Chapter 71+72:

Chapter 71: Sleeping on the job is not allowed, we all have much to do and learn.




Dealing with human governments was normally a pointlessly long, tedious and difficult endeavor, democratic ones like the 'The Fifth Hexan Federal State of Freedom' the most annoying of them all.

This is because of a single reason, governments are not one entity, they are many entities, each diffuse creatures that have a part of themselves in the government, a part of themselves out of it, another two parts in the parts of other governments that are inside the government and the parts outside of it and an obscene amount of confusion as to which each individual was in, sometimes even the individuals themselves not knowing their exact position in regards to all of them, yet acting as it demands exactly.

A hypothetically not so hypothetical bureaucrat could be a part of the ministry of finance, part of a union that contains members from both inside the government and outside of it, part of a religious organization among several trying to influence the government and society at large for dominance, part of a political party that may or may not be in power and is part of an unofficial clan composed of his wider family and friends that despite not considering themselves as one organization do act like one. Each of those organizations has different needs, even assuming they have similar needs they put them in a different priority and the man in order to maintain friendly relationship and membership in the groups they are a part of must balance all of those needs.

Now imagine that this is among the least complex situations the average human government worker can find themselves a part of, it is an incomplete one too and most importantly does not even take into consideration their own family and how they might be a part of other organizations too.

This complexity is healthy for humans and their souls, but quite poisonous to the Eldar soul, for the constant need to balance various interests, the different games their mind engages in to keep everything stable and the sheer variety of needs humans need to take into consideration unconsciously when interacting with various people and organization is the basis of their socialization. Eldar can understand and engage in it too, for our minds are adaptable and mighty, but it is not healthy for us to do so, as the way humans organize themselves is counter-intuitive and the exact opposite of how we build our society.

In Eldar societies there is a hierarchy of importance and allegiance to the organizations you are a part of, starting with your family from closest to the most distant you care for, then your liege lord, then the organization you are 'officially' a part of, everything else you might bother to keep track of and then the Divine. The way you act is always set, your relationship to others dictated by both birth and choice and you do not need to change the way you speak or interact with others, except perhaps to trick them. We are not constrained in how we can pursue our lives by anything but the things we hold most dear, and in the heart of Eldar there is nothing we hold closer to our hearts than family, not even our oaths of fealty which come as a distant second, and most definitely not what the Divine wish of us.

A human needs to think and act differently with various people and organizations so that they interact on their terms and learn various ways to present themselves as, this act giving humans the mental adaptability needed to handle new social interactions and circumstances, as well as ways of remaining connected to society in case any of those links is severed. The way they value their different allegiances also changes depending on how those organizations treat the individual too. A family could be abandoned as a priority without being forsaken while some hobby group's interests could stand above, family, the divine or even the state, because they are more fun to be around.

Tyranny, in humans at least, appears when a single group dictates the terms in how all interactions must go, how one must speak, what they may speak of and what the result of the conversation can or should be and inevitably place themselves as beyond reproach, beyond criticism and beyond any meaningful consequences to their actions. It does not matter what form the government has once tyranny sets in and only one organization or view can dictate to all others how they can act. It does not matter what mechanism the enforcement takes be it ideology, religion, law, rhetoric, military force, mob rule, secret police or sheer personal power or others, all tyrannies are the same and they act in the same way as they enforce a single game on the government and then they enforce a single game on society.

The game of tyranny will then continue until the society breaks apart from the government enforcing the unnatural state of obedience or humans stop being humans and will just mindlessly follow orders without a care for social bonds or their own self. Either that or the tyranny accepts limits on what it does and is willing to enforce but that's easier said than done.

Once tyranny sets in governments become easy to navigate, you only need to know how to play one game to control or interact with a government, and now I have created a tyranny on Hexas 3, a military one where it is the military and their games of influence, discipline and might that reign supreme. Now me and my Younger Sister need to make sure that said Tyranny is abolished as thanks to her actions and my unwilling trickery of her, Hexas 3 features in our plans and because of that we need to make sure the society we made here lasts.

Sure the Tyranny helps us speed things up as we have a single group and their game-logic to deal with as opposed to hundreds we would need to account for while there being only two of us and we would have needed years just to parse them, because democracies make the groups harder to distinguish or notice even as they exist and act the same as those of aristocracies or monarchies, because democracy gives you visibility in one way and takes it in another.

But to deal with that issue is something for my Younger Sister to deal with for a few days, as I have a much more important duty to do, making my bed for the night and sleeping in it.

"Is this truly necessary?" She asked in annoyance.

I was covering the walls of the large rooms her vassals have given us to sleep in with a Dream Murder Charm attuned to me as the Protected and herself as the Protector. I needed to see if I could sleep outside of the Empire, as thanks to my actions on the World of Three Faces that was no longer a guarantee. Better to check now, after I've only been awake for a few days with someone to look after me, than find out when I am alone and tired.

"Yes sister, it very much is. Also you do know you can use my name, Bessar when we talk, we are by law siblings now even as I am not a part of your family's legacy, you are a part of Hoeth's legacy." I said softly as I hid my annoyance.

The materials of this room were too soft, so I needed to make a slight web of Wraithbone in-between the layers as I took upon Aesan's blessing. It seems he picked up bone singing and the skill transferred a bit. I will not be making star ships any time soon, or something more complicated than a shuriken pistol or lasers, but now I had a bit of an easier time making Wraithbone and filling it with my psychic energy.

It is both useful and a sign that my siblings, wives, nephews and children are well, for depending on which took up the craft or several others it would serve as a message to me as to their situation. Aesan taking bonesinging and what I assume is some sort of underground magma-sailing and a few other things up meant things were good, my wife was happy and my children were doing as they should. If it was Guraith then things were bad and if it was Marsa that took bonesinging up I was to immediately come back to my wife because something went terribly wrong or right and I am to be there to deal with the consequences.

Marsa was pregnant so her doing anything but being pampered meant things needed my immediate intervention.

"Why is it needed Bessar?" She asked me with a strange mix of emotions.

There was doubt, fear, annoyance and relief, but there was no curiosity. I was quite disappointed in that, for I liked when my new younger sister was actually curious in her questions and wasn't just trying to find a reason to hide her annoyance with me because I pulled her from her meetings to watch me as I slept.

I need her help one time to save my life and she's annoyed with it. I am still going to act as an Older Brother should, but the girl has earned a prank for it and as soon as I figure out what prank I can pull on her without killing her or me, or worse ruining our plans, and as such she will regret being annoyed at me when I'm asking her to save me from the Divine trying to eat my soul.

"What do you know of the roles priests take, or how official organizations take shape?" I asked back.

The question was pertinent as I needed to know what she knew first before I could answer. I am also taking any chance I can to teach her how the Empire works, because it is important and soon nobody will care to remember.

I could feel her eye boring into my back, for she knew not how her question and mine are linked, but her gaze quickly abated and was shortly followed by a sigh as she contemplated her life and her answer.

Good, she was now rethinking and recontextualizing her knowledge of our people and Empire of Ten Million Suns based on what she's learned since leaving her home.

"All organizations are born from groups deciding on a given purpose, and authority is granted by others believing that you have it and thus granting it to you. As our society is based on trickery, official organizations are based on group acting as if they possess said authority until they convince others of it then when they do they are then forced to do it even if they meant it as a prank." She replied in confusion after a minute's worth of consideration.

