* In honour of a game that's going on today, I decided to ahem, Forge the Narrative.
Adept Lywin was not required to eat. The device embedded across his breast seemed to give him everything he needed, but it did itch, and his fingers tingled. He fancied, as he looked as his paper skinned fingers, that he could see little lights running along his veins.
“ARE YOU DISSATISFIED?”
The Necron asked.
Lywin looked
up, across the table that sat between them.
Objects had been dropped across it, exotic xenos things that he had been
toying with. Probably seeming no less
than a monkey playing with fire.
“I am not
dissatisfied.” He said, still getting used to the Nectrontyr tongue. So much etiquette had to be observed. One could never say No to a superior, but you
could reply with a truth. So many laws
and loop holes. Luckily his… benefactor was
patient, even curious.
“I was just remembering a day in my youth. So long ago. I was-“ Lywin stopped.
“I was just remembering a day in my youth. So long ago. I was-“ Lywin stopped.
The Necron had
raised his hand. The gesture was new,
something they had agreed upon. Where
usually he would be hurt or even executed for impoliteness, he had been gifted
with this gesture, a friendly warning that he had exceeded his status.
“IT IS PROPER
THAT THE HOST TELLS A STORY, BEFORE THE GUEST.
SUCH IS THE WAY.” The Necron
said.
Lywin sat up
and nodded thanks.
“I see, I beg
continued forgiveness, and thank your continued patience in my inferiority,”
The adept said with no sign of insincerity.
The Necron looked down at the table, saying nothing for some time. The room was very cold, the walls obscured in the darkness not alleviated by the limited lighting that had been set up for him.
The Necron looked down at the table, saying nothing for some time. The room was very cold, the walls obscured in the darkness not alleviated by the limited lighting that had been set up for him.
“May… may I ask
for what this tale may be?” Lywin said
eventually, feeling the hairs on his arms stand up. Was he pushing too hard?
Silence. No
movement.
“YOU MAY.”
Lywin licked
his lips and cleared his throat. What he said next burned in his heart. He was
curios, but this could end his life.
“You were not born in this form, but what was it like awakening like this?”
The Necron Lord made an odd sound, a moan?
“You were not born in this form, but what was it like awakening like this?”
The Necron Lord made an odd sound, a moan?
“FROM A DREAM
WITH NO HEART.”
***
***
It was a dream, of monochrome colour. No pangs of emotion. Vicarious and pointless yet the Dreamer gripped to the dream like It was hanging from the edge of a grey jagged cliff. The Dreamer was walking through a field of low crops, not alone. Soft young hands in Its hands. Eyes of some forgotten colour looking up proudly. It lead the innocent (Did this little creature mean something to the Dreamer?) across a field of dying grass. A vista of towers, spewing smoke into the sky, stricken with a sickness of sudden bold incandescent green. People, The Dreamer's people, were being herded into these great furnaces on foot or on the backs of Arks. Screams could be heard, but they were so far away, meaningless yet itching at something that no longer existed: a phantom emotion. The little thing by the Dreamers’s side, with It’s smile and naivety, pointed in wonder. While the Dreamer, felt the distant echo of horror, or rather the shadow of that horror.
"Hautsi? Wake up." Came a voice the Dreamer knew but could not quite remember.
*
It awoke to the
sound of barking paradox seals closing, watching as the impossible energies binding them together ceased, ribs of charred barriers rolled across ground lifelessly. Falling to It’s knees with the sound of metal on stone the Awoken looked around
frantically, trying to breath but panicking when it seemed impossible.
Bone coloured gauntlets flashed across Its vision, vision that was perfect and
immaculate. Too perfect. The Awoken remembered that It had been going blind.
Bringing Itself up onto boots of dense metal, the Awoken side-stepped as a serpentine creature erupted from the wall, gliding through as if it was a hologram. Built like an insect of sorts, the creature flowed around on a large tail of gliding metal. Attacking again, simple claws of metal struck out.
The Awoken didn't dodge this time, but grabbed the claws as they came in, wrapping Its skeletal fingers gripping tight and bringing Itself in close to that face of contracting lenses and chattering noises.
Wraith. The name came as if shouted from across an abyss. Cryptek slave-tek. This thing is a device. A tool.
Then the Awoken saw Its own reflection.
Raging hands lashed out tearing the largest lens from the Wraith’s sensor array and pulling so hard that the lens and all its connecting lines followed, gutting the machine. The Wraith reeled back and struck out blindly, its mewling digital-screams ignored.
The Awoken was looking at Its reflection: A skeletal face. Emotionless. It tried in vain to strike an expression, a smile, a grimace, a frown. Nothing worked. Twin orbs of burning green fell-light flickered as It tried to blink. What was this?
Realisation was like a Ark Covneyor slamming into him and ripping him open.
They did it. They actually did it.
The Awoken suddenly wanted to throw up. Skeletal hands lay flat against the ground as It tried to heave food from a stomach that had long since been removed. With a mouth that would no longer need to breath, let alone eat. It tried to weep, but no tears could come, for there were no ducts to make them.
The Awoken made the sounds of sorrow, Its voice unrecognisable and bass like the recorded sound of thunder, pretending to be as good as the real thing. Fake. Artificial.
It ceased trying, reflecting that this is what the Awoken was now. Pretending to be life. The life that had been Hautsi the fair, Hautsi of the passing priesthood of the 100 deaths. Hautsi the just. Hautsi the last of the honest. Hautsi of the Old Gods. Hautsi the rebel. Hautsi the traitor to the Triarch. Hautsi, the first to say No. It had said no. Hautsi had drawn Its priesthood together to begin the resistance and the great transferance, this deal struck on their behalf.
But what then? Hautsi remembered so little.
But what was worse, was the emptiness.
