systems and the right to change them, so it was pretty easy to change some supply orders and set up a recurring delivery.
If I set it up right, it should keep going for years even if I am not there.
As for the STCs blueprints, I just worked through what I could. Many of the advanced ones were obviously out of reach, either needing far more advanced machines or some other blocker.
I was mainly checking two things while I made them. First, I was just learning about them. Even with the blueprints in my head, it wasn't as valuable as actual experience. The second was to compare them to other Mechanicus designs.
Now I knew what sort of institution they were regarding hereteks, I wanted to make sure I was squeaky clean. At least until I was too powerful to care.
So I had been comparing parts to see how closely they were to what the Mechanicus produced. For example, I had found a piston ball and socket joint for a flexible servo arm. I had a design that was significantly better in every way. Stronger, better protected and a greater range of movement.
And it looked exactly like the original. So it was a design I might be able to use.
I also reviewed what I had actually gained in my rush. Near the end, I was pretty out of it. So most of them were just partial copies, with details on the designs but not how to produce it. For example, there were mentions of several systems or materials that I had no idea how to make, which put a halt to that for a while.
I would need to slowly experiment to fill in the gaps.
Performing the rite of noosphere connection, which involved a complicated chant in combination with pulses of binary, incense and gestures, I felt the world start to fall away. Underneath the incense and liturgies, there was a purpose in them; they served as vessels for the code, passwords, scripts, and access keys.
++Connect to Noosphere++
As with many of the traditions I had been learning, much of it wasn't required, only needing select parts of it, in this case, the binary instructing my connection to link to the wireless noosphere.
The rest of it was just pomp… maybe.
I still thought much of it wasn't needed, and many of the rites were just rituals to remember the steps needed to repair an item, like the alphabet song I taught to Skyla and the others. I was pretty sure they wouldn't like that comparison, but it was surprisingly apt.
The noosphere opened up before me, a sea of data that was spread throughout the hive, all bounced through relays put there millennia ago. Everyone experienced the noosphere differently, partly defined by where the neural interface was connected to.
It should be the brain, like mine was through my MIU, but that wasn't always the case, or it wasn't a perfect connection. One of my peers had it in the nose, so he interpreted noosphere signals as smells, or another as sound or even taste.
Weird, but it worked for them, so who was I to judge?
With Snuffles guarding my body, I had little to fear there, so I could fully concentrate on the cybernetic world. Concentrating on the data I was looking for, the world blurred around me as I flew through the sea along data pathways until I entered the vault with the data I sought.
It unfurled around me as I read and took in the huge amount of data far faster and more efficiently than I would ever be able to in real space. It was shipments, small ones, easily missed and made even harder by my manipulations.
With many of the top gangers leaving at the same time, it critically weakened the gang; luckily, no one was in any position to challenge them, but I had people I cared about there and didn't want them at risk.
Luckily, almost everyone was still distracted. The purges were still going on, even eight months later. From my chats with Zardelle, I knew the Inquisitor was using the various cults as grindstones to train her new kill teams with.
I was pleased to see Inquisitor Brigitta was taking Zardelle's safety seriously. Apart from a small but elite team, several of them were even from her personal bodyguards, and she had given Zardelle a shield of some sort.
I had looked over it, and it looked good. I would one day be able to make better, but that wouldn't be for many years yet.
I was still avoiding meeting my previous gang, mostly saying I am too busy, even if I missed some of them, like Peggi, Katra, Skyla, Gwen or even Thul. I didn't know what it was at first, and it was only deep in my meditations that I realised I was embarrassed about my new bionics.
Even if I knew I shouldn't be.
Still, I was constantly messaging them, and that was enough for now.
I did gain more information now that I had access to the Mechanics' data. I read the file the Mechanicus had on the
Lady Inquisitor, and it was impressive. One victory after another. Hopefully, that would hold as Zardelle had been recruited by her.
There were vast vaults of information, stored and catalogued within the noosphere, that could be accessed with a thought and yet some practices downright baffled me. They had punch cards. Punch cards, I was programming the commands for servitors using punch cards. They were fancy, no doubt, but they were still punch cards, an archaic technology that had no right to be used when there were things like the noosphere available.
---
It took four more months before Archmagos Viel returned, and as I expected, as soon as he was back, we were loaded onto the ship and off toward the Forge World. There was no time for goodbyes or to grab anything; he arrived, we swapped shifts and were off, with barely a good day sir.
