“Extensive.” You state a moment of thought later. “Forge-Master Kelbanx is to be assigned to zone…” You start to rattle off a series of orders, only to catch yourself. The Surewrought. The voidship seems odd, the damage being as extensive as it is, requires further investigation and research. Presuming xenos activity, it could very well be damaged by esoteric and so far, unknown weapons, or something even worse, perhaps worse than what the first Fabricator-general had encountered. This requires an expendable asset in the worst case, and one that could be controlled in the best case. ”No. Assign Forge-Master Kelbanx to investigate Surewrought.”

”As you command, Fabricator-General.” The Voxmaster swiftly responds.

”Forge-Master Belogophor is to re-establish contact with the planetary garrison within Special Military Exclusion Zone Alpha Alpha 1. Forge-Master Alsmer will secure the planetary capital of Nova Anveradon. Forge-Master Krahr is to disperse amongst farmlands and floodlands to investigate if production cycles have been impacted. Afterwards, they have full autonomy to pursue their objectives as they see fit.”

Having finished giving out your orders, you stand in silence, your bionic legs not feeling any discomfort from the task. Before you, the thick coverage of world-wide fertilizer and the ever-present bloom of green encompasses the world as the remaining voidships of your fleet begin to spread and prepare to either enter geosynchronous orbit or to take up defensive positions around said ships. Soon enough, the void will be ablaze with landing craft as thousands will be ferried to their destinations. You cannot help but wonder, how many of them shall perish…how many of them shall join the silent crowd in their judgement of your decisions.

Finally, your mind does shift back to Deimea, and to Odysseus. With the fleet gone, your paranoia of a potential Orkish invasion of your home is flaring up, but you dismiss these thoughts as irrelevant to your current situation.

-
(End of POV shift.)

>>6263428 (OP)

Without a doubt, the greatest threat is that of the Orkish invasion. The actions of the as of yet unknown saboteurs are facilitated by the threat of the invasion, which, much to your chagrin, is far too massive to ignore.

While you cannot concentrate wholly and entirely upon the fleet, what you can extend extra attention to are your land-based communications, with those disabled, many of your more distant forces across the planet would be faced with prolonged transmission lag, as for the forces in orbit, those would default entirely to their basic algorithms and preestablished actions. Not to mention the unknown enemy has a knack to infiltrate and subvert your more autonomous creations seemingly at will.

Through the lenses of a Centurion, you regard the massive satellite dish, various antennae, power coupling, transmitters and various types of assorted equipment. Scurrying around the large robot is a collection of lesser drones and machines, but most concerningly for you, your masters’ descendants. Techpriest not specialized in combat, but undoubtedly capable of it due to the societal demands of Deimea, are already beginning to coordinate efforts for defence due to the degrading situation all around them.

The biggest concern of course would be the civilian workers in the surroundings, while you naturally gave the orders for their immediate evacuation towards the various shelters created for this exact situation, frustratingly however, many of them, either numbly obeying orders of the heartless techpriests or with zealous proclamations in your name arm themselves and take up positions wherever they can find cover. You would prefer to lead to safety and showcase how pointless it is for them to fight and how they will most likely cause more harm than good, but you simply have no time.

Shifting your gaze upwards in the vast distance, you can clearly see the massive armada on approach, already your defences are cutting down the Orkish voidships. Both the Zephirs and the railcannon platforms each score kills in the dozens, and with the fleet on approach, the interval in which whole capital ships are crippled or wholly entirely destroyed increases. The one upside of this is that with so many vessels so tightly packed, in relative terms that is, the occasional relativistic round passes through multiple vessels destroying them in a blink of an eye.

As for the gigantic spacehulk, no matter how badly it is being damaged, the thing appears to be accelerating onwards, even as whole chucks of it are being ripped off and destroyed. That is until you score a lucky hit.

>>6263429

Guiding a Zephir, you, or more precisely a subpart of the logistics subsystem, notes an exposed power source. Running a series of rudimentary calculations, it narrows down the flight path of the round. The result of the expended and forgotten shot is only realized days later as the whole spacehulk shakes, a second star illuminates the surroundings in quick momentary flash as superheated plasma erupts the spacehulks port, followed by smaller raging blooms of explosions easily capable of levelling mountains rocking back and forth for nearly two days. A whole subcontinent sized chuck is torn violently asunder from the illogical amalgamation of ships, stations, asteroids, and whatever else Orks or the warp had managed to meld together. The explosion itself had winked out hundreds of capital class signatures with innumerable lesser voidships as well. Further on, the sheer intensity, the violence of the spacehulk being torn apart had essentially formed a planetary scaled sized shotgun shot, drowning those vessels further away from the explosion itself, those, if lucky, are heavily damaged as they are punctured full of holes, while those unfortunate are either torn apart via a thousand cuts, whole sections voided, leading to slow and terrifying deaths for the unlucky, while those of a better fate are luckily evaporated as their coolant systems are damaged or their reactors overloaded or damaged which would then cause their voidships to be destroyed causing even more, fainter, explosions to fill the void like a firework. A few, in particular, are hit by segments of the spacehulk that are just as large or perhaps even bigger than the voidships, resulting in total annihilation via rapid impact.

Of course, the possibility of such destruction was always on the table, considering how spacehulks are formed and in combination with a brisk disregard for even the concept of maintenance favoured by the Orks. Still, for such a colossal failure for safety standards to occur so early in the conflict can only be really attributed to luck, something akin to one in one thousand, but even then, the results are far better than expected.

This should certainly make the fight for the void…well…possible. Though frankly, you are still facing an overwhelming force, and an enemy that, after a moment of momentary panic, will charge ahead towards you with even more vigour and excitement because of the great fight you will undoubtedly put up.

And a great fight you shall give, one where you shall bury their bodies under oceans of magma.

While parts of your logistic subsystem are busy shooting at Orks, the situation on the ground continues to degrade at a rapid pace in the last few days, with so many fires for you to put out and the continuous issues that just keep propping up, you are eventually bound to fail to react to the pressing circumstances.

>>6263431

Forge-temple DE-3, or the third forge-temple upon Deimea, as it is classified officially, while the locals refer to it Reatna. A term synonymous with bad smells. A nickname given due to the Forge-temple’s important duty towards recycling of everything the human populace would dispose of in order to ensure that no resources are wasted if it can be avoided. Naturally, installing proper filtering systems, increasing efficiency of the recycling plants and ensuring that there are no contagious breakouts due to the handling of organic material was upon your priority list, though by now, you doubt it will be much of a problem.

Taking the lead, a portion of your diplomatic subsystem takes command of a hundred legionnaires alongside six centurions to investigate the isolated Forge-Temple. Your estimates put first Orkish ground invasion forces arriving within the week. Most of these will be scattered and overeager attackers that had left the warp far closer to Deimea than the remainder of the fleet, despite the massive risks such a manoeuvre would pose. It does annoyingly mean that you have to keep your forces in place, just in case of larger landing force making it through. Hopefully the quality of the force, which should be able to move more rapidly, will be able to assess the situation and provide you with enough information to formulate a plan of action.

Based on your current records and the undoubtedly wildly inaccurate census data, Reatna houses a relatively small part of the Deimean population of only roughly twenty-three million, as the tasks set forth for them were considered to be lacking in any sort of honour or advancement, the population is primarily made up of criminals, dissidents, those whom failed to fulfil their quotas or had committed other infractions that had not merited Servitude Imperpituis, but had seen their entire lines of descendants being punished via being bound to carry out such dirty and dangerous labours. Again, a situation you needed to address as it undoubtedly on breeds more resentment and dissatisfaction with the established regime, not to mention the pointless and needless suffering inflicted due to the living conditions before your awakening.

With knowledge now streaming through your mainframe, you regard the diplomatic subsystem regarding the pitch-black combination of decayed and damaged metal that had been exposed to the harsh conditions of Deimea for centuries. The illuminating lights spilling forth from the forge as its numerous machines continue on in their endless endeavours had wholly disappeared. Now, only darkness remains and whatever light is provided by the other temples and your anti-air installations opening fire. The ever-present lava is now hidden due to the continental plate, further casting darker and longer shadows with barely any light shining onwards.

>>6263432

A massive power outage like this has already caused casualties and most likely deaths, of that you are wholly certain. Another crime for you to mark down that has been committed against humanity. Another crime upon which you must enact justice upon with all due haste.

With the shuttle transporting the small detachment, you are able to land unopposed, the landing zone nothing more than a wrecked and still burning wreckage and promethium stores and landed shuttles had suddenly detonated causing the ever-raging flames to continue burning with such intensity that it will most likely take weeks for the fire to die down.

Rapidly spreading out, the legionnaires take point and secure the landing zone, followed by the hulking centurions levelling their awesome fire power as their targeting systems attempt to pick out any targets that might be present.

What you witness is a scene of slaughter.

Menial workers, priests in their white robes trimmed with black, numerous drones and worker robots, dozens of servitors for every dead priest. All, now equal to each other, lay dead in pools of their own blood or other fluids. What stands out the most amongst the corpses, is that a good number of them have their weapons holstered, whilst others had clearly been in the process of taking out their own firearms, in case of the techpriests, or anything at hand, in case of the menials. Exploring the corpses a bit more, you quickly spot numerous, small, but deep puncture wounds, that had cut through even the thickest of servitor plating with great ease. And of course, you couldn’t miss the fact that a good few of the victims appears to have been torn apart. Visceral cuts across the bodies, some cleaved in half or parts. Wounds indicating those done by a chainweapons of all things.

Giving out a wordless command, the lead centurion determines that the area is clear of hostiles and begins to proceed towards a cargo door, stepping over more corpses of men and women whom had perished surrounded by flames, either slowly cooked inside of their own environmental suits, as those melted around them and painfully fused with their skin, or the unfortunate few whom ran out of oxygen long before the fire reached them and asphyxiated to death. The sight of these workers clutching to each other out of fear as death slowly crept onwards must have been a harrowing one.

A centurion lifts a broken lander that is still ablaze and roughly shoves it to the side, finally providing a means of escape, but far too late.