I frowned at her words as I continued to work..

'Is this what I lead her to believe?'

Nothing she said is technically wrong, but it is just so utterly incomplete lying would have served her more. I was once again very glad she did not become a Loremistress as she's obviously not smart enough for it. I am not either, but me trying would get me laughed at while her trying might actually insult the Loremasters of old.

"A technically correct answer, which is the best kind of correct, but so incomplete it creates the wrong conclusions. We do not draw our authority from the people thinking we are meant to act as we do, but by royalty and the divine being tricked into abiding by what we say we are meant to do. If they order someone to do something then that someone can make an organization related to said task and now said organization has official and legal recognition as being able to do a specific series of tasks officially and with their authority, even after the original order has been fulfilled and in time their duties can change and evolve or disappear as they wish and can be argued that their mission has changed. We are no different, as The Speakers of Apocalypse used to be Scribes to the Loremasters of the White Towers and it is why I need to make sure to check things up as I go to sleep." I gently corrected.

That only made her more confused as she considered my words.

I don't understand what was so confusing, as authority is drawn from the Divine and Royalty, for Royalty stand above the Children of the Stars and Divinity above the Small Singing Swords of the Ancients even as we pretend otherwise. If they want something done, then that something is getting done and whoever is getting ordered to do something gets to pick their crew and tools and get the backing of their patrons to see it done. Once said mission is done, and unless the Divine or Royalty specifically demand that the organization they made to help them is dismantled, then said organization continues to enjoy official recognition in tasks related to what they were founded to do and enjoy official status in front of both divinity and royalty and all they rule over.

"What are you checking? Also how are you a scribe weren't you meant to be a diplomat?" She asked me unimpressed.

She was smelling trickery but was too confused to say where it was. How cute.

Two walls done, and two more left.

"I am checking if I can sleep outside the Empire without dying. As for your second question we have taken over multiple tasks from other holy orders of Hoeth, including diplomacy, lorekeeping and military logistics and a few others, but at our core the Speakers of Apocalypse see our roots from the Scribes of the Towers of Hoeth. Older Brothers and Sisters were meant to retrieve and copy knowledge from hard to get to and dangerous places, such as the archives of the people that wanted us dead and that we needed to kill, while the Younger Brothers and Sisters were meant to just find tomes that a Loremaster or Loremistress might need in the tower or in others and go retrieve them and keep everything nice and tidy for us to return to.

The missions changed, but the same logic remained, where Older Brothers are meant to take on dangerous missions, our Younger Siblings are meant to take the safe duties that we need of them. My other Younger Brothers and Sister do so now, and soon so will you as I leave you something easy to do." I answered.

"Dying?" She all but screeched.

She also almost dropped the portable terminal she was holding and looking over the data there to see what she can do to stop the Hexan economy from imploding.

Eldar hone our psychic and mental abilities based entirely on what we find useful. My younger sister has desperately honed hers into finding hidden economic issues and indicators her entire life in order to solve what she perceived as her family being in decline. Now, her mind and instincts are so accurate that when given unrestricted access to a planet's economic data she already sees how to keep the economy in the green and save it from what any quick look over the data would say is an economic catastrophe that would make the Late Bronze Age Collapse seem reasonable.

Being in the process of being genocided tends to do that, but thankfully she'll be able to find a way to keep the Hexan civilization in one piece with whatever Dark Bureaucratic Arts and Economic Magic the abilities of an Alpha Plus psyker and 40 years of stress, fear and dedication have given her.

"Be careful with that thing, as you still need it, and yes. Priests of the Pantheon require a Divine Patron to protect us from the other gods' meddling and putting more work and unreasonable demands on our backs, as we are an official organization. Unfortunately our Patron God is dead as we do not recognize Cegorach as Hoeth and so the entire pantheon and the other priesthoods can mess with us with impunity if they find us. This leaves us at the mercy of the other gods, and the New Divine wants to plunder my soul for all it has and it has been killing all priests of Hoeth as we slept in the past.

Thankfully my Dream Murder Charm allows us a given degree of safety in the Empire, but I have not tested it outside of it. Outside of the Empire, things get… complicated for priests especially for me thanks to my familial connection to the New Divine. Please do not ask me of the familial connection, I would rather not think about it." I absentmindedly answered.

All four walls are done now, unfortunately the ceiling is curved and so it not exactly suitable to paint things on it, the lines wouldn't be right and the art-logic would make the whole thing unsustainable and the floor is already filled with wraithbone string.

"How has she been killing us?" She asked frightened.

I sighed and turned towards her. She was standing on the edge of my bed with the Portable terminal in her hands and put to the side. Her face was frightened and her red eyes were cloudy with worry. I went and put myself on the bed near her and held her hand to calm her down. She was also still wearing her dress uniform, with her colorful armor and dark robes and just like I wore my own white armor and dark robes still.

I do so because I will need all the protection I could get.

"The True Priesthood of Slaanesh would use their Divine as a messenger for their requests for a meeting, but just being near a Divine requires special protections and preparations to prevent them from learning all that we know and are. Our soul protections would break our souls into pieces and burn them to prevent our secrets from being known once she was near us and that killed us. You are safe, as you know little, and the True Priesthood can't target you thanks to your family's rituals keeping you and your soul safe and ensuring you return home, but I am a personal target for the New Divine, so I need to make sure if she can or can't target me here yet." I assured her.

We did not know how we kept being killed off before Slaanesh let me know during my dream ritual, but it seems that it was the True Priesthood of Slaanesh using their unborn Divine as a messenger and hitwoman to kill off the only Priesthood that treats their goddess like a foreign threat still and before my birth they very nearly succeeded in killing us off.

My Orphanage is… was the last of the Old Barracks built by the White Towers of Hoeth still standing, and with its closing, so did the last safe training ground of our Priesthood close. We could still take apprentices but they weren't safe anymore and we had nowhere to put them as they learned and we needed to be discreet to ensure everyone else thought we are dead.

Thankfully my siblings now ensure that a new one is built on the World of Clashing Blades under the Protection of my wives, but if my life proved to be a failure or not useful enough then the priesthood of Hoeth would have been beyond dead. We can recover from death easily, but we can't recover from the level of screwed we were in normally. Thankfully the gamble of my peers and predecessors paid off and we were once again plotting the downfall of the creature that hunted us across time and space and laughed as we did it.

The true priesthood of Slaanesh is paying dearly now too, for they could not abide by the treaty we made and signed and decided to break it the moment my Apprentice finished his apprenticeship to me and they sicced Slaanesh on me hoping it would kill me. Instead the vermin now pay for it as Slaanesh learned how her own priesthood deceived her.

They told her half truths and lies and tricked her to her detriment when they told her of how the Divine are born. They told them of how each Divine has to prove themselves, how each of them has to find ways to help each other with their tasks and that if she wants to be accepted then she needs to prove herself worthy of it and that is she does so then she will become as loved and respected as Asuryan, the King of the Gods. And so she did as they tricked her into being and her Lore became that of perfection, where she can do everything and anything, help everyone with anything and thus earn the love of everything, but this is not how our Divines work.