The ship was one I didn't recognise, not too surprising I supposed, but after a bit of digging, I found out it was a powerful heavy frigate. One of the many variants made across the Imperium, this particular version was made on the Forge World we would soon be joining.
At two kilometres long, it was anything but small, but like everything in the Imperium, it was super-sized. If you were going to build something, why not make it massive? It was part of the fleet stationed around the forge world at all times, and was therefore a purely Adeptus Mechanicus ship rather than a part of the Imperium Navy.
I'd found things made by the Mechanicus came in two flavours, and it wasn't necessarily the same from priest to priest. For example, the frigate I was boarding was a heavily armoured warship, but still had the many iconographies of the Machine God. Not to mention many features that wouldn't help its primary purpose, like the domed cathedral-like roofs.
So, they negatively affected a machine for their religion. But then, at the same time, look somewhere else, sometimes even in the same forge, and they care about efficiency and practicality above all else.
It was confusing to see, if fascinating.
Once we were all aboard, thousands of the Archmagos Viel followers, supplies and his experiments, we were off. The great ship burning promethium, accelerating towards the Mandeville zone at the edge of the system.
In the few days it took to get there, I spent my time wandering the ship with just Snuffles by my side.
I had not received a warm welcome from many of Viel's followers, especially those closest to him. Not hostile, just cold indifference. Which was fine by me, I was struggling enough as it was, even after a year, both with learning all the new information from the rites and rituals, but also on how I should be acting.
I now mostly remembered to bless things when I was working, although I still sometimes forgot to bless screws as I was taking them out. But in the early days, it was a nightmare.
It wasn't a problem at the time, with the magi training me, but when I arrived on Stratix, my identity would be different. A priest with decades of service under my belt would be expected to know it all. So I did everything I could to blend in.
Something, excuse the pun, I had been religiously practising to mixed results.
So much so, I had spent a spark on acting. It felt like a monumental waste, but I couldn't bring myself to regret it. Not least, as I wasn't sure what else to spend them on. I had thought about putting them into some social information, like about the state of the Imperium.
But my level of information access was such that I no longer needed to. Only hidden parts of the Imperium were out of reach, and I doubted my two sparks were enough to get information on any of that.
I was also surprised by how useful the spark turned out to be. Of course, it allowed me to play the part of a religious zealot, but it also gave me more fine motor control. I was able to control the tone of my voice and be more conscious of my microexpressions. Not enough to control them overnight, but at least be aware of them, which was very helpful.
Regardless, with the acting fragment, my integration was much smoother.
As we reached the warp point, I was privileged to be on the bridge as we crossed.
The room was more cathedral than bridge, with much of the walls covered in cogs of the Mechanicus. At its centre sat the command throne rising above everyone else. Black marble fused with cables, wires and esoteric devices.
Around it were various lesser stations, each one had several magi interfaced with it.
I had been expecting to see the famous Homo Navigo, one of the strongest factions within the Imperium. Instead, I found out we would be doing short one-light-year jumps to the forge world. It would take several weeks, maybe months to do, but it didn't require one of the incredibly rare navigators.
Digging into the ship's systems afterwards, I found this to be all too common. Far more than I realised. But in hindsight, it made sense. There were only two options for space travel: the slow way or through the warp. It would take ten years to reach the forge world by real space, so that was clearly out.
But it was hard to have a Navigator. There had to be hundreds of millions of them across the galaxy, but considering there must be trillions if not quadrillions of starships out there, which was a truly unimaginable number. So clearly, they wouldn't be available on every ship, nor could every ship afford one. So that left alternative means.
The short jumps, called calculated jumps.
At first, it sounds suicidal to make jumps in the warp without guidance, and everything I had read before that had agreed with it. But that was only for longer journeys. Where the currents of the warp could push the craft off course.
In short jumps, it was actually relatively safe.
Emphasis on the relative bit.
Once the rites and chants were done and what was effectively a full sermon given by Viel finished, the command was given, and the ship transitioned.
The vessel shuddered as the warp drives spooled up, the ship shaking more and more violently, alarms sounding, until enough power flowed through the drives and the ship jerked entering warp space. I couldn't see the transition, thank the Emperor. Before the jump, all external viewing ports and sensors were blocked; for example, the bridge had blast doors that dropped and sealed off the external windows.