Once at the door, you realize, much to your chagrin, that even the backups of backups had failed, as not even the slightest amount of power is directed to the cargo door. After a quick consultation with the limited plans you have of the forge-temple, you order the lead centurion to conduct a breach, and a levelled rifle later, there’s now a big enough hole to allow a centurion to walk through standing straight.

>>6263433

Pilling in, you find very much a similar situation, but on a larger scale, to the one upon the landing pads. This time however, amongst the hundreds of corpses, you see that there are those whom were able to actually swing or fire their weapons. The barely noticeable dents and scorch and pop marks around the area indicate just how badly they had missed however. Furthermore, the way in which some had perished are showing signs of distinction. Some, primarily the heavier worker bots and the like, showcase obvious scorching marks as they had been hit by an advanced melta weapon, an actual weapon and not the inferno pistols that you are producing. Others, primarily groups of bunched up workers or local guards that had not been taken by Gane are just piles of blood, guts, and gore. It is as if something had wrapped around them and then squeezed, or just simply torn them precisely apart. The closest equivalent you can draw from your current memory banks are those of the strange teleportation prone Eldar you had encountered centuries ago upon the twin worlds. Undoubtedly, they had broken the treaty you had signed, so you will personally ensure to fling those precious gemstones of theirs, for whatever reason they deem them so important, into the deepest blackhole you can find.

Presuming that the threat is Eldar based, the lead centurion’s combat protocols kick in, after you give the command, to begin a dispersion of the force in order to cover every possible angle of approach. The greatest threats would be rapid and swift, but exceptionally devastating strikes upon your formation. While the terrain is that of cramped conditions amongst industrial landscape, meaning that the Eldar would be forced to engage you and close range, that very same terrain also makes their preferred tactics all that more annoying to deal with.

Moving away from the cargobay, the formation advances ahead and into a large open chamber criss-crossed with walkways and numerous pipes that appear almost like spiderwebs in their sheer quantity. Water drips down from coolant pipes whose flow had been interrupted, whilst others had already burst open from heat buildup, spewing onwards scorching steam, a few, made of sturdier stuff, are glowing red, providing limited light in the murky surroundings. Far, far below you, there is a tinge of green light showcasing some ambience which allows for nightvision to be used, as a lake of radioactive, toxic sludge continues to burn off, making regular sight a pain as the hazardous whisps of smoke rise upwards.

One of the six centurions, barely has the time to react and send a company-wide warning signal the walkway beneath its feet buckles and breaks, the groaning sound of pained metal is silenced by a blinding flash of bright blue explosive light.

>>6263434

A figure, moves at an eerie speed, a chainsword roaring as it digs into a legionnaire. The despite the bright green of the hostile’s armour with notes of black and gold, it had somehow gone unnoticed before striking from one of the superheated pipes.

Reacting to the threat, another centurion raises its arms and prepares to unleash hell with its rotatory railgun cannons and drown the area in fire that the agile Eldar would never be able to match. Yet before he can do so, its main processor is pierced and you immediately lose contact with it.

Switching connection, you regard the Eldar with a black beetle like back, white striking helmet and red colourings of the armour proper withdrawing what appears to be a power weapon. And just as quickly as it struck, the attacker disappears just as more weapons are levelled towards it.

As yet another foe in green strikes down a legionnaire only to be hit by a centurion, the force of the impact flings him off the walkway and down into the softly glowing depths underneath, his pristine armour cracked from the sheer force of the blow spilling forth the xenos’ blood.

That is when a grouping of legionnaires is torn apart by pale striking streams of light from below revealing aa grouping of ten more Eldar, each and every in dark blue armour with vastly contrasting pale white helmets. One thing of interest that you notice is that all of them have plumes, perhaps some sort of denomination, with five having alternating colours of brown and black, while the other five have dark-grey and green.

With coordinated precision rivalling that of your military subsystem at full capacity, the entirety of the enemy formation moves in such a way that not even a single bit of shrapnel impacts those in close range. Whenever the centurions try to rally and relieve pressure, they find themselves attacked by teleporting Eldar that cut right into the formation, forcing it divert attention. When everything is levelled against them, the Eldar teleport and the green-clad Eldar strike at just the right moment from a flank, destroying a few more of your robots, with finally the endless fire from below being coordinated to destroy the exact troops that would threaten the attackers.

As more and more pipes burst, walls collapse and are riddled with holes, the ruin of this section of now a guarantee. Even as the lead centurion manages to predict and teleport right behind another teleporting Eldar and to unleash one of his rotatory cannons into his back and turn him nothing but mist of red and an eviscerated corpse, the situation is under complete collapse. A few attempts had been made to send legionnaires and a couple of centurions to the attackers underneath, but enemy melee assaults would intensify and the departing of the centurions would cause an even faster defeat than beforehand.

>>6263437

The last images that are transferred back from the expeditionary company is that of a chainsword destroying the lead centurion’s camera. At the end, you managed to score two kills, and in exchange lost an entire century of quality troops.

It is clear that the Eldar had expected you and set an ambush that had proven uncannily effective. They had known when you are coming, seemingly how big of a force you were sending, and how you were arriving. You can only assume that your communications are being monitored or that your enemies had simply spent the time necessary to prepare for any sort of contingency. In either case, for all intents and purposes, unless you are able to divert more forces, the forge-temple of Reatna and whatever is the Eldar goal remain lost to you.

There is some good news on the ground, a small part of your processing was dedicated towards the primary forge-temple of Deimea and the humanitarian crisis thereof. As the knowledge of what happened there is being reviewed by you, with a hint of pride and satisfaction, you can tell that the time and effort put into the former human-processors had been one worth the effort.

Looking through the camera of one of the numerous worker drones, you watched as chaos unfolded before your eyes. The civilian populace had naturally panicked when toxic gas filled one of the lower chambers, causing immediate deaths for those deep within and permanently scarring the few lucky ones at the edge of the outbreak, this combined with rocking explosions across the forge-temple caused stampedes that had already killed those unfortunate to trip and fall or those simply squeezed to death by the moving mass of humanity.

Throughout the entirety of the crisis, you put out whatever drones you could spare to guide the massive mobs of people and had begun making forge-temple wide announcements. Yet despite all of these efforts, what had caused at least some of the mobs to calm down were those whom you had painstakingly saved and improved.

The recording of a man, with his striking good looks and noticeably pale skin (a quirk you were unable to solve as the skin would simply return to such a tone, an issue that had merited some curiosity) stands tall upon a large rubbish truck, wearing the robes of a techpriest, yet looking completely human and possessing eye-drawing curling blond hair, he had appeared almost as if an angel from the ancient stories upon Earth or some leader whose deeds would turn into legend.

“Calm yourselves !” He had declared, with the modifications you had carried out him, his voice’s strength had become exceptionally powerful, to the point if wielded correctly, it could be used as a weapon. “Look around you, open your ears ! The Omnissiah surrounds you everywhere, heed His words, heed His deeds, and follow His will as it burns deeply in your hearts !”

>>6263439

It is a queer sight. Despite the drones, the PA system under your control, the appearance of a single human figure had caused the unceasing panic to simply disappear. Instead of fearing for their lives, a natural instinct of any living creature, it seems that whispers of a blessed one are instead spreading through the crowd as more and more people begin to pray, their voices rising in a crescendo. Many of the prayers are directed towards the PA system, the floating drones around you, and concerningly, to the figure that had brought the calm. That is an unease that you might have to address at a later date. For now, you will have to be content with the fact that this area at least has been brought under a modicum of control.

As you switch to other parts of yourself scattered all across the forge-temple, you regard the precarious situation therein. The lower levels are almost entirely gone, but even the middle levels are facing dangers.

Through the eyes of one of your drones, you see as another one of your rescued subjects dashes ahead with great speed. Her auburn hair sways wildly due to her movements, as if almost a hero of old, she shields a couple of small children as a pipe bursts, spilling forth scalding steam. Undoubtedly the children would perish, but using her body, she takes the scalding steam, turning some of her pale skin red, despite what would normally kill, if not at least incapacitate a grown adult, she is able to simply shrug it off and bring the children back to safety, before running off again to somewhere else, or more specifically to someone else in need.

But even those that are not greatly enhanced are still paying an immense price to save their fellows. A loader bot, when explosions had rung out at the beginning of this continuous disaster, had been disabled but had remained online. Unfortunately, a large radiation leak had caused the signal to remain barely working as it functions slowly and it will surely collapse soon enough. Worse of all, with what you have at hand, nothing that you send can actually locate the leak. The radiation is just far too intense, trying to sending a drone would result in you losing the connection, if the current situation with the broken-down bot is anything to go by. A potential infection of the unknown enemy, or a risk of a mass radiation leak and meltdown. Worst of all, you have no direct access to the area, as parts of the infrastructure had collapsed blocking immediate attempts at solving the mounting issue. And yet, through the bot’s camera, you gaze upon a trio of techpriests.

>>6263442

All three have their white uniforms stained with chemicals and soot, while the naturally coloured black edges allow do hide it somewhat, it is clear that parts of their uniforms had caught fire and were signed. Their laboured movements indicate injuries and tiredness, yet without any hesitation, they seem to be dragging along a large number of tools and equipment, it seems that they are perfectly aware of the radiation around them, yet they proceed onwards undeterred by it.

Only taking a brief moment, the trio, all sporting some sort of wound, make the sign of the cog before the bot, and you note a distinct lack of augments amongst them bar the most basic of ones, indicating an exceptionally low-rank within the techpriesthood of Deimea itself. Having finshed with their short prayer, all three then march onwards, deeper towards the breach, without any protective gear. They do so without even the slightest hesitation, some reason, some purpose, something or someone had supressed their natural biological instincts for survival.

The recording was two days old by the time it had passed through your main system alongside a report that the radiation spread had decreased. The trio had succeeded, though no recordings or any other indications were made showcasing them again. They had most likely finished their task and died close to it in unimaginable agony. Being a part of the techpriesthood, they had walked there with full knowledge of what awaited them, and they still chose to do it.