Our Divines are weapons, and weapons serve a purpose and when another can serve that purpose better, they get replaced by it if they can't be upgraded.

If she were to have become capable of fulfilling the purpose of every single other divine, then she would have replaced them entirely and consumed them to reuse their building blocks. Only Khaine and Ceogorach would have had a chance at survival, for Khaine has taken upon himself Villainy and Villainy is a complex enough domain that there can be multiple interpretations and individuals to hold them at the same time and that would allow him to survive her onslaught . Cegorach meanwhile exists to mock people and even himself and Slaanesh can't mock herself, for her pride won't allow her and thus Cegorach is safe as long as he is smart about evading her attempts at killing him or Slaanesh learns humility without somebody else to humble her.

Yeah, my brother will be safe for all eternity, as there's no way an Eldar Chaos goddess will ever find humility without someone to beat some into her skull and Cegorach is smart enough not to let her learn it.

Of the three gods that were chosen to survive the birth of Slaanesh, its Isha that was the most difficult to find a way to keep alive and away from Slaanesh, for Isha is a healer and if Slaanesh is infected with Chaos, then she will heal her of it before being devoured and if Slaanesh is not afflicted with Chaos then Isha will die just as well. Because of this we had to arrange for Isha to be taken by Nurgle too and it would serve the triple purpose of keeping Isha alive, keeping Slaanesh infected with Chaos, and perhaps getting Nurgle to infect boredom and enhance or sabotage the wasting disease in some way that would make it something we can detect by itself and not merely its effects on us.

But that is not something my Younger Sister should worry about, as all she needs to do is know that she is safe and focus on making sure the Hexans will be useful to the Cult of Strife which I will let her be a hidden benefactor of.

"You are safe, please understand as this is not a trick, the only one in danger here is myself and it is as it should be ,for I am an Older Brother and we are meant to be in danger. You are a younger sister and thus are meant to be safe." I continued and tried to calm her down as I held her hand.

I am not sure I succeeded, for I did not understand the emotions the features of her soul and face tried to hide. I am not sure she understood them either.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What was the mission that founded us? Also what did you do to be hunted in your dreams?" I asked Bessar.

His lectures were informative, but contained information I would have been happier not knowing. That didn't mean I would not learn still.

Most Eldar do not speak like him, the flow of his words meandering and long, and he only does it when he lectures you and I know I am not exactly the smartest Eldar to ever live and so I must learn what and when I can. It is why I ask what questions I can, for I need the knowledge Bessar is willing to provide.

I now knew why he insisted on ensuring I do not ever sleep alone, and why he will be teaching the witches of this world to use and refill the 'Dream Murder Charm' of his to ensure I sleep well. I thought he was just messing with me then, but now I realize he was making sure I am not killed in my sleep or have them plundered for knowledge until I lose my sanity.

"The mission itself was nothing important, Hoeth wanted a scroll of knowledge from a Necron library to learn of the nature of the relationship between the Necrons and their Gods, so the man he chose for the job took his younger sister with him to help him. He braved the Dangers of multiple Necron Tombs as he went and hunted for knowledge of where the scroll is, while his sister, The Laughing Blade ensured his ship and servants were prepared to get him out of trouble or heal him and allow him to recover so that he may do so again if he did not find what he needed.

Once the mission ended and he was successful, The Laughing Blade started our organization that would one day become the Speakers of Apocalypse in honor of her brother, so that all worthy of it may learn of his ways and the Loremasters would have some Tomb Raiders and Scribes for whenever they needed some found and organized." He said softly.

He did not speak of his name and I did not wish the consequences of learning it. If Bessar does not offer knowledge freely then it meant it is better if I do not ask for it. He was probably a farseer, as they tend to do that sort of nonsense and the last thing any follower of Hoeth wishes to do is talk fondly of farseers.

If my guess was right, then all Older Brothers were meant to be farseers and the position was created to honor them, but now they hate each other with the hate one reserves only for their treacherous family.

His face turned pensive as he thought of how to answer my second question.

"As for what I have done… Hmm… Do you know what the refugees are running from?"

I thought about it as I recalled what some of the clan leaders told me as I brought them to account for their invasion of my new domain.

"The Empire is in turmoil after the Priests of the New Divine raided the Tomb of a priest of Cegorach and now the two priesthoods are at war for the sacrilege. The priests of Cegorach claim that the New Divine is not Eldar, but a Changeling that took the crib meant for Cegorach to be born in and his father, Hoeth killed himself to give him a place to rest made from his own bones, sinew and flesh and there has been rumors of Blasphemy on behalf of the Priests of the New Divine as even their Goddess turned on them and the periphery worlds are now in the process of hunting down all priests of the New Divine they can get their hands on while the Song Worlds are in turmoil and the conflict is spreading." I told him.

Hoeth was until now just an old and unused name for Cegorach who changes identities, faces and sometimes even names when he gets bored and wishes to trick you. This was what most that even knew the name Hoeth could tell you, but now all priests and servants of Cegorach claim that the two are distinct and that Cegorach had to be born unloved and pretend to be his dead father. He did so because his crib was no longer his and thus he had nowhere to rest and be born in, and due to this reason he had sworn revenge on the thief that took his crib and his father from him.

It was also why, his priests, the Shadowseers and the Troupe Masters claim their god is so clumsy and forgetful, for he tries his best but he had nobody to teach him, as all he knew he had to learn himself as he pretended to be his father and it is why his home is a library where he stores all the scraps of knowledge he could scrounge up unnoticed. His home wasn't his even, but junk and debris the friends and last servants of his father tried to build for him as they died and were hunted to death in a conflict not even death could grant them respite from.

It was half-truth at best based on what I now knew, but it seems that these claims have spread like wildfire in the periphery of the Empire as the Eldar are forced to decide between Cegorach's story and that of the New Divine and her priesthoods is too busy being hunted by those of Cegorach, the New Divine, and the people on the periphery to mount an effective counter-argument there.

He nodded at my words and his grey eyes glinted in dark amusement.

"Yes, I caused that turmoil, for the Tomb was mine to rest in after I have 'legally' died of old age to draw the New Divine and her Priests into a trap so that I could kill the damn thing. I have also caused the conflict between priesthood and divine when I managed to point out to the New Divine that she had been deceived by her priests to her detriment. For this and more she now most likely wants to plunder my mind and soul for all I know so that she may find a way to help herself, and as long as the farseers continue to keep their head down and not do anything stupid and treacherous again all should go just as planned." He said as his eyes turned savage with joy.

"How are you still alive then? Tombs are for the dead to rest in, they are not meant to rise from them." I asked skeptically.

"Eldar do not care for the difference between life and death Apprentice, for we can choose to be one or the other with little consequence if we feel like it, now that's enough bed talk. I need to prepare for sleep." He said as he went let go of my hand.

I did not even notice myself calming down from my fear of sleep.

A question lingered in my mind still and as I watched him prepare his bed for sleep and rose from it as I closed my portable terminal and put it on a nearby table.

"Ask your question Fiora, I can feel it gnawing at your mind and I might not be able to answer it later if my defenses fail." He said as put himself beneath the sheets.

"Why do we hate the farseers, hasn't your position been made to honor them? I understand they betrayed us somehow, but surely we could have forgiven them by now or they would have found some way to earn forgiveness."