It could be argued about why they had windows on the bridge in the first place, but that was neither here nor there.
Either way, I was fully behind it, what with the negative correlation of looking into the warp and long-term sanity.
The alarms, loud enough to wake the dead, served the same purpose. Sleeping during transition could sometimes end in disaster, or at least nightmares.
As we transitioned across, I felt the faintest of tingle and a whisper in the air. Like the slightest of breezes, both vanished as soon as I strengthened my shields. But apart from that, I felt nothing, which was reassuring as it meant the Gellar fields, responsible for bringing a part of real space within the warp, were active and working.
Without them, we would not have been in for a good time.
After the completion of the rituals for entering the warp, Archmagos Viel swept out of the room, indicating for me to follow him.
We left the bridge and walked towards his quarters, his metal claws clinking on the floor. I couldn't help but be impressed by the areas we walked through.
It was incredible, the difference from what I had been exploring before in the lower levels of the ship. Here everything was clean and beautiful. The lap of luxury, at least as much as the tech priests might have. But compared to the other sections…
Yeah, I was glad I wasn't stuck down there.
One thing that I still didn't understand was the empty space. Yes, it looked beautiful, with the wide-open spaces filled with sculptures and artworld to the Omnissiah, but I would have expected space to be a premium on ships. I didn't have the numbers, but I did have some STCs that I looked through, which only confirmed my guess. Rework the interior, and you could cut off maybe half a kilometre from the overall size of the ship and still have the exact same specifications.
We reached his quarters, a generous space, with several rooms and workshops all for himself. His vox grill released a burst of binary static.
I thought I caught the faint hint of approval on his otherwise dead face.
That was easy and had been drilled into me. It had shaped their entire existence and explained much of the oddness of the Mechanicus.
The Spirit is the Spark of Life.
Sentience is the ability to learn the Value of Knowledge.
Intellect is the Understanding of Knowledge.
Sentience is the Basest Form of Intellect.
Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension.
Comprehension is the Key to all Things.
The Omnissiah knows All, comprehends All.
The Alien Mechanism is a Perversion of the True Path.
The Soul is the Conscience of Sentience.
A Soul can be bestowed only by the Omnissiah.
The Soulless Sentience is the Enemy of All.
The Knowledge of the Ancients stands Beyond Question.
The Machine Spirit guards the Knowledge of the Ancients.
Flesh is Fallible, but Ritual Honours the Machine Spirit.
To Break with Ritual is to Break with Faith.>
This too was explained to me, although it was far less cut and dry. Every priest seemed to come to a slightly different interpretation, or maybe not each priest, but every forge world certainly had a slightly different interpretation of it.
Regardless, I recited what Viel expected from me.
Glancing it over, it was pretty clear a fuse had been tripped. But that wasn't what was needed, so I went through each step, perfectly following each rite as I did. From the chants when unscrewing the dozen screws to get to its internals, all the way to blessing it with oils when I was done.
All told, it took me over an hour to finish the rite.
When I was done, Viel held out his hand for it and powered it up and ran a systems check on it. Although he called it the rite of probing, it was actually listed as:
++01010010 01000110 00101101 00110001 00110011 00110001 00110100 00110101 00110011 00101101 01000011 01001101 00110001 00110011 00101101 00110011 00110100 00110101 00110010 00110010 00110110 00110100 00110101 00110100 00110011++
Or translated to RF-131453-CM13-3452264543 when not in binary, but I found mine easier to remember.
As I handed it back, Viel nodded. "Good, you avoided the trap I left in there and came to the solution."
That was a trap? I thought it was just the usual convoluted mess that most of the technology I came across had. But I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I went through another dozen or so more tests before Viel leaned back, apparently happy, not that I could see that on his face of course.
I felt a ping through the noosphere as it asked for a connection. Checking it was from Viel, I allowed it, but still kept up my defences. Effectively firewalls that stopped any connection from doing too much.
Mine was of course a custom one, cannibalised from the ones I found from the Mechanicus.
Sure it was safe, I allowed the connection.
As I left the room, my mind was on the spark that had blossomed for officially joining the Adeptus Mechanicus. I would hold onto it for now, not clear on the best way to spend it.
Maybe Mathematics?