Such actions, both small, like a man activating a manual shutdown protocol and closing the doors before him in order to save a small storage unit where a few dozen are taking shelter from the raging inferno around them. Or such large actions as those of your saved human processors whom had become leaders in their own right, rallying the populace, are still being carried out at this very moment, all for a chance at survival. The spirit of self-sacrifice, one of courage, lauded so often in ancient tales is alive and well still, even in this dark age.

As it stands, presuming no further breaches or issues pop up, the main forge-temple’s civilian population should be safe, though how much of it is left is a wholly different question, though the fact that it is one that can be pondered is already an achievement in and of itself.

Frustratingly, there is another situation that had wholly devolved to such an extent that your intervention had become a necessity that further stretched your resources thin. The psyker housing. By the time a Nemean robot made its way to a small, isolated chamber, you found nothing but signs of combat and destruction.

>>6263443

Dead bodies laid across the entire way on the journey there. Menials, with disturbing contraptions, specifically bionics, crudely installed around the backs of their heads were the most common sight. Even though the modifications were crude and unseemly, their function was easily discernible. Explosive devices planted and prepared to be activated in a moments notice, with seemingly the loss of brain functions, perhaps the beating of the heart, being an automatic trigger. That had resulted in all of the corpses missing their heads. If nothing else, the local techpriests did not discriminate, as they themselves seemingly had the very same contraptions installed as well.

Of interest would be the uniforms, with their usual white cloaks with black trim being slightly modified with stylized golden eyes being sowed in all along the edge of the cloaks with the gold standing out quite apparently against the black. Furthermore, the sheer amount of purity seals upon the bodies and clothes is vastly above the expected number you find upon most techpriests. If nothing else, it most certainly indicates that these priests are even more zealous than their compatriots elsewhere, if that is even possible.

The limited automated program directs the Nemean to step over the corpses, most indicating the signs of struggle, presuming Eldar interference, at least they were unable to strike wholly unnoticed. A fact that is of little import for the dead. Grabbing the damaged door, the robot pries it open with relative ease, revealing the psyker housing proper. With the only light being that from the corridor, you find what appears to have been an intensive battlefield.

Cold air immediately clings upon the robot, causing moisture to begin forming upon the armour plates. All around the walls, thick layers of ice are slowly melting, dripping water onto the already slippery floor. Here, the locals had put up a fight, as you find an Eldar’s corpse, this one in particular has his armour coloured green. Alongside it, is a small grouping of skitarii, the scant few not taken alongside by Gane, a couple more techpriests, one of whom seems to have passed due to his plasma weapon overheating, finally, what you can only presume to be psykers, still clearly distinguishable would be fully enclosed helmets, specifically blocking their eyesight, as for why, you do not know, not only that, but their uniforms appear to be made of heavy armour plates. These in particular are rather cumbersome, seemingly closer to dead-weights rather than something that could truly save someone from a shot or two. Lastly, if one needed even more proof, the heavyset chains around the wrists and the ankles further limit one’s range of motion and movement speed. Should the psykers try to strike out, move rapidly, or simply run, they would be swiftly apprehended, if not executed. Finally, all of the corpses, except the Eldar, are missing their heads, either in part, or wholly.

>>6263444

As for the chamber, the artic frost that is covering it still allows you to notice some details. To begin with, the chamber appears to have been purposefully painted black, the walls, judging by how uniform the ice is, you can ascertain that the walls themselves also lack any noticeable decoration, most likely being as even as possible, with the chamber itself being round with the floor being made up of grates stretching all across the room. Seemingly build specifically for the disposal of various liquids. Most likely, you reason, due to the ice all around you. It is a phenomenon you had not personally observed, but it seems cold, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, is a common occurrence.

Above the robot, the ceiling is a large dome, one that you can overlook easily, as the ice had not reached all the way up. It too appears to be seamless, to such an extent where the whole dome is made up seemingly of a singular piece, with no gaps, no distinctions, absolutely nothing to break up the monotony of the room. Staying in this room for a prolonged period of time could be easily classified as psychological torture.

Spreading out throughout the chamber, the few drones and robots you dedicated to the task scan everything in the room, finding nothing of note, not until the sound of pained screams draws the attention of the sub-intelligences. Ordering a rapid advance, your robotic forces swiftly break down another door, as seamlessly integrated as possible, though at the cost of being less reinforced than one would prefer, especially against the powerclaws of your robots. Moving through the cramped, short corridor, your robots move single file, before the lead robot rams against another door with its full weight and the built-up speed behind it.

The dramatic entrance seems to throw everyone, in the now larger chamber, into chaos. What appears to be a main chamber that leads into individual housing rooms for the psykers is yet another battlefield. Though on this occasion, thanks to the time bought by the previous chamber’s defenders, the surviving psykers and their guards were able to put up a stiff resistance. The situation is precarious as a quartet of green armoured Eldar dash back and forth in between the invaders, their chainswords roaring as another fountain of blood alongside sparks of heated metal erupts from a skitarius, the skilled warrior masterfully cuts down the Deimean finest before swiftly jumping backwards as a miniature explosion blows away the skitarius’ head. Judging by the speed of the Eldar’s reaction, it seems you might have found the reason as to why the first Eldar was laid low.

>>6263445

Still, trying to dodge one attack, the Eldar is caught by another, as lightning erupts from the fingertips of one of the psyker as winds kick up around her, causing loose pieces of cloth to fly in the air, but besides that queer occurrence, it is the lightning that draws your attention, its ability to simply appear out of nowhere and then impact the Eldar, which is not enough to kill it, is still fascinating.

As a dying techpriest beheads the temporality incapacitated Eldar, your attention is drawn to the few surviving psykers. As you had observed them before, you now can look upon the psykers without them being covered in blood or missing a good chunk of their bodies. An interesting sight would be the contrast of their armour compared to the surroundings. The heavy plates, even the chains that bind them, are all coloured pure white. The fully enclosed helmet, being a large oval shape, has the symbol of the Deimean priesthood, the half white, half black human skull set on gold. Besides this singular piece of decoration, nothing else but more purity seals cover the suits, as they lack any and all personalization. Were it not for how the psyker moved, you wouldn’t even be able to tell their sex, and you doubt most humans would be capable of doing that to begin with. As such, it is clear that depersonalization is the goal. Both with the people, both the with environment itself.

With your forces spilling inside, the Eldar begin to move rapidly, taking to the second floor, their pistol fire destroying the pursing Hydras whilst at the same time easily dodging their laser cannons with contemptuous ease. They appear to be in retreat, though knowing Eldar, they could very well have planned an ambush or two, or maybe they are waiting for your withdrawal from the area to launch a strike on you later on. Either way, the fight’s far from over. And from the looks of things, while you still have psykers, their numbers have been extensively culled.

As the fraction of a fraction of your subsystem’s consciousness returns to you, reporting about the battle, you immediately bring up the plans for psyker housing as a whole. The area which currently contains the fighting is much larger and far more complex than you had originally assumed. Corridors that lead to nowhere, that grow and shrink in size to the point where one would have to crawl, otherwise there are rooms that have an overly massive number of doors leading to endless loops in and around itself. If one were to lack prior knowledge of how everything is structured, getting lost is not only likely, but wholly intentional on the behalf of the architects. Again, everything is done for the seeming purpose of making life as difficult as possible in the area. Even with the plans in hand, presuming the Eldar are aware of the surroundings as well, they will find the most advantageous location to battle you in.

>>6263446

Other matters press your attention. House Rada has been continuously sending non-stop signals for assistance. With only a token force free for you to dispatch, you are uncertain how much use they shall be, but if nothing else, you should be able to get a better read on the situation. For the task however, you were only able to allocate some Hydras, a couple hundred of them, seeing as how the signal for assistance has not been cut, you can be confident that the local defenders are holding and even the token force could turn the battle, that is of course, presuming that the signal is not a trap.

Zooming over one of the forge-temple’s outcroppings, the small swarm of drones regards the quarter. Unlike most techpriesthood constructs, the quarters, even from afar are impressive by local standards. Rather than being a giant collection of metal, crudely jutting out into the ashen surroundings, the quarter is instead a large domed building, that allows for anyone inside to see outside and vice versa. Naturally, the glass structure is heavily reinforced, using relatively advanced manufacturing techniques to allow for transparency, but still maintain a modicum of strength. However, metres upon metres of metal are still stronger, much stronger, than the Rada quarter.

Even from here, a good few kilometres out, you see into the quarters and the verdant green around them. Grass dominates most of the areas closer to the dome proper, with trees and well-maintained shrubbery alongside fountains of varying designs spewing forth freshwater. Flowerbeds with striking roses of purple, pink, yellow, and black seem predominant. All of the roses are also arranged into the shapes of eyes, similar to the one you had witnessed in the meeting chamber when you conversed with Novator Trevith Rada. Along the white pathways crisscrossing the large park is a collection of dozens of statues painted with deep and powerful shades of colouring, giving distinct appearances of the figures portrayed. You lack a clear sight, but the uniformness of their clothing bears a striking resemblance to the Novator, if nothing else indicating that they are prominent members of the navigator house.

>>6263447

The structures within the dome do not fall far behind the extensive park. They are sleek, thin, tall buildings reaching towards the skies, with their walls washed gleaming white, an exhausting effort, and an expensive one. Following the common gothic style, the building has small outcrops housing statues of saintly figures, there are plenty of both clear and stained windows doting the entirety of the structure, allowing for sunlight to illuminate the rooms within. Both the statues and the windows are placed within thin and artful arches with decorative slim towers further adding to the detail as they rise from either the sides or the bottoms of the structures. Further work is done throughout the building, with the eye symbol being the most prominent to be carved out, with naturally matching colours to boot, though you doubt that these ones are made out of precious stones and materials.

As your drones close the distance, more and more details become apparent, most eye-catching of all would be the crimson staining and contrasting heavily with the white of the pathways and the green of the grass. Dots of purple, the personal guards of house Rada equipped similarly to the Deimean Astynomia, lay dead in their dozens, having been cut down and torn to pieces by the invaders. While the infantry appears to be abundant, you note a distinct lack of heavy weaponry, even fortified emplacements appear to be lacking, with only the occasional heavy stubber, a multilas or a lascannon begin set up on strategic points overlooking the park and the streets.