I could feel his eyes look at me, but I dared not look into them. I did not wish to know what I would see there for his words were as soft as the pillow I used to end my former husband's last days of suffering as we both reached 120 years old.

"My sweet sister who is far more merciful than me, do I look sane to you? Have I tricked you to such an extent that it seems like my mind still belongs to the realm of the sane?"

"N-no." I stammered.

I did not like where this was going and his nod at my words only made me more scared.

"Indeed my sister, I have had my soul ravaged by divine attacks, time attacks, paradoxes, direct exposure to Divinity, I have become addicted to love to deal with that, I've had my soul nearly split into pieces to protect other peoples' souls from being dissolved into divinity and have had my soul be in the presence of eldar royalty and their nonsense and what I have felt and shared is but a fraction of what some of my fellow Older Brothers have been through and what all of us have to go through. I have long since slipped from sanity and combined with the knowledge I now hold, all I truly want is to forget it, to be near my family and love and be loved deeply and not worry about it, but I can't because I need to make sure our people are not Doomed to Extinction or worse at the hands of our enemies.

I can't do that, none of the Older Brothers of the Speakers of Apocalypse can do that until Hoeth is back, or we die and our souls are erased for good to prevent the New Divine from dooming us all or the Pantheon from bringing back Hoeth too soon.

The farseers were meant to be our Older Brothers, the rest of us were meant to help them, to keep them sane for as long as we could before allowing them to forget and enjoy the life every single one of us craves now. They betrayed us, they destroyed the rituals we used to make them forget for good and still be themselves afterwards and without Hoeth we can't recreate them and now each of us are doomed to dance across time and space until Hoeth is back or we are gone for good. We will not forgive that treachery, not now, not ever!" He ranted.

His words started normally but bit by bit, all that was left by the end was spite and the ranting of a madman whose madness started being visible as the facade of sanity he showcased peeled back to reveal a soul barely hanging together from all the scars it accrued and that required Divine blessings to recover from.

"We will not forgive that." I echoed his words fearfully.

If that is what the farseers did, then I could understand why the followers of Hoeth despise farseers. If this madness is what they condemned the senior members of my order then they deserve it and more.

"Indeed we will not, please connect yourself to the Dream Murder Charm properly as I've already used your drop of blood to attune you to it. Once you are ready and can control it properly I will go to sleep." he said as his sanity was once again pretending that it exists.

I did as he said and I could feel the strange artifact working and I could supply it the energy it needed and could do the same to the Swords of Valor. The Dream Murder Charm was an object, a thing that existed to be used as a tool and required me to aim and shoot or cut with it, but the Swords of Valor were different.

I could feel their bloodthirst, their desire to kill that which dares hide from them and they begged the things that hid beyond reality and perception to show themselves to be cut down for the Sin of their Existence. They could not sing or think in speech, but their emotions were enough to convey their intents, and the hundreds of small plaques arranged around the room each held a single spectral Sword of Valor that prepared itself to kill a Neverborn or die trying.

They were taunting and shouting and jeering at the cowardice of their foes that refused to present themselves for their execution.

"I got it." I told Bessar as I figured out how to keep the Dream Murder Charm fed as I swung.

He smiled kindly at me and once again the Shadow of a Dead Divine replaced him for less time than it took my heart to beat before all that could be seen was Bessar.

"Good, know that even if I don't survive this that I am proud of you and my blades. In my pack there is a small book with the title Forsaken on it, in it is my life's story. Find the World of Clashing Blades if you are in danger and our plans fail and you need a safe place to be in and present it to its Queen or her children. They will introduce you to my other Younger Siblings which I left there to keep her realm safe and act as a safe house for the families of the Priesthoods of the Pantheon after they all die. Good night Laciena Fiora." He said and his eyes closed before I could respond.

Everything was fine for some minutes and I dared hope that he was wrong in his belief that the New Divine was specifically aiming for his soul.

Minutes passed and I felt myself breathe in relief as I sat down on the chair near the table and considered if I should continue my work trying to save the local economy. My new life came with many perks and it seems a mind for money in a society not bothering with the concept of money was one of them.

I did so as Bessar slept peacefully and I once again was back at trying to salvage a planetary economy. In my past life this would have been a hilarious joke, but my new life's mental abilities made it surprisingly easy to parse through the data and find patterns and how to reverse the decline that was coming.

The situation was not quite as horrific as I first believed, especially as Bessar shared his designs for various technological wonders he claimed to have received from a titan. Among the things he shared were the designs for an algae vertical farm that would be able to feed thousands and was cheap to build if not maintain. We had enough power production to keep the heat on and found some species the people could eat, which combined with a few other food sources we have available still should allow the world to avoid starvation.

Water would get tight as a lot of infrastructure was damaged but the pipes were easy to replace and both Bessar and I could make a wraithbone pump and filter that could last a few years until the world remade the destroyed factories and remade the designs for them as both had been destroyed in the war.

The other problems were easier to solve, the stock market was already dead so any change to it was a good one, our production capabilities were still standing and we could retool some of it to repair existing infrastructure and rebuild some housing.

All thought of economic recovery ceased, for the darkness approached.

I could feel it and so could the Blades of Valor as all of us swung at the thing we could not see yet knew it came for the one we were meant to protect.

We cut and shot and the Blades of Valor died as they expended their lives cutting at something vaster than this world.

One, ten, fifty, one hundred, four hundred died in heartbeats as I continued to cut and I saw the thing that attacked us, no not us, but Bessar.

The purple and black thing did not care and I did my best to not puke as I Saw her.

Her face was a crown of dark chitin that ended with two horns submerged in and ocean of gore and screams of thousands as they pleaded for mercy that will never come. Her body was a supple and shifted from pink to purple and black and back again as she advanced in the dreaming world towards my sleeping Older Brother.

She was cut and bled a dark puss which I realized was torment, she cried in the anguish of a thousand a thousand torments and indignities imagined receive and repaid as her ever-shifting visage became both monstrous and divine.

The only thing that stayed constant were not her legs for she shifted them in a myriad shapes or abandoned them entirely, it was not hear hand for she did the same to them too, it was not her body which we cut into with wild abandon but the carved sign of the New Divine in her crown of chitin and horns.

'Die, die, die, die, die, die!' I and my fellow swords sang to the foul thing pretending to be a god.

The visage of a beautiful woman peeled back to reveal a bovine thing of horns and spikes which was replaced by the visage of a thing of too many tentacles that we tried to cut but grew faster than we could cut them. They grew as we cut them and grew faster than we could cut them too as the number of blades that did so diminished with each cut.

It shifted again into an endless forest of thorns and screams that surrounded us as we died to kill it and we cut into the endless realm to little effect, for we were but small swords cutting into a galaxy of torment and pain and cared not one bit for it. The thing bleeds, the thing hurts and it will die for it, for we are the Swords of the Ancients, the Children of the Stars and this galaxy belongs to us.

'As long as something bleeds we can kill it for it.' I hissed to it.

It was not just me that did so I realized. The other eldar on this world sang the same as they joined me in killing the thing that dares trespass our lands.