A dull ache at first. A notable pain that existed both in Hautsi's core and then everywhere at once. A hollow sensation that ate at It until it was unbearable a drowning feeling that happened ever so slowly and wouldn't stop, madness threatening on the outskirts of Its mind.
How was it that Hautsi didn't implode from this abyssal void within!?
Hautsi's cream coloured fist shattered the Wraith's lens.
So be it. What had been done, was now done. The answers lay in the future, not in the present here weeping like some seedling.
A feint memory of someone crying halted Hautsi's thinking for less than a second. But it had been there.
Hautsi stood up, letting It’s senses scan the region, accessing the local Cryptwork as a man would read the paper. A great process was under way it seemed. This… tomb, was being evacuated. It was… under attack? Hautsi could sense thousands and thousands of similar skeletal forms freshly awoken, collected and forced through great Dolmen gates. To other prisons.
A Duat Tomb. This place was the Duat. The style was drastically different but Hautsi recognised the lay out. It had been Its own design after all. The Duat. The prison for those too dangerous to execute, in the days of flesh when life was so precious.
Reaching down to the Wraith’s remains, Hautsi instantly accessed the machines’ Intellect and awoke it violently, ignoring Its begs for repair, It accessed the network for the Cryptek security and dominated as many automata as possible.
Nearly too late, It managed a couple of Phalanx and more besides, remembering some of the more conscious forms as the forcibly biotransfered remnants of his own temple guard.
The Overlord dropped the Wraith’s remains and derisively stamped down on the machines head, exploding metal compnents across the obelisk black floor with a flash of expended jade light.
Much needed to be done and quickly.
Hautsi, First Priest of the Lord of Bones, Overlord of the Trazian Dynasty would escape this place into freedom. Then, It would find the rest of his Kin. Then, Hautsi would make the Silent King scream for his betrayel.
Bringing Itself up onto boots of dense metal, the Awoken side-stepped as a serpentine creature erupted from the wall, gliding through as if it was a hologram. Built like an insect of sorts, the creature flowed around on a large tail of gliding metal. Attacking again, simple claws of metal struck out.
The Awoken didn't dodge this time, but grabbed the claws as they came in, wrapping Its skeletal fingers gripping tight and bringing Itself in close to that face of contracting lenses and chattering noises.
Wraith. The name came as if shouted from across an abyss. Cryptek slave-tek. This thing is a device. A tool.
Then the Awoken saw Its own reflection.
Raging hands lashed out tearing the largest lens from the Wraith’s sensor array and pulling so hard that the lens and all its connecting lines followed, gutting the machine. The Wraith reeled back and struck out blindly, its mewling digital-screams ignored.
The Awoken was looking at Its reflection: A skeletal face. Emotionless. It tried in vain to strike an expression, a smile, a grimace, a frown. Nothing worked. Twin orbs of burning green fell-light flickered as It tried to blink. What was this?
Realisation was like a Ark Covneyor slamming into him and ripping him open.
They did it. They actually did it.
The Awoken suddenly wanted to throw up. Skeletal hands lay flat against the ground as It tried to heave food from a stomach that had long since been removed. With a mouth that would no longer need to breath, let alone eat. It tried to weep, but no tears could come, for there were no ducts to make them.
The Awoken made the sounds of sorrow, Its voice unrecognisable and bass like the recorded sound of thunder, pretending to be as good as the real thing. Fake. Artificial.
It ceased trying, reflecting that this is what the Awoken was now. Pretending to be life. The life that had been Hautsi the fair, Hautsi of the passing priesthood of the 100 deaths. Hautsi the just. Hautsi the last of the honest. Hautsi of the Old Gods. Hautsi the rebel. Hautsi the traitor to the Triarch. Hautsi, the first to say No. It had said no. Hautsi had drawn Its priesthood together to begin the resistance and the great transferance, this deal struck on their behalf.
But what then? Hautsi remembered so little.
But what was worse, was the emptiness.
A dull ache at first. A notable pain that existed both in Hautsi's core and then everywhere at once. A hollow sensation that ate at It until it was unbearable a drowning feeling that happened ever so slowly and wouldn't stop, madness threatening on the outskirts of Its mind.
How was it that Hautsi didn't implode from this abyssal void within!?
Hautsi's cream coloured fist shattered the Wraith's lens.
So be it. What had been done, was now done. The answers lay in the future, not in the present here weeping like some seedling.
A feint memory of someone crying halted Hautsi's thinking for less than a second. But it had been there.
Hautsi stood up, letting It’s senses scan the region, accessing the local Cryptwork as a man would read the paper. A great process was under way it seemed. This… tomb, was being evacuated. It was… under attack? Hautsi could sense thousands and thousands of similar skeletal forms freshly awoken, collected and forced through great Dolmen gates. To other prisons.
A Duat Tomb. This place was the Duat. The style was drastically different but Hautsi recognised the lay out. It had been Its own design after all. The Duat. The prison for those too dangerous to execute, in the days of flesh when life was so precious.
Reaching down to the Wraith’s remains, Hautsi instantly accessed the machines’ Intellect and awoke it violently, ignoring Its begs for repair, It accessed the network for the Cryptek security and dominated as many automata as possible.
Nearly too late, It managed a couple of Phalanx and more besides, remembering some of the more conscious forms as the forcibly biotransfered remnants of his own temple guard.
The Overlord dropped the Wraith’s remains and derisively stamped down on the machines head, exploding metal compnents across the obelisk black floor with a flash of expended jade light.
Much needed to be done and quickly.
Hautsi, First Priest of the Lord of Bones, Overlord of the Trazian Dynasty would escape this place into freedom. Then, It would find the rest of his Kin. Then, Hautsi would make the Silent King scream for his betrayel.
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