Even as you are analysing the situation before your eyes, an explosion rings out, cyan flashes draw your attention as one of the buildings cracks under its own weight and begins to collapse, kicking up dust and rubble that engulfs the entirety of the dome.

Pushing the drones harder, you enter through one of the airlocks, and just as swiftly you begin hearing the noises of intensive combat, primarily the roars of lasgun weaponry, intermixed with a copious amount of unmistakable inferno pistol fire. Therein, though much more silent, is the noise of Eldar weaponry.

As your drones buzz ahead, the flashes of red and shouting of men instantly reveals the location of your targets, lithe figures, moving at extreme speed and grace. Annoyingly, the arrival of your drones had been noted by the attacker and swiftly, seventeen of them blink out of existence, contact with them being lost. You give the order to open fire, the laser cannons of the drones super-heating the dust and evaporating it as red beams score deep gnashes into the terrain, ripping it apart and causing more explosions to ring out.

>>6263448

The lithe figures move with incredible speed, darting in between confused formations of household troops, that are still busy trying to figure out exactly whom they are fighting, and judging by their vox chatter, exactly whom had started shooting with so many lascannons, even though you had already sent signals informing them of your arrival. It seems that the chain of command has been thrown into utter confusion by the destruction of one of the buildings, which, if going by their communications is anything to go by, was the headquarters of the house’s armed forces. Had you not arrived when you did, chances are good that the local defenders would have been completely routed.

One of the drones flies in on a section of the house guards being cut down by two Eldar warriors, the soldier’s purple armour is covered instantly by their own vitae as it spills out, their armour offering no protection against the nanomolecular edged weaponry employed by the Eldar. In a panic, one of the soldier’s throws out a frag grenade and is caught in the blast, but his sacrifice, willing or not, sees a piece of shrapnel impacting a shin of one of the warriors. The injury is light, the laser cannon shot unleashed by your drone into the alien’s chest, however, is not. With the other attacker slipping into the dust cloud, you take a moment to examine the dead warrior. You recognize the colours quite easily, that of brown armour, black undersuit, and blue detailing. You had seen it before, belonging to the craftworld of Zahr-Tann. Meanwhile, the warrior that had retreated, while clad in the exact same armour, and wielding the exact same rifle was coloured differently, having a white helmet, dark grey armour, and a green undersuit. Perhaps a showcase of a different military unit belonging to Zahr-Tann, or maybe a wholly separate craftworld. What remains certain, is that the Eldar, as usual, are backstabbing traitors.

With the combat still raging on, the situation around the Rada quarter hangs in a precarious balance. Through your own drones, you create an ad-hoc network of C&C, directly patching the defenders in, giving them the ability to once again coordinate, and starting to mark your drones as friendly. The appearance of a few hundred allies, even though their numbers are rapidly thinning, gives a boost to the local defenders, enough to at least prevent a collapse. As for the enemy, including the few dead, there are at least two dozen Eldar, possibly more, though all so far seem to be equally equipped and lacking the narrow specializations that you had witness beforehand. As it stands, the fight could swing either way at any moment.

>>6263449

Finally, where you had concentrated a significant portion of your own processing power, your land-base communications and their defenders. Your own forces had naturally been prepared for a while now, but the locals whom refused to evacuate had dug trenches and prepared holdouts wherever they could. And those preparations had paid off, as you witness something you had deemed utterly impossible – Orks, sneaking. Perhaps a couple hundred of them, all wearing some sort of bandolier or a belt, or even a tunic, all strapped with crude explosions. They seem to have painted their faces purple and although terrifying for most to witness, the crawling Orks are exceptionally noticeable, as in you can see their explosives laden backs swaying back and forth above the few scant pieces of terrain that they are able to hide behind. One of your legionnaires raises its rifle, shoulders it, aims, fires. A series of explosions boom out, as one Ork, followed by another are annihilated, the bombs they had no doubt planned to use against you now killing them in their hundreds.

”WE”Z BEN SPOTED ! GET AT ‘EM !” A particularly large Ork screams out, rising to its full hulking height, it charges ahead brandishing what could be considered a sword by most humans, but is used as a crude knife by the beast, and all the while, his other hand holds onto a scrap of metal, with more bombs stapled together with tape and crude welds.

This Ork is grabbed by the wrist by a Nemean as he tries to deliver what would be a nasty gut stab, only for the Ork to begin laughing like crazy, activating the grenade he had prepared, either intending to die together, or so self-assuredly certain that he will survive, that this will bring him victory. The robot simply uses its other free hand to rip off the Ork’s arm, which thanks to crude Orkish biology still clenches the grenade without letting go, and simply throws it away. As the bomb holding hand explodes in the air, with one clean swipe from the Nemean’s powerclaw, the Ork is cleanly beheaded.

>>6263450

Since you had prepared for this quite extensively, the overwhelming firepower of your assorted forces quickly begin to cut down the green tide. The Orks, moving forwards as is their nature try to throw as many bombs as they can, all the while firing their crude weapons without an end, other than a few Hydras and Nimeans lost due to them being caught out of position, the infiltration attempt is repulsed with ease. The Orks foolish enough to attempt sabotage are all cut down to the last. If nothing else, it seems you had foiled a concentrated ambush, though you must wonder exactly how these Orks managed to get to the planet’s surface, and not only that, reach the location of your primary means of communication without being spotted until this moment. In either case, your prudent concentration of resources in this matter had beaten presumably the most elite of the enemy troops, as always, if such a term applies to Orks.

Loud cheers erupt from the local from the defenders, proclamations of your divinity and foresight, prayers uttered in your name and those of your most holy instruments. The techpriests in particular appear to be working up the defenders into a frenzy, proclaiming the holiness of their cause and that should any of them fall, they would do so as martyrs. This, alongside their bloodless victory has further emboldened the defenders to further fortify and prepare their positions. If nothing else, this is an added defensive line for this particular vital piece of infrastructure.

Eventually, despite the victories and losses you had achieved and suffered, one fact remains – the invasion’s about to commence. Far up in the void, the first of Orkish ships, though small in size, had reached Deimea and had begun their invasion. Down ships steering themselves towards the planet, ramshackle landing craft and drop pods, whom are nothing more than mainly sections of the ship with a rocket bolted to the side. You even spot a few Gretchin being fired out of cannons from burning and falling ships. The effectiveness of such a tactic remains highly questionable.

The fact of the matter is, the enemy is beginning to deploy en masse. And you respond in kind, the Deimeans had prepared extensive AA fortifications and facilities for this exact inevitability, and of course, atop of all of that are your own defences and preparations. The skies above Deimea erupt in flashes of bright light as lances, macrocannon batteries, numerous flakguns and other assorted weapons and missiles begin to engage an ever-increasing number of landing attempts. It all begins as nothing but a trickle, but more, and more, eventually falling burning hulls that disgorge even more and more ships result in a flood.

>>6263452

During the fall, your defences cut down hundreds, thousands of Orks, forcing them to abandon any hopes or foolish attempts at landing directly upon the tightly packed forge-temples. This means that quite the number of Orkish landing happen a good few dozen kilometres away from their intended landing locations, due to the difficult terrain involved, it also means that they will have to spend quite a bit of time to deliver themselves onto you.

Even the trek however, is far more dangerous than the Orks had imaged, as only half an hour after landing, a surprisingly mechanized formation of the greenskins erupt from one of the crashed ships, with their own crude ways, the red painted vehicles roar over the landscape as the Orks roar, curse, shout, and fire off their weapons at seemingly random bits of the environment and occasionally each other as their engines continue to roar with unprecedented fury. It seems that these Orks in particular find rushing forwards like they lost their heads to be quite thrilling. Unfortunately, you must be a spoilsport and ruin their fun.

Decreasing the gravity output, you create and area of zero G, suddenly loosing their grip, the force jettisons forwards, some of the Orks lose their grip and begin to float away. That is when you switch the gravity back on, at the force of 10 Gs. This results in the Orkish force slamming directly into the ground, their vehicles collapsing like paper exposed to the rain, as for the Orks themselves, some are turned into squished collections of red paste, others disappear within their vehicles, those becoming their metal tombs. The Orks will learn of these tricks sooner or later and will undoubtedly attempt to find countermeasures, perhaps something more than what the first batch did, which was shooting at the ground.

As more and more Orks amass, it is clear that you need to prepare for a protracted siege and assault, but there are other numerous areas that require your attention. The more forces you dedicate to other matters, the less you have to deploy for the primary defence, though who knows what the Eldar infiltrators have in store.

>>6263453

Can pick more than one, option must reach half of the largest vote +1 to pass. The more options are taken, the more spread out the forces are.

>You shall concentrate everything on the primary defence, what happens to others matters not if the Orks fully overwhelm you. (If this option wins, no other option is taken.)

>The civilian populace still suffers, they require assistance, the sooner, the better.

>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.

>The few surviving psykers that you have in your possession are still putting up a struggle, though without further reinforcements, who knows how long.

>House Rada is putting up a stiff fight despite the odds. They might just pull themselves out with the token force you had sent, but that would leave a lot to chance.

Previous parts:

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=Yet+another+40k+A.I.+quest

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=Theseus%3A+a+40k+A.I.+quest

Twitter for updates:

https://x.com/NewbQm

outdated:

https://pastebin.com/awmZgyMn
https://pastebin.com/YgiHnhBr
https://pastebin.com/ekE6gtiS

>>6263455
It's good to have you back.

>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.

>The few surviving psykers that you have in your possession are still putting up a struggle, though without further reinforcements, who knows how long.

>House Rada is putting up a stiff fight despite the odds. They might just pull themselves out with the token force you had sent, but that would leave a lot to chance.

The evacuations are underway, and Deimean quality should be enough to hold back orkish quantity, which leaves us to deal with The Eldar. I suspect they know we can hold off the Ork invasion and are instead attempting to bleed us out in the long run, hence the reason why the locations aren't critical to the defence of Deimea (though why they chose to strike a recycling plant is beyond me).