My fellow blades died one by one as they were spent, my Dream Murder Charm followed as I prepared to cut with my own soul into the demonic realm but just before the sword of my soul could cut the nightmare ended. The vines were gone, the foul thing no longer here and neither were my companions which had bled and died and failed to kill it.

Bessar was awake, the nightmare ended.

"Bessar?" I whispered fearfully as I regained my mind once again.

The blades of Valor were all dead now and I could feel that so were a few of the Eldar that joined the fight, but the vast majority remained alive as they tried to recover. I no longer felt the murderlust of Khaine anymore.

The room was dark, both due to the lack of light and due to the burn marks covering it. Each of the wraithbone strings my Older Brother weaved now charcoal black. The entire room was covered in dark lines of burned wraithbone and the smell of blood and charcoal filled my nostrils.

I could not hear his heartbeat or his breathing.

My fear mounted as I approached his bed and saw his corpse laying on it.

The bedsheets were gone and so were his robes, but his white armor remained but was caved in around his heart. I approached breathlessly to my brother's corpse and could feel my tears welling up.

"Bessar.' I repeated mournfully as I approached.

His head was looking at me and his eyes were gone and burned by the sheer amount of psychic energy that had coursed through his skin.

He… he was dead.

His mouth opened and I fell back on my butt in fear at the moving corpse.

"I hate being proven right." The corpse rattled in a raspy voice no living thing should posses.

`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`.`

Chapter 72: Death does not stop one from plotting, least of all Eldar.




"I hate being proven right." I repeated myself again.

The first time I have said these words I have said them with sadness, the second was with disappointment, the third will be exasperation if my younger sister doesn't stop screaming in fear.

I suppose I should be more understanding, as she is a child looking at a smoking corpse and she did try to defend me after all. She, my Swords of Valor and surprisingly the Craftworlders managed to buy me an entire minute of sleep.

Truly, a most glorious victory for the Eldar against the Divine.

It is definitely more than I was expecting but I guess the blessings of Khaine are to blame for giving my would be defenders enough energy and coordination to fight against the attempted Divine Daemonic incursion and the obscene amount of warp energy that coursed through my body as my energy, that of several warships and hundreds of souls faced against an echo of divinity and used my body as a battlefield.

"Please cease screaming Laciena Fiora, I need time to assess the damage your fight caused to my body. If you have too much energy you can bring me something to eat and drink to give my body some building blocks to repair itself." I demanded, my raspy voice filled with annoyance.

"W-what? How are you alive?" She asked babbling.

Her tears would have caused me great concern a few minutes ago but I am too busy trying to hold my soul attached to my body.

"Food first, I will answer important questions once my brain is no longer liquefied and I repaired my chest from the implosion of my heart, I'll have to keep the rest of the repairs for later. I will be fine, but I need some building blocks for my body before the last of my cells die out for good." I replied.

There was still warp energy coursing through my blood and my cells were killing themselves faster than I could regenerate them to prevent mutation. I had minutes left at the current rate of decay as my technique to cheat death requires me to attach my soul to living cells as opposed to my functioning body, but without living cells to attach myself to I will die all the same.

"R-right, we have some nearby I'll go get some." She stammered.

She went to our pack and picked the liquid rations I've prepared for ourselves. The red liquid was so very pretty to my nutrient deficient body. A pity I had to use my soul and no my eyes for I am sure my body would have appreciated the sight.

"I have told you before I went to sleep that life and death matter little to Eldar, my sister, I understand you are a young lady still, but please pay proper attention to my words for they are important and I rarely speak of things that are not. I am fine for now and I have been through worse, and all I need is some time and food to repair my body and all will be good." I told her.

She poured the liquid down my throat and I could feel the decay ceasing as I have hit an equilibrium. There was perhaps 100 grams of living matter left in me and most of it was my marrow and there was a bit in my throat.

It will have to do.

"More please and thank you. Also I hope you appreciate the lesson I have prepared for you." I told to her as I finished the first bottle.

She gave me another one and good thing we had plenty of them, for I needed all of them and more.

My body started purging the warp energy and I started regaining ground, and my sister stopped being hysterical and crying. Her incredulous face looked much better than her crying one, even if both were disappointing in their own way.

I am her teacher and guardian, of course I will make a lesson out of anything I do with her nearby if I can help it, and her lesson is one all priests must learn. I had others tell me of it, but its one thing to be told and another to experience it with your own eyes and soul and the girl is now getting the best education a priest could get as to our duties and the nature of our relationship with the Divine.

She at least calmed down now that she thought everything went as planned, for eldar children did not like uncertainty and unplanned violence and my Younger Sister was still a child. I should have probably felt bad having a child protect me as I slept, but she was safer than I was in that altercation.

I could feel Slaanesh's echo as she approached me, and she could not even perceive my Younger Sister as she cut into her, but her and the cuts of everyone else were so individually insignificant the eldar that died, died because they could not dodge and not because she tried to kill them. She wasn't trying ot harm me, but ask for knowledge.

"What lesson?" She asked much more calmly now.

I even detected a hint of annoyance in her voice. Excellent.

"What did you See as you swung, do you remember it still? Please try to form the experience into words." I asked gently of her.

She poured another bottle down my throat.

At the current rate the repairs should last a few hours before I am back to where I was before trying to go to sleep, and what a glorious 21 minutes of sleep those were. People truly do not appreciate sleep enough until they have to go weeks, months if not years or centuries without any.

The priests of Hoeth are going to be making each new Tower of Hoeth hold the most sinfully comfortable bed one could craft in them for the priesthood in honor of what a lack of proper sleep did to us, for lack of sleep killed more of us than any other foe short of the Necrons. We won't sleep in it naturally and will beat anyone who tries but its the thought that counts. A reminder to our weaknesses and failures is important to instill some humility and remind us of what we went through to reach where we are.

The rest of our people might think that all that we have is inherent to our greatness, but priests know better that we have had to fight and bleed for everything that we had and that we could have very well not succeeded at any point in our existence and this is what the Old Ones intended of us.

"It came to us first as something resembling a woman, but demonic looking, something between a demon and the statues of the New Divine I've seen once or twice as father took me to see them. Then she turned into an actual demon with bovine features and then a forest of thorns and torment we tried to cut down and then you woke up. It made the claims of the refugees and the priesthood of Cegorach much more believable than I gave them credit when I first heard them as the first looked Divine enough but the third showed that she wasn't much of an Eldar Divine." She answered promptly as she settled into the role of a student.

About what I expected then, it even gave her the same wrong conclusions I expected which was good, for I prepared a way to deal with them.

"I would say I am disappointed, but that would be a lie, you learned the wrong lessons I was expecting you to and it is very easy to explain to you what you understood wrong in the lesson I tried to teach you. Describe Khaine to me, as a discussion on his appearance will serve as the perfect starting point for an explanation and as you have learned as a priest of Khaine does, using him as a talking point is appropriate." I replied gently.

Once I stopped speaking she took the opportunity to pour another bottle of the red liquid in my mouth as she considered my words. My brain was no longer mush, and my chest will soon no longer have a crater in it.

I am very proud of her still, despite giving me the wrong answer as I do not care for her getting the right answer the first time, for all I want is for her to learn how to think properly. Right or wrong she can learn or make on her own, my duty is to make her think as a junior priestess should and I will ensure she does it.

Once my heart and brain are operational, I will go fix my limbs and eat and recover alone as she goes to thank the Commodore that came to help us, this Eadon whose name is a familiar to me but I cannot place it exactly from where. Considering that he is from Craftworld Anaen he is probably one of the individuals that were part of my first ritual to Khaine but I can't be sure. I only learned his name from reports from my siblings, I don't know the name of anyone else but Taraithe Tagasta who I've learned as I marked her.

If so I congratulate him on his promotion and it will make my younger sister offering him her friendship all the better as the man might serve as a link to Diseth Aisse and his master and apprentices and if we can figure out how he and his line managed to beat some damn Wisdom and Humility into the heads of Craftworlders, then we'll find a way to replicate it and make all Craftworlds suffer until they learn the same lesson.

"He is a giant red skinned man, with little armor on his hands and feet and a double bladed helmet that looks like an axe that looks constantly angry, oh and he sometimes has flames coming from his skin." She replied.

"Would you say he looks something like this?" I asked as I sent her an impression of what the Eldar in the Empire knew as Khaine.

It was a red skinned man with red flaming skin. He held in one hand the head of some freshly demonic beast, and in the other a sword that was on fire. The only article of clothing on him was loincloth to cover his nether regions and some greaves and armored boots. It was a god of the Children of the Stars and not a God made out of the Small Singing Swords of the Ancients.

"Yes, that's exactly how I saw him in some of the statues, albeit his skin has a few more cracks than the statues and the hand was dripping blood." She replied.

"Good, now what do you think when you see this?" I asked.

I sent her an impression of how Khaine looks to anyone not living in the empire. It had few similarities in theme and color but that's where the similarities ended. It was a demonic looking creature of fire and dark burning metal filled with edges and blades. It was a creature with a topknot of metal filament and a loincloth with the symbol of Asuryan on it and while one could see the similarities between the two but only a blind person would call the two the same creature.

"What is that? It looks like Khaine somewhat but its nothing like how Khaine was described to me. Is that how Khaine would look if he were corrupted by Chaos?" She asked as she poured another bottle down my throat.

Good she was asking questions as she took her role seriously as all the blessed of Gea do.

All eldar take somewhat after the Gods blessing us and as she is blessed by Gea, the consort of Asuryan and Khaine meant to give the Divine coherency and ensure all of us played our roles as both the Divine and the mortals she blessed liked it when people took the roles they had agreed to and performed them well. My own mind which was blessed by Khaine works by Murder Logic, where I find things that need to die and apply myself and start cutting until they are dead or I am, for so does Khaine think, in things that need killing and how does one need to kill them.

All eldar minds works similarly, where the original blessing determines our preferences as to how we would rather think and act and the shape of our souls as to what the divines would have us do. We don't have to do as they wished of us or think like it, but the more we do the more they bless us and the more we start thinking and acting as they wish of us.

"The first memory is how Khaine presents himself as in the Empire, the second is how Eldar outside of the Empire see him. There is also a difference in how they see him and how other species see him but I have not been able to find someone to describe the differences to me. The Empire is a stage, a nursery, a prison and so much more, and in it both us and the Divine act as we want to be and not as we are.

What you first saw is how the New Divine infested by Chaos looked like to us, the second how she would look like to people outside of the Empire and the third is probably a part of how her domain would look like. She would look different without Chaos Corruption but the Empire and its rituals shapes how even that is presented and it also shapes how she can act and feel and think. Outside of the Empire she is not as constrained." I explained softly as my voice was no longer raspy.

My heart was in one piece, my brain could pretend it was needed and now I work on my voice and control of my head. Talking with your mouth constantly wide open is quite annoying but priority should always be given to the brain and heart when conducting bodily repairs on yourself. The brain can take the control of the organs while the heart can help spread living tissue faster across the body as it beats.

She looked pensive I think? Seeing without eyes is a pain as everything is gray and blurry and I have an easier time seeing emotions than facial expressions and the girl knows now how to only show emotions when she wants to as I have taught her how when emanating emotions only at certain times.

She learns slowly, but she does learn at least and the nature of the Divine is her first major lesson that she needs to understand. The minor lessons are more quality of life things to help with how she presents herself, how she approaches certain things and how others are meant to see her. I can teach that in hours, but the actually important lessons require special circumstances or at the very least the right frame of mind.

"Why do they look like that, and do all of them have these second and third forms?" She asked pensively.

Now that is a good question.

"Let me recover enough to sit before answering and think as to what might be the answer yourself. Tell me what you think and why and don't worry, as the purpose of this is to make you think and see if I managed to put you in the right frame of mind for the lesson, for it is your first important lesson out of five including your final lesson and I need to make sure you understand them properly."

I could finally move my mouth, and soon my hands and back muscles enough to sit. Finally I could close my mouth. The minutes passed as I continued to regenerate the various muscles and ligaments needed to stand. I am extremely thankful I am currently unable to feel pain, or really any sensation for I sure would be screaming from pain if I did.

"I think Isha, Cegorach and Lileath don't have multiple forms, because Cegorach and Lileath were born after the others by Eldar hands, and Isha is our mother so she should probably look like us. The others don't because we didn't make them, but they are still our gods so they have one face for us, and others for everyone else." She said as I finally managed to stand upright.

That was the best incorrect answer she could have given and it made me smile. I was half expecting her to think that Cegorach had multiple forms but that would have been obscenely wrong. He only has one form, and the reason some call him a shapeshifter is because he likes wearing disguises.

I closed my eyes now that I was able to and did my best to move my face to seem as if it was looking in her general direction. She shuddered as I spoke.

"Partially correct, only Cegorach and Lileath have one single form as they were made by Eldar, and we do not have to pretend they are the Small Singing Swords of the Ancients. Isha… Isha is complicated but she too has two different forms even if the two are very similar, because Isha doesn't look like us because we are her children, we look like her because she is our Divine Mother and we did not always look like this. She is the goddess of life, nature and family and neither of those things cares much for symmetry or beauty the way we do.

Both forms of Isha look like us, but the form those outside of the Empire see her as is one with faint scars across her body from the grafts she took from our fallen sword siblings her husband Kurnous hunted for her and that her father Asuryan-Khaine butchered for her so that she may salvage useful things from them and add them to us. Isha is the goddess of family and nature and fertility and all of that includes flesh and the taking of attributes you find appealing and granting them to those who are descended from you. We like to pretend that what we have is in-born and not earned and so her scars fade in the Empire but they are obvious to those outside of it that care to look." I explained happily.

I am so glad to see that she is paying proper attention. Horrified realization meant she was paying attention and I could see it clearly in her body movements. My words weren't terribly scary on their own but they most likely put certain things in context from her past history lessons her family provided.

Our sword half-siblings were dying back then, they were down to a few millions each and their gods were on their last legs while we were a full century before the birth of Gorkamorka and the Old Ones did not care, for they needed more time for their youngest son to be born and ordered the last few of our siblings races to buy it in one Great Offensive to turn the Tide.

We couldn't let that happen and so we performed our first act of Love since our reforging and agreed to fight on their behalf and save our siblings and did so through treachery. And it was treachery, for we had promised to each other that we would not fight one another, that we would look after each other and forever fight at the side of one another against a hostile galaxy. It was an oath all of us took seriously and yet we betrayed it to their benefit and our detriment for we never wished to fight and yet we took on a fight we did not have to and did so as we broke our oath too.