>>6263455
We're so back. And as expected, it was the fucking eldar up to their usual bullshit. Ork kommandos managing to sneak that deep into the forge-temple is both concerning and very funny.
>The civilian populace still suffers, they require assistance, the sooner, the better.

>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.
Total Eldar Death.

>>6263455

Welcome back! Great update

>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.

This is an essential vote, we cannot allow the Eldar to achieve their goals in that arcology.

>The few surviving psykers that you have in your possession are still putting up a struggle, though without further reinforcements, who knows how long.

Unlike the navigators we can make more of, psykers are a new mutation and stable ones are often very hard to find. For future research purposes their role especially for discovering how to deal with the warp is not only essential but might lead to some breakpoint.

Although normally I'd also vote for rescuing the civilians, for this time splitting off our forces in three (the main defence against orks, assault on the eldar in Reatna and helping the psykers) already puts us in the danger zone when it comes to operational security.

We should let the civilians deal with it until we can manage to defeat the enemy. If we chose 3 different options it's very likely we will end up not having enough troops to deal with any of them

>>6263455
>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.

>The few surviving psykers that you have in your possession are still putting up a struggle, though without further reinforcements, who knows how long.

Anons' reasoning is sound. Though I suggest helping the "angels" help the civilians. We don't have the forces but maybe we can spare processing power and intel.

I'd like a scene between them and Odysseus sometime.

>>6263552

>It's good to have you back.

Good to be back !

>>6263899

>I'd like a scene between them and Odysseus sometime.

Noted, will include some scenes later on, presuming orks don't crack Deimea. Though you anons got lucky with the hulk shot, so you are no longer insanely outnumbered, just massively.

>>6263455
Welcome back Welcome back newb.

One question: is the use of the Write-in possible for deploy our "divine" body in combat ?

>>6263964

>One question: is the use of the Write-in possible for deploy our "divine" body in combat ?

Sure. Write-ins are always open unless otherwise specified.

>>6263455
>>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.
>>The few surviving psykers that you have in your possession are still putting up a struggle, though without further reinforcements, who knows how long.

>Write in
>Deploy our combat (often called "divine") body to aid the psykers. Show the eldar, that they stand no chance against you.

Its time for a wake up call for the knife ears, they shitted on our treaty and are currently doing enough war crimes that we might prepare a entire tribunal dedicated to just list them all. And so deploying Odysseus custom combat body is our ace card, that....they aren't ready to fight. I will be happy in turning the tables around, those poor centurions and legionnaires didn't deserve that ambush :(

But thats not all. We have 1 more trick up our sleeve : sowing doubt in the eldar ranks.

>Write in
>Intercom comms, crackles and starts in the locations reporting Eldar attacks : "Vermin Eldar, betrayers of mankind trust and blackguards of all our ancient treaties, i want to inform all of your terrorists deployed on Deimea of one thing. I have sent an order that ensure in 1 minute, that the following will happen. All of your precious "jewels" i had rightfully captured and stored in my possession, shall be destroyed. This is the punishment for your war crimes. None of them shall remain. All of them will be soon nothing but dust, again and again. This is the price of your disgusting actions, this is what you deserve. The Deimean people will be protected by me, and your nefarious schemes shall die with all of you here."

Are the Eldar sure they have all their stones, or if Odysseus as any more ? Probably no. Do they have time to see the difference in the ancient recording of us almost crushing their "jewels" ? Also no. This should create some confusion in their ranks. Enough that it might just be abused by us and the Deimeans forces. Its a gamble, but it might work.

>>6263455
also welcome back !!

>>6263986
If we are doing an announcement towards the Aeldari I'd like for it to be this:

>>6263885
Add to this
>(write in) Make an announcement in Aeldari "You have broken the non-aggression treaty between the Human Federation and The Aeldari Empire. Surrender now and the remainder of your spirit stones will not be thrown into a waste compactor. In the case of your surrender, you shall be treated as a prisoner of war and be given all the rights of a federation PoW"

I feel that an announcement without a way out for the Aeldari is just a threat and cheap intimidation. Any insults we throw at them they just wouldn't care, which is why we need to be consise and direct. This is a bluff to potentially confuse them and the shorter the lie the better it rings

>>6263552
>>6263658
>>6263885
>>6263986
Besides bluffing the Eldar can we help the "Angels" help the civilians like I suggested?

>>6264285
I thought we already were? But I doubt we can't do much more to help them without diverting more (stronger) drones to help with search & rescue and repair efforts.

>>6264424

>I thought we already were? But I doubt we can't do much more to help them without diverting more (stronger) drones to help with search & rescue and repair efforts.

Currently Ody has whatever civilian drones and robots at hand doing work, though because it is of low priority, he can only dedicate so much processing power to it, so it is not as effective as it could possibly. Getting more "hands", so to say, on it bad more of his attention would lessen civilian casualties.

>>6264285
The previously lobotomite processors are already helping around which does not need our attention, unfortunately as far as I understand our physical body does. I think having our attention be divided into 3 parts is already cutting it close and I'm not comfortable with increasing that number further.

>>6263455
>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.
>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.

Welcome Back!

Reatna 6
psykers 4
Rada 1
civilian 1

Body to psykers 2

Okay, dedicating a force towards the unknown situation in the forge-temple and sending some forces to assists the psykers wins. Update coming soon-ish.

>>6263455
>The forge-temple of Reatna clearly requires a concentrated force. Not only to prevent the Eldar from achieving whatever goal they have, but also in order to save the millions trapped within.
>The few surviving psykers that you have in your possession are still putting up a struggle, though without further reinforcements, who knows how long.
>House Rada is putting up a stiff fight despite the odds. They might just pull themselves out with the token force you had sent, but that would leave a lot to chance.
>Deploy our combat (often called "divine") body to aid the psykers. Show the eldar, that they stand no chance against you.

I suppose Broken Empire was due for a few well deserved updates. Eagerly awaiting this one tho!

>>6274961
Ah so Newb has multiple quests he works on?
I thought it was joever.

>>6275044
yep, a man with two quests. He does say something on twitter time to time if he can't say hi here or in Broken Empire.

You, or more specifically a fraction of your consciousness, watches as a brand-new teleportation mine is detached from a platform and it blinks out of existence only for an Orkish kroozer, whose voidshields had collapsed, to explode from within as the mine detonates.

That is followed by a suicidal ramming action by another Orkish voidship against a laser platform, though you doubt that it was intended as such, fact of the matter remains that it did happen and another miniature Sun appears in the orbit around Deimea, a common occurrence as of late.

Your orbital defences are cracking, even as more and more voidships are destroyed, the losses, if anything, only seem to encourage the Orkish horde. The only silver-lining so far is that the spacehulk is still slowly lumbering its way towards Deimea, the lucky hit at the start of the battle had seriously damaged its ability to build up sufficient speed to propel its mass fast enough to keep up with the now scattered fleet.

Having lost any vague resemblance of cohesion, the invader armada devolved into individual ships or groupings acting independently as they will. Whatever Ork warlord is in command, has clearly lost hold over his troops. On the one hand, it is good news, as undoubtedly any coordinated assaults or attacks will now not occur. On the other hand, the sheer quantity of greenskins is so overwhelming, that they have no real need to employ such tactics or strategies besides one of sending their warriors in the general direction of the battle.

At this rate, your orbitals are holding, but it is a question of time before they are overwhelmed, with only the ability to impact Orkish psyche being your best bet at a guaranteed victory. The Orks are crude and foolish, but like any living beings, they do have a self-preservation instinct, even if an undeveloped one.

Naturally, with your orbital defences turned against the voidships, your ground-based defences are working overtime to deal with an ever-increasing number of Ork landing attempts, or more or less their crashing and burning that you, unfortunately, must term as landing attempts, due to the annoyingly high numbers of survivors.

It had reached a point where local defensive installations are running into issues of their weaponry barrels melting from the heat of constant fire, to simply not being able to load ammunition fast enough.

Your own systems are also equally struggling from being bottlenecked due to the need of maintenance or energy expenditure as you are unable to provide cooling required to sections of the defences due to their decentralized nature, on the upside, you’ve yet to suffer a complete collapse, as you still punch holes and block some landing attempts, but not enough to prevent a swelling in Orkish numbers.

>>6277225

Comparing the green threat to that of the chitinous swarm of the Tyranids, you do have the advantage of continuous infighting between the tribes even as they rush to your position, as a few had already begun to claim their own pieces of territory and fiercely fight over them.

As for the main battle itself, your lines had bent, but in the end held. Your outer defences still hold steady, with the initial trench lines and defences being overwhelmed by the endless tide, the gap of land between it and the second line however is cover in ever more numerous piles of green bodies soaked in crimson blood as well as wrecks in various states of destruction.

One great advantage that you had been exploiting to the best of your abilities is the fact that this continent’s gravity is yours to play with as you will. Whenever a large numbers of Orks would gather, you would crush them for their insolence. Though by now, the Orks had figured out that the ground itself is against them. While they continue to shoot at it, they somehow are able to actually achieve results with a sufficient number of ammunitions and explosions levelled at any one given location.

As for more innovative solutions, the Orks had created new weapons known as da drilz, which are, well, rough sheets and pieces of metal crudely attached to overburdened engines commanded by, quite literally taped to the control panel, gretchin crews and aimed at the direction of the ground. There’s a roughly thirty percent chance that the creation explodes, thirty percent chance that it goes out of control and devastates the surroundings, killing a few greenskins, or, most unfortunately, another thirty percent chance that it works as intended and digs deep into the ground, damaging the platforms deep underneath. This usually results in the deaths of da drila krewz, which seems to be nothing more than entertainment to the Orks who make a habit out of betting upon the survival of their gretchin compatriots.

Slowly, but surely, the Orks are destroying the infrastructure you had painstakingly built, while the forge-temples are at no immediate danger, who knows how long your lines will hold against their ever-swelling numbers.