The C'tan and Necron weaponry could destroy or devour souls, and did so each time we fought in real space. Each casualty of our siblings had was one they couldn't recover from easily, for while they were mightier than us each individually, we could rebuild our souls through song as was our birthright as the Children of the Stars before the Old Ones changed us and they couldn't. The Great Offensive would have killed them wholly and they would not be brought back, for their gods were to join them there too and none of us could disobey our parents, for they were adults and we their children living in their home.

And so we betrayed our siblings, we arrayed ourselves in the billions and hunted each and every single one of them to death as our gods hunted and devoured theirs and took their souls for ourselves, turning them into those like ours and granting them the chance at reincarnation through song that the C'tan and Necrons could deny to them but not to us, and then we went and fought for them as their souls were reborn and made to forget what they once were and what we have saved them from.

The Old Ones grumbled and called us Villains for it and in return we called them Disappointments, for they were neglectful parents that send their children to die for them when it should be parents that die for their children.

"We didn't use to look like this? Also we killed our sibling species? The stories said they were close to extinction and withdrew from the fight before they died off. The historians always assumed they died off in the following years or just could not recover." She asked back.

She had another question one I eagerly awaited but I awaited until she could muster the courage to ask it. I smiled kindly at her and she flinched as she realized I knew.

"You have another question too, I would hear it too, but yes, we didn't use to look like this, none fully know how we used to look, but Asuryan's natural form as a Phoenix is perhaps the closest to it, for ancient tablets the reality manipulation of the Old Ones couldn't destroy spoke of our fiery plumage and of how half of our wings became our rib cage and it is why our people are so fascinated by Avian creatures.

And of withdrawal, withdraw where? The entire local reality was at war and the only place they could withdraw to were their sections of the Webway and like I said, we were the Swords of the Ancients and Swords fight until they break or…" I said as I trailed off.

I knew that she knew the answer for I all but told it to her.

"Or until another, better one comes and replaces them and reuses the materials." She whispered.

Good she learned what I wished of her, and I finally managed to get control of my legs. In a few minutes I might actually start working on my organs at the current pace.

"Yes I see you understand what I mean and I would wish to continue, but I suppose this is enough ancient history and I am not teaching you to be a Historian, but a diplomat and priestess and for learning so well, a test and reward is in order." I happily continued.

She had brought the bag holding the red liquid near me and I took one of them for myself now and drank it in a swift motion.

"A test?" She asked uncertainly.

How utterly adorable, she realized they were the same thing, truly my younger sister is most adorable.

"Yes, the craftworlders in orbit jumped to your defense of my soul, and as such they have earned the right to call themselves your friends, for they fought by your side unprompted. Your first test will be to talk to them and convince them to support the Cult of Strife which will primarily recruit humans from your domains until they can set up their slave liberation operations properly and will hopefully find friends in Anaen too as they did among royalty and some princes, priests and princesses too. Do not worry about the price for their help too much, for it is one I will pay in something they need, even if they are not aware of it yet. Just focus on getting them to help you in your mission, for after your apprenticeship to me ends, your mission will be to liberates the humans and eldar slaves from their chains."

I could taste the bitterness of her uncertainty be replaced by sweet resolve. It was her first mission and an important one at that. I smiled as my heart grew even larger at how cute my apprentice was.

All of my apprentices were dear to my heart in some way.

Cippani Oiair I thought fondly off for his talent was beyond everything I have seen and he made my adopted First Daughter happy. Lanniar Narainn on the other hand had a heart and soul just as kind as mine and could understand me so well that it made me happy to see him grow and learn faster than I could teach him. Even Asdruabel Vect as annoying as he was in doubting my teachings and thinking that to deceive means just to lie, still managed to learn well and earned himself a small dark cranny in my heart.

It remains to be seen how my fourth apprentice will distinguish herself from the others but what I am seeing makes me hopeful that she'll probably be the funniest of them.

"Is the entire birth of the New Divine a planned event just to see if we can reforge and upgrade all of our gods from the Gods made by the Old Ones into Gods made by the Children of the Stars?" She asked me meekly.

I laughed heartily at her question for it was just what I was waiting for. Oh, I do so love it when my apprentices ask the right questions, for I love answering all questions, but most of them those that are the most pertinent to their studies. Her look of horror was so sweet for she realized the truth before I said it. She truly wished to have been wrong in her guess but she was correct.

Slaanesh was created to deal with a threat that is no longer relevant, meaning we had to give her a purpose to help us with and not merely serve as a challenge for humanity to overcome, for she is an eldar goddess, and what better purpose could she get, but what she craved for and be useful to every single Eldar Divine and serve as the material from which they are reforged once she is slain and cleansed of Chaos.

Humanity if they manage to prove themselves and manage to defeat her and her chaotic siblings in their temporary stewardship of this galaxy will prove themselves worthy of joining our family. And we will be oh so grateful to our brave saviors that helped save us from the Daemon that ate so many of our souls and gods which will be reborn from the ashes of their death.

We will be grateful enough to call them brothers and invite them into our home and hearts from which they will never leave for it will be safe and warm and oh so sweet to them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been in this system for a little time and I already hate it and that was before I had lost 5 in 500 of my men because the moment we felt an Empyrean threat we all jumped like idiots into it.

I failed to stop them for I too was swallowed by the murderlust and now five warriors I was meant to look after are dead due to my weakness.

'I shouldn't have accepted the promotion, but Master said I was ready for it.' I thought bitterly.

I hid a sigh and continued doing my duty. The dead were given their rites, the refugees were doing their third trip and I prayed to Asuryan that the humans are kept on a leash by the priests and will not shoot at us. Their largest ship might be the size of a frigate, but there 200 of them to face my five warships as well as their space station the size of a battleship which was the core of their defenses from the fools that brought us to this world.

I do not understand why the Seers keep insisting we increase our population by any means we can, we are already at two billion, when 50 years ago we were at 500 million, but the Masters of War, Masters of Fire, Masters of the Void and Masters of Bone continue to provide a veto proof majority in their design on this singular topic and the population grows faster than the craftworld so many of us are forced to live in bunkbeds now to make sure there is enough room as the craftworld is grown and ships join us.

At least this lot is coming with ships, even if they dismantled some of them to try and fail to settle this world. Most of those we welcomed didn't have more than the clothes on their back and some trinkets or weapons they barely knew how to use.

"Commodore, the humans are requesting for their mistress to come on board as she wishes to speak with you." My second spoke.

She was both my second in rank and as a wife and served with me on this ship for our first-wife won the lots to stay and raise our children back home.

"Thank you Taiacca, tell them to send us a flight path, we will be happy to welcome her." I told her and she sent the message to the primitives that somehow got an apprentice priestess to adopt them as pets.

I don't know how they succeeded but the local primitives managed it and now I have to act as a guard for a bunch of civilians as they run after they wronged her and her priestly master.

"I have sent them the message and they claim her to be on her way but they have not sent us any flight path or a time of arrival." She replied after a hew heartbeats.