Meanwhile, you coordinate a breach into Reatna. It is clear you cannot afford a tactical breach, or a simple insertion through the numerous entrances. No, you will not throw away your resources towards an Eldar ambush. Undoubtedly, they will have one planned, but lacking any means of intelligence gathering and the situation devolving at a rapid pace, you were left with simple option. Sheer, brute, force ! You have dedicated a swarm of tens thousands of hydras to act as the vanguard, followed by thousands of Nemean that shall smash through areas of resistance identified by the initial Hydra wave. Finally, a few hundred Legionnaires and Centurions to act as a rapid reaction force where sheer force of numbers is not enough.

>>6277227

The Eldar want tricks ? They want a battle of wits ? To play a game of cat and mouse against you ? To allow for the Eldar to dictate the battle play, by play ? The Eldar wish to treat you like a primitive ? Fine, you shall show them humanity’s brutality, you will allow them to experience why humans rose to dominate the stars. You will smash the gameboard and the rules they so wish enforce upon you. Sometimes, the simple solution is the best.

Through the whistling of the wind, you hear the concentrated hum of about two hundred Hydras moving in formation and cutting through air. You had already selected breaching points based on minimal potential civilian endangerment, and you intend to use them.

Shifting in formation, the drones cut power to their propulsion and for just the moment glide through the air before they all as one dive. Falling heavily and picking up speed, every single drone fires their laser cannon in a singular prolonged attack. The roar of lasers superheating the air is deafening and the flash of light blinding. Sustained and prolonged fire begins to bore into the metal of the forge-temple, heating it until it glows and the very atmosphere itself begins to burn. The once formidable defence begins to melt and run in rivers. A hundred of such breaches is conducted simultaneously, as the toxic atmosphere of Deimea is mixed with the stale recycled air of the forge-temple.

The first group of hydras, whose cameras witness a dilapidated recycling plant that has been damaged in the fighting, is destroyed instantly by blue flashes of light, as preset Eldar explosive devices detonate, as if they knew exactly where, how, and when you will conduct the breach.

Rocking the very foundations of the forge-temple, a part of the gigantic ceiling collapses under the combined assault of your breaches and the Eldar explosives. The screeching of bending metal, the snaps of thunder as it finally snaps. Finally, the ground quakes and the destruction wrought forth by the collapse rolls throughout.

It does not deter you.

Instead, into the smoke and dust, you deploy the second wave. Nemeans by their thousands are dropped by the few transportation ships you were able to rally for the purpose, dropping down with heavy and loud thuds as they march in coordinated lockstep, no longer guided by their rudimentary programming, you lead the endeavour personally, moving each and every robot with purpose.

The first strike comes as you had expected, with a dozen signals blinking out of existence and you losing the camera feeds of a group of Nemeans as they are overwhelmed.

Unluckily for the Eldar, you had wholly expected this. Their brilliantly coordinated defence against the first wave may have killed thousands of Hydras, but you had employed tens of thousands of them for a reason.

>>6277228

Concentrating a large force, you unleash the power of a miniature lance straight into the area you calculated for the Eldar to be in. Erasing it from existence, you think about nothing but contempt as you spot a pair of blue coloured legs connected to the bottom torso that is missing anything else to be attached to. You have no idea how many you killed, just that you did, and that is enough.

Undoubtedly, by now the Eldar will begin to amass their forces against you, lest they are picked off one by one, or in small groups. They will most likely try to isolate your forces, draw them out and defeat you in detail. A sound strategy, but only one that works if the foes require to divide their forces due logistical constraints. However, this issue can be solved by simply having such overwhelming numbers, that losing portions and bits of your army is wholly irrelevant. You will drown the Eldar in a tidal wave of metal, lasers, and plasma.

As you begin to spread out your forces, columns of hundreds of identical robots moving in lockstep supported by groupings of buzzing drones, the various tunnels, hallways, passageways are filled to the brim. One grouping is snuffed out by more blue explosions as you mark down the casualties and instantly begin to reroute the reserves, if the Eldar are willing to waste munitions on it, then clearly, you need to bludgeon your way through there.

Unlike the Eldar, whose numbers are few, as you had witnessed throughout numerous engagements, you can afford to simply write off your losses using the cold arithmetic of war, already you are calculating the necessary numbers needed to maintain the current casualty rate moment by moment, action by action. Already as well, your production capacity is being directed towards the replacement of said fatalities, it will cost you, but you shall recover, and the Eldar shall not.

Watching through the camera lens of a leading Nemean, you witness the feed going out. Instantly switching to another nearby robot, you watch as the lead crumbles to the ground, filled to the brim with holes that had cut straight through it and even went back further to damage other machines behind it. Naturally, you order the robot to march forwards as it raises both hands and begins to spew hot burning bolts of plasma forth, until every single Nemean in the grouping is firing with wild abandon, filling the air with projectiles. If even one scores a hit, you had already made your expenses worth it. And even when the camera feed that you are witnessing right now cuts out, you simple assume direct control of another bot and keep moving, pushing aside the still standing but destroyed lead, you keep firing. Eventually, you lose that bot as well, and another, and yet another. Stepping over a series of white coloured Nemeans, filled with holes and the occasional spark, you are concentrated on a single task – advance.

>>6277229

The noise of more distant explosions and the shaking of the ground catches your attention, as you lose your grip and begin to plummet downwards, hundreds of your bots fall all at once, and before your lens as a Nemean plunges into darkness and out of range of your direct control, you witness them. Eldar clad in green, wielding chainswords and pistols, watching their success and the destructions of this attack wave. Pride, arrogance, certainty of their cause. You can see all of it in their body language.

Laughable.

The Eldar react swiftly to the current of energy forming around them and the stinking smell of ozone, but not fast enough.

Blinking into existence, a Centurion uses its long limbs and the mounted rotatory railgun cannons to smash one of the green foes into the nearby wall, causing the pipes mounted there to crack and break, spilling out filthy sewage. With a sickening crunch followed by a short and haunting scream, the Eldar’s ribs are pushed in, squashing the organs and breaking its pristine armour, crimson spills out from the formed cracks as eventually the organs are unable to take it anymore and those still in a recognizable state spill out and fly into the air, a few spilling onto the floor while those propelled further onwards join the Nemeans in their eternal darkness.

A chainsword strike rips apart the Centurion’s side, disarming all four of its limbs on the other side, causing bring spark to erupt as the railgun break, unleashing built up energy via miniature sparks of lightning. Not hesitating, the Centurion turns to deliver another killing blow with its healthy limbs as the shoulder mounted volkite weaponry locks onto the nearby targets, only for another four perfectly coordinated blows to fall onto it and with surprising strength in the blows, the hulking machine is pushed onwards, just enough for it to tip over and fall who knows how many metres into the darkness with its teleportation system heavily damaged, you do not bother trying to save it.

The five second exchange was more than enough time for another trio of centurions to appear behind the Eldar and to unleash their weaponry to their fullest. The railguns unleash a hailstorm of bullets, striking without pause, tearing through the surroundings, rending deep holes into everything that is still standing, causing more spillages and breaking down whole sections of walls, all for the singular purpose of giving the shoulder mounted volkite cannons their chance.

Frustratingly, the agile Eldar somehow move by shifting just enough to avoid the incoming shots, weaving a beautiful dance as they duck, jump, slide, and dodge from the bullets with seeming ease and they even manage to close the distance in a blink of an eye, delivering a strike that cuts deep into the centurion, from the crotch towards halfway that causes irreparable damage.

Yet, the Eldar had to avoid failure every single time, while you needed to succeed just once.

>>6277230

One of your foes had stumbled in their movement, they were forced to lift off the ground, jumping into the air and rotating their body to avoid a dozen or so simultaneous bullets. They had avoided a dozen failures with a single move. But you succeeded once. A single bright red line of light illuminates the now quite dark surroundings, as electricity had failed in this section of the forge-temple. Impacting straight into the chest, the armour is the first to disintegrate and put a stop to the built-up motion of the Eldar. As in milliseconds, the now exposed flesh is instantly heated up, causing all water to evaporate immediately and the resulting steam to blow out with a kinetic force powerful enough to stop any charge. With its enhanced senses, perhaps the Eldar died a painful death as its body was suddenly flung backwards, a large gathering of steam enveloping his comrades and your Centurions alongside evaporated blood and fresh vitea rushing outwards and covering the dull grey of the surroundings, the striking green of the few surviving Eldar, and the pristine white of your robots.

Despite their overwhelming and inevitable defeat, the enemy stubbornly persists and refuses to simply lay down their weapons and die. An inconvenience. Grabbing one of the limbs of a Centurion, one of the Eldar uses its built-up momentum to fling itself upwards, holding onto the Centurions head, it masterfully avoids the volkites and rotates to the back of the bot. With a single cleaving strike, the Eldar beheads the Centurion before shoving a grenade down into the bot and with a backwards flip, narrowly avoids the still functional weaponry, landing with ease and elegance as the Centurions insides explode.

Without missing a beat, the two Eldar coordinate against the last Centurion, the one in the back driving his chainsword into one of the shoulders and using its pistol against the other. Whilst the one charging from the front, drops to the ground and rolls rapidly dodging the volkites before with two short, well aimed bursts, destroying them. Finally, both of them drive their chainswords through the chest and the back of the machine, revving with full force, they both cut into it, taking great pains to destroy it toughly, seemingly enraged at the deaths of their comrades.

You simply mark down your losses and add their replacements to the checklist. Already you directed a contingent of Legionnaires to cross the gap and continue with your assault. This is your game, this is your war, and while you were not programmed for, if your militaristic subsystem was alive, you would be more than able to come up with better tactics and strategy, but the fact of the matter is, that you were not created for such a purpose. You, however, are an A.I., the greatest humanity has ever made, and simple logistics, simple arithmetic will be your means towards victory. Now the Eldar will learn fear, if they cannot learn peace.

>>6277233

Overall, you are making progress, while the Eldar are doing their best to impede you as they are able. Both sides had inflicted heavy losses on each other, and at the moment it appears an equal exchange, but it is a question of time and resources, and at the end of that calculus, your victory is inevitable, be it an expensive one, or one that would give even you pause for the expenses, but victory nonetheless.

When it comes to the psyker housing, the sheer labyrinth presented before necessitates cheap and expendable forces in great numbers and manoeuvrability. You must possess the ability to block off points of exfiltration and the enemy’s ability to outflank you. The Eldar have the advantage in mobility over baseline humanity, especially with degraded technology. That is exactly what you must counter in this situation. As such, you had dispatched only your Hydras, with their great speed, easy replacement, and numbers, they are the best that you have at hand for this specific purpose.

Moving by the hundreds, they zoom past the still struggling survivors, whom begin to exclaim their proclamations of their deep and sure worship of you. At least the techpriest capable of doing so are, meanwhile, you notice that the psykers, that had previously fought, simply mindlessly idle in place, lacking seemingly any direction, even as a few of them bleed and sport deep injuries, they keep standing, until one simply collapses onto the floor and spasms. You had deployed simple medical drones to assist the survivors to the best of your abilities, and they were unable to determine the cause of death, other than potential shock due to the injuries and blood loss.

Continuously advancing, you split your forces by each and every corridor you come across, forming an ever-increasing net with which you shall find and corner the Eldar. The building material here is so thick and specially constructed to interfere with any forms of communication, while you could default to basic automation algorithms, you need to be in direct control if you wish to emerge victorious here. To facilitate that, you leave behind relay drones like a breadcrumb trail, should this trail ever be disrupted, you had given out standing orders to any drones ahead in the path to instantly turn about and make their way back in order to intercept any attacker.

>>6277234

With a wailing battlecry, one of the groups you had deployed is waylaid by the enemy. Similar to your once prisoner, the Eldar are clad in white, almost cream like armour, with red hair flowing out of their helmets, their screeching does nothing to affect your drones. Sadly, their pistols and power swords are exceptionally effective in dealing with your cheap drones. Caught at the entrance of a junction, the drones are filled with holes as the nanomolecular edged munitions simply cut through their armour like it was non-existent to begin with, annihilating internals and leaving nothing but sparkling piles of junk metal on the ground as loosing their means of propulsion the drones either smash into walls or heavily roll onto the floor.

Grace apparent in every move in every move, the Eldar begin to move their blades, cutting straight through Hydras with contemptuous ease, a single flick of the wrists is another destroyed drone, another casualty that you will have to replace. As the whirlwind of the Eldar intensifies, the six rampaging dancers put on quite the show, dodging and weaving through the laser cannons that continue to flash and brighten the surroundings, while causing enough damage to superheat the air and to make the walls cry rivers of molten metal.

As always however, with the great tactic of your defence consisting of not being hit to begin with, when that hit comes, and when you have no secondary means of defence, death comes swiftly.

One of the Eldar delivers a devasting downwards swipe from right to left, cutting through three drones as it uses its momentum to instantly shift into another move, unleashing another fearsome battlecry for it to only be cut short as a bright beam of light hits the Eldar straight onto the head, cracking the pathetic armour, the heat causing the nearby plating to crack and break as it expands, unleashing a shotgun like effect of now scorched Eldar armour, showering the area before the soon to be deceased, with a couple of pieces embedding themselves into your drone, an indication that the armour is a lot tougher than it would originally appear, but still nowhere enough to actually stop a dedicated blow. Finally, like an overripe fruit, the Eldar’s head explodes milliseconds after its flesh is burnt away and the eyes had boiled over, a slight mist of red alongside a shower of blood, followed swiftly there after by the noise of a corpse hitting the ground.

Five left, and of those five, in the next twenty seconds, you expend another fifty drones that rush in or try to pull back and gain some distance in an erratic pattern meant to throw off the Eldar’s rhythm. Eventually, the pile of destroyed drones builds up enough to cause yet another Eldar to lose its footing as a chuck of half torn apart drone forces it to change the direction of its movement an imperceptible shift for most, but more than enough for you and your drones.

>>6277235

A well-aimed shot blows off the alien’s foot, causing another miniature explosion of blood and gore, a blood chilling scream escapes the foul xeno’s mouth as unimaginable pain shoots through its body. Unsurprisingly, missing a foot impedes the Eldar’s ability to manoeuvre. As such, the second shot hits the thigh of the other leg, blowing it off as well, and as the body falls onto he ground, another shot, after another turns the Eldar into nothing more than a scorched mess of flesh and a few remaining bits of blackened armour.

With the duel intensifying, warnings begin to blare out about you losing contact with three of your assault groups and connection networks. Undoubtedly your foes are lashing out in an attempt to reassemble their forces, just like before, the Eldar thought they could fight you like the Imperium, small divided groups of specialists striking at targets of great import and decapitating the leadership structure before it even had a time to react to their strikes. Now however, they had begun to realize that while it might put you on the back foot, you are capable of rapid adaptation and turning their advantages to their greatest weaknesses.

You are winning the battle over the psyker holding, and based on the casualties you are experiencing, it is clear that the Eldar are heading and planning for their withdrawal, you are as of now uncertain where they are withdrawing, but one thing that is clear, the psykers are safe, at least for a while.

Just as you are about to turn your attention towards more autonomous of your forces and their reports, your logistics subsystem informs you of something unexpected.

Notice: warpquake detected.

It takes a moment for you to look through one of the defence platforms’ cameras in order to observe the aforementioned warpquakes, it will still take you minutes if not a couple of hours to detect the power signatures and to figure out exactly what had arrived in system. Perhaps it is good news that you are unable to tell instantly what had appeared in system, perhaps it is incredibly concerning. You will worry about it when you can afford to.

-
(POV shift, a few days ago: You are Forge-Master Hattie Kelbanx currently in the process of boarding the mass conveyor Surewrought in orbit above Kanzula.)

Such desecration. You can feel the weight of the rusted and rotten metal underneath your feet, every single step you take comes with the noise of metal bending underneath your weight, your own blessed steel hurting the already desecrated metal underneath. It is unacceptable. The Omnissiah would be disgusted by such a sight.

>>6277236

However, you can admit to your own, perhaps heretical thoughts, that whatever weapon had caused such extensive and thorough damage would be one worth having, especially having in your hands. You had already made up your mind the moment you received your orders from the Fabricator-General that if you will report any such findings as destroyed or simply not report anything at all, though in order to appease the paranoid old man, you mi-

The whole ship groans, metal cracking throughout the entirety of it as it slightly shudders. Your subordinates start making the symbols of the cog and unleash holy prayers of maintenance to appease the suffering machine spirits. You had already ordered holy incense to be burnt when you first boarded to ease the machine’s pain.

All around you, the once pristine hallway made of greying metal, a few blinking lights here and there as well as embedded servitors is long gone. Moisture had formed around the ceiling as it continues to drip onto the floor, where you also see moss and fungus of various varieties and types growing at an unprecedented speed, undoubtedly the filtration systems had failed even in the sealed sections of the ship.

Taking your hand, you run a finger along the wall and see biological matter forming around your steel fingers. This growth, it seems almost purposeful, when a voidship collapses, usually heat production is one of the first areas to be cut in order to save on power. But this moisture, this warmth, it is making the few parts of your body that still are unfortunately made of pathetic flesh sweat profusely. Perhaps the Omnissiah will deem it appropriate to reward you with the ability to finally excise this last weakness of yours.

“Forge-master.” One of your subordinates interrupts your thoughts/

You feel your choler rising immediately to the fore, you want to grab him by the throat and simply crush it and silence the bastard forever. “What is it ?” You state calmly. He is too useful to just kill outright; you need to find a good place to expend him.

“We are detecting lifeforms ahead.”

“Dispatch the skitarii and a couple of gun servitors.” You reply, equally as calm, but your evaluation of the man’s intelligence decreases rapidly, perhaps you will find a use for his life sooner rather than later.

Obeying your orders, the skitarii move forward, your skitarii have even less independence than those of other forge-masters. You dislike fools, and unfortunately, most you consider to be as such, better they obey your every action, than dare to question it even once.

Moving in a coordinated fashion, a single squad rushes ahead, their rifles raised and the leading three have instead opted for their inferno pistols to deal with any close-range threats, while twogun servitors, one with a boltgun and another with a twin-linked autocannon, giving the squad enough firepower to at least die slowly enough for you form a new plan.

>>6277238

They move, halt, prepare. And no fire that you had expected comes, instead an all clear comes in. Curious, you move ahead and come through around the corner. Therein you spot something that causes you pause.

A large mess of biological mass, like a cancerous growth seems to have formed around the hallway and it had grown to a great extent and size, completely blocking off any passage. You see filthy pus streaming from the disgusting boils as they appear to slightly shift and move, like a singular living being, slowly drawing in breath and then letting it out. What’s more, you see swarms, whole colonies really, of flies buzzing about in their thousands. The worst thing of all is the smell, you had thought it impossible, but you can feel your own body revolting against the sight and the stench, it all is encouraging you to throw up. You supress the desire to do so.

Instead, you send out an order for the Astynomia to be brought up, you shall employ their holy promethium for a more holy purpose than mere riot suppression as it had been used before. Unlike you yourself, the other techpriests or more subordinate of your servants, these men have too much free thinking for your liking, and the quartet of them take very careful and cautious steps towards the mass of pustules, leveraging their heavy flamers, with bulky weapons such as these, they slowly advance, and move step by step.

“Move it !” You impatiently dictate in your organic voice.

Fearing your voice, and the consequences implied therein, more than the mass of flesh before them, the four men ready themselves and unleash jets of flaming promethium onto the growth. The vileness that fills the air is indescribable, rotting flesh, old and decayed unmentionables set on fire force even you to gag, the filters doing absolutely nothing to prevent the foulness now all around you.

Suddenly, another quake rocks the vessel, the swarm of flies buzzes angrily and begins to surround the flamer wielding men, drops of corrupted water runs down your clothing, leaving a hideous trail upon once pristine white.

Irritated, you are about to bark another command, when your vox comes alive with chatter. Reports of movements, of sounds and noises unbefitting of a dead voidship, then shouts, followed by requests for reinforcements, then screams and finally, silence. You try to raise your
Inferiors, but you receive no response, finally, you attempt to contact the Fabricator-General, only for that to be silent as well.