I sighed at it, how they managed to reach into space is a mystery, if they fail to even send a flight path. I bit down a curse and an insult and turned back to one of the two loves of my life. I decided I would rather think of her beauty than of the incompetence of primitives.

'Her black hair is lovely and it matches her black armor so well it feels as if she was born to have both.' I thought with fondness.

Unfortunately I could not spend my time admiring my wife, even if doing so managed to improve my mood.

"Thank them for the prompt response and ask them to send a flight path once she boards her ship or if she prefers give us a location where we can pick her up." I replied.

Perhaps they meant to say she is on her way to the ship, or perhaps she would rather travel by Eldar ship? I am unsure if the local humans even have artificial gravity generators so perhaps she would prefer for us to come pick her up as it would be faster.

"I thank you for the kind offer Commodore, but it is unnecessary as I am already here, albeit if you are offering I would certainly not say no to a trip to Anaen as my master and I have an interest in visiting your people." A feminine voice interrupted.

My entire bridge crew froze as I took a single decision that would either doom us or save us before my fools opened fire at the intruder. I turned towards the woman that appeared at the closed doors separating the bridge from the rest of the ship.

"Holy One, my ship is honored to host you and I would love to escort you to Craftworld Anaen as well as your master if you are willing to divulge the means by which you have evaded our detection procedures." I said as I rose from my command throne and bowed.

I also informed my crew to go back to their stations because if they fired we are all dead. I was grateful they did without a word or thought of disobedience.

There was no sign of her coming or entrance. One moment the room had five occupants and the next it had six. Not even our alarms blared, for the ship itself did not care for her presence here.

I have seen the way her Master can melt through Wraithbone fortresses with ease by shouting and now that she managed to just teleport to my ship undetected I have no doubt her master is just as capable of just taking a small walk and destroying each of our ships without us even noticing until we are dead.

The woman with red eyes and blonde hair and dark robes smiled at my words and the words the seers and farseers have drilled into my head as to how to treat the priests of the Pantheon came to the fore. Chief among the days of instruction were the words of one of the farseers.

'Priests will not accept disrespect lightly, and they consider you demanding they not do something as either disrespect or a challenge. If you wish them to do anything either offer it as a bargain, or kindly ask them for help. It won't save you if they decided they want you dead, but it might save the rest of us if they feel you have not disrespected or provoked them.' The farseer told me and every one of my captains.

I prayed to the Pantheon that his words were right.

"How quaint, you were instructed how interact with the true priesthoods well. Lammor's meddling I would assume?" The woman asked softly as she approached me.

I rose up and looked at her. The first thing that hit me was her height and the second her age. She was short, shorter than my wives which weren't very tall themselves but most importantly she looked younger than 100 years old, but her looks meant little, for she was a priestess of Cegorach, and those madmen loved to shape-shift just as their god did.

"We may not be the most erudite of our kin among the stars, but we have made it a habit of collecting as much information as we could and that includes how to properly receive distinguished guests." I replied smoothly.

The other lesson the seers have insisted on is that you do not give any names to the priests unless asked for it, for they will take them with a smile and use them as they see fit. I do not wish to know what the thing pretending to be a young girl will do with the name of a farseer, but if she has to do something with one, then it won't be one of ours.

I was pretending quite well to not being a Ychran snake hunted by a bird of prey I thought but her smile made me reconsider. Kind smiles are never a good sign as far as officials of the Empire are concerned, because as far as they are concerned the difference between actions done out of malice and those done out of kindness are whether or not you are meant to survive them or not and which is which changed depending on their occupation and mood.

The woman smiled kindly at my words.

"Learning new knowledge is a worthwhile pursuit and your words make my decision and position incredibly easy. You and your warriors jumped to my side and joined me in my battle and lesson at the feet of my master unprompted and for that you have earned the right to call yourselves my friends. This is most joyous for I will handle the negotiations between my priestly order and your craftworld as my master cannot do so thanks to the fools you are now escorting from my realm." She spoke smoothly.

Her approval was an almost physical thing and I relaxed slightly at her words but that relaxation was banished the more she spoke. I did my best not to show my confusion and fear. The thing we intervened in was a lesson? It was a demonic thing the size of stars and the priests treated it as just a lesson a master would teach to apprentices.

It would be for the best if I ignored that and focused on her other words. She wished for us to be friends and from my lessons that was a good thing. The friends of the priesthoods aren't spared their benevolence, only given more tools to survive it.

"I am glad to hear that my men and I can count on you as your friends, I just wish it did not come at the cost of my subordinates lives. Also if I may ask, why will your master not participate in the talks? I do not see how does the actions of the refugees prevent him from talking to us." I replied with confusion clear in my voice

She grimaced at my words and internally panicked. The seers and farseers told me specifically to not insult or make the priests in any way shape or form uncomfortable or I will wish to have been given the chance to atone by offering my head.

She started approaching me now as she spoke.

"The fools refused to acknowledge the official summons of an official of the empire, a military officer and an officially ordained priest of the Pantheon and by doing so have by law put themselves into Rebellion against our people, for they are still citizens of the Empire of Ten Million Suns and they need to answer to at least one of the Mortal Authorities or the Divine. Their punishment would have been much harsher than the stern words my Master gave them if he did not arrange for the local humans to become my vassals and thus reinterpreted the situation from Rebellion to a spat between myself and them. This reinterpretation meant that he can no longer negotiate with you on the behalf of our order due to a tangle of legal and personal reasons in order to maintain the charade that they did not Revolt against both mortal and divine.

Also I am terribly sorry for the loss of your warriors and crew and I promise I will provide recompense to their family Commodore Eadon. Brave warriors deserve a rewards for their actions and if they cannot enjoy it in this life, then their family will." She explained softly.

She was standing in front of me now and I did my best not to look as if I am looking down on her despite the difference in height.

"I… I thank you for the kind words and explanation holy one, I assure you that they were well received."

She nodded at my words and I relaxed a bit inside and hid a curse at the fools I came to save. It wasn't that the humans were cute as far as the priests were concerned, but that the priests had to take them in to prevent the need for a harsher punishment. If melting families in their homestead counted as a stern talking to, I did not wish to know what horrific punishment the fools escaped from.

The woman pretending to be a child tilted her head to the right in confusion.

"Indeed, it has been a pleasant talk, but unfortunately I am needed back on the ground, the humans have done something stupid and my master and I need to correct it. I will be ready to come on the trip you offered me in three months at the latest. As to the payment for it?

Many craftworlds use a quite ingenious short range teleportation device that connects one to the local webway portal network, and as your ship was built on a craftworld it too can benefit from the use of such devices. My master just created his own version of it and told me to use it to reach your ship by using the network between the ship portal in the void and the planet based gate. Please do take care Commodore, I will be back when the time to depart comes." She said and disappeared between my blinks.

I stood back in my command throne and ordered my crew to give me a report on what has happened while I talked with our guest as I considered her words. The device she spoke of created a portal in front of us and could be used on a short range to reach from one end of the craftworld to another, not from a planet to orbit or from one ship to another, but whatever her master created circumvented both our countermeasures for such a device and its range limitations.

I sincerely hoped the humans did not annoy her too greatly. The last thing I needed was for her to rescind her offer of vassalage to the humans and bring back the punishment they needed to give to the fools that are now a part of my people.