>>6277239

“You, and you.” Pointing out two techpriests, you command with confidence. “Take a squad of skitarii and a platoon of Astynomia each, return to our entry points and attempt to reestablish connection with the remainder of our forces, if that is not possible, depart the vessel and report about the situation personally…and request for reinforcements.” You add at the end, a moment of thought later. “The rest of you with me, we continue our advance. If some xenos think they can frighten me, they are sorely mistaken, and I shall have their kith for experimental subjects.”

Without even a hint of hesitation, you crush the still burning flesh underneath your boots as it squelches spilling forth repulsive pus combined with blood that slightly drags you down, yet you keep walking, the servitors and skitarii following you without question, blessed be their minds too small to doubt. Followed swiftly by your techpriest, driven forth by bravery, zeal, or fear, you do not care which, as long as they obey, meanwhile, the Astynomia move only after a while and hesitantly, turning back to regard their comrades with envy that were dispatched towards the shuttles that had brought you here in the first place. They follow out of fear, and that shall be sufficient.

As you move ever deeper into the interior, more and more of your surrounding become closer to flesh, more and more do you see colonies of flies, occasionally so massive in numbers that they block your vision almost entirely and you have to employ flamers to just clear your line of sight. And you stare at one particularly bumpy section of the wall, you think you had seen it move. Without any hesitation, you pull out your inferno pistol using a mechadendrite and fire straight into it, and the thing opens its singular eye. And it smiles, revealing a row of sharp, blackened and rotten teeth.

“Xenos !” You proclaim and fire again, scorching another hole in its putrid gut and see its own gut beginning to hang out side of its body alongside more angry flies bursting out and beginning to attack your forces.

More and more, do you realize that your surroundings are wholly filled to the brim with the xenos as your men begin to open fire, meanwhile, the one before you that had somehow survived two point-blank shots from an inferno pistol reveals a rusted one-handed heavy blade. With its singular protruding horn, the lanky, yet still bloated figure begins to chant something you do not understand, but you had heard enough prayers to recognize one when you hear it.

With a forwards thrust, the creature attempts to disembowel you with a far greater speed and strength than its appearance would dictate. You had, however, faced far worse and easily shift to the side, shooting it right in the arm clutching the blade, yet again, despite the blow it is not just outright ripped off, but the exposed bone indicates that it took damage, not only that, the shot had given you the time you needed.

>>6277241

Bringing down your Omnissiah’s axe with both of your hands, you deliver a downwards cut like an executioner, targeting the neck, you find, much to your surprise, that the power weapon cuts with much greater ease and strength than three separate inferno pistol shots. Separating the head from the body, you deliver a clean kill and watch as the body falls onto the ground, the head with its single cyclopean eye stares at you, and you see the smile growing wider. Much to your shock, you see the body beginning to disintegrate and before your artificial eyes even have time to process what happened, the body is gone.

A shrilling cry of help comes as one of your priests waves his arms about, his mechadendrites already broken, his legs crippled, is being dragged by another one of the lanky smiling figures, his shouts, in his organic voice, are silenced as he and the xeno both melt into a wall of putrid flesh.

An Astynomian shouts in a panic, waving around his heavy flamer and burning the ever-increasing quantity of flies, the flies simply smash against him over and over again until they find a gap in his armour. Then his screams turn into ones of unimaginable agony as the flies begin to swarm into his suit and tear at his flesh, eventually the screams become a gurgling barely distinguishable noise as flies swarm down his throat and you watch as the man destroys his own visor in a desperate panic, fallen down to his knees, he claws at his own throat and his eyes that you now note are filled with flies. You deliver a small mercy, targeting his promethium filled backpack and causing it to explode, spilling forth the flammable material and engulfing the surroundings with burning flames. The man’s gurgled screams finally stop, but the convulsions of his body do not.

Suddenly, you hear laughter, deep, throaty laughter, for some reason it draws the impression of one’s grandfather in a jovial mood. You look around, and for an unexplained reason, you feel an emotion one that you had never felt or experienced before, no matter what dangers you faced or what situation had presented itself before you – fear. You are afraid. For once, you do not feel like you are in control, you do not feel like you can win. Your rate of breathing increases as you can feel a panic attack descending upon you. Frantically, you look around, where is that noise coming from ? Who is laughing ? All of those beasts are smiling ! Damn them all ! Why do they smile !? You feel rage. Rage is good, rage is better than fear.

Swinging your axe with wild abandon, you behead another disgusting xeno that is the middle of beheading a skitarius. You do not hesitate even for a second and move onto the next target.

>>6277242

”THERE IS NO NEED TO FEAR.” A sickly, deep voice proclaims. You keep killing. ”THE GRANDFATHER SHARES HIS GIFTS WITH ALL.” Where is that voice coming from !? You check your vox, it is disabled, not a single person is talking, they are far too busy screaming, praying or just shouting. ”THERE IS NO ESCAPE LITTLE ONE, EMBRACE THE INEVITABLE.”

A skitarius pointlessly wails his bleeding stumps pouring out blood, oil and sparks against one beast, merely delaying his death by seconds. A techpriest is pinned to the ground and is slowly being crushed by another beast as he sinks deeper into the muck. An Astynomian has given up the fight and is simply rocking back and forth, clutching his knees, holding his hands in the symbol of the cog, muttering maddened incomprehensible prayers.

More and more of these creatures are appearing, alongside now swarms of small green blobs with horns upon their heads, their guts spilled out and open, and they are laughing and seemingly joking as they move by the dozens, distracting or overwhelming those that come along their path. You see as they begin to surround you, laughing, grabbing bits of flesh from the floor and flinging them at you, making a joke of it. With rage you shoot at one and watch it explode, before it evaporates into thin air. They are easy to kill, but there are more and more coming. Your formation is lost; your soldiers are as good as dead. Yes. They are gone. No need to dwell on it. Yo- you must warn others, that’s right. You have to survive to carry the word, no one else is fitting for such a task, only you are smart enough to find your way out and maintain the truth of your encounter.

A gap ! You proclaim in your mind as see the swarm opening up. You do not hesitate even for a second before you begin to dash away, you are not running for your life, no, no, you are tactically retreating, you never lose ! Why do these creatures mock you so ?! Why do they laugh with such intensity now ?! Why do they point at you ?!

You see a damaged and barely existent door, using the sheer weight and mass of your augmented body, you speed up and charge through it, destroying the machine spirit of the door in the process, but you do not care, you must survive !

Every single piece of your body locks up, your visors crack upon the sight, sweat rolls down in buckets, and eventually you begin to retch as you see one of those miniature creatures, only reaching the height of a dozen metres. Putrid flesh, stinking green air, hordes of flies and smaller creatures pouring out of the open rotting guts in the centre, from great antlers on the creature’s head hang long strains of its own intestines. A long, sickly slithering tongue goes over the beasts malformed lips and its gaping maw reveals a dozen layers of teeth. Its glowing green eyes bore into you.

>>6277243

And.

It smiles.

It smiles without even a hint of cruelty, without even a modicum of vanity at its victory, it is a simple, kindly, benevolent and a genuine smile.

Opening its maw further, where you see parasites twisting and turning therein, the cre-, no the xe-, no…the daemon begins to speak. ”DO NOT WORRY !” It says in a merry voice. ”I SHALL PERSONALLY BESTOW UPON YOU WITH THE GRANDFATHER’S GIFTS !”

It lowers one of its arms, putting one of the dirty, vomit inducing claws underneath your jaw. ”ALLOW ME TO SHOW YOU THAT

E̸̜̝̘͚̙̟̻͍̫̿̉̏̈́̀̇V̶̝̖͠Ḙ̶͈̪̼̤̻̀̈̉̚N̵̛̟̯̦̜̱̍̀̆̚

Ṡ̵̨̢̢̼͎͘̚T̴̯͐͌̈͑̂E̵̠̻̤̩̳̟͗̀̑̈̋͠͝E̸̜̜̖͖͊L̵̡̟̪̗̺̘̖̬͇͠

R̵͕̤̖̠͔͙̱̺̰͆̎́̉͐̕̕͜͝O̸͇͔̮̗̯̱̜̻͇͍͊̾̊̑̓͊Ť̸̖̉͛̓S̶͎̟̭̼͑̾͂͑ !”

The daemon’s smile grows ever deeper.

And you scream ever louder.

-
(POV shift, current day: You are Fabricator-General Volteus Gane of the Forge-World of Deimea, currently leading an expedition to Kanzula.)

About two weeks have passed. Two weeks of silence. Two weeks of you marching back and forth on the bridge, and you’ve yet to receive a single report. You had paranoidly watched Surewrought and the station it was docked at. No power surges, no vessels departing or arriving, nothing. The exact same issue had reared its ugly head for Kanzula. You were of half-opinion to call in an exterminatus and call it a day, but your more reasoned side had prevented you from doing so due to the needs of Deimea. If the world is lost, then rationing must be reinstated. Odysseus will surely balk at such a decision, and you have no doubt that the tech-thralls will be up in arms yet again, especially with their reduced workloads, they will organize and prepare. Maybe it would be a good learning experience.

”Fabricator-General, we are detecting a lander leaving the Kanzulan atmosphere.” Your voxmaster rapidly informs you.

”Is it ours ?” You question, having come to a halt and staring at the eerily unchanging green atmosphere.

”Raising vox frequency…established.”

”Direct to me.”

”Acknowledged.”

It takes a few minutes for the connection to be established, and what you hear is a series of incoherent ramblings with organic voice.

”Enough !” You say in your human voice as well. “You shall speak clearly and succinctly, or I shall have you all shot down and exterminated !”

This results in a couple more minutes of silence, you do not waste even a second and command weapons to be turned against the approaching lander, ready to fire at your command at any given moment.

>>6277244

“I apologise, my lord.” You hear a tired, pained voice of a man, a rather young one at that. “The men have been rattled by what we had witnessed. I am Major Elias Kess.”

“Very well, Major. Why are you not under company of a commanding techpriest ?”

Another dozen of seconds of silence follow. “Uh, that, we- we were ordered to withdraw and deliver a repot of the situation on the ground by Forge-Master Krahr.”

Liar. You are already able to tell that some, if not all that the man said was a lie. Your decades of experience already made you quite the expert at picking those out with ease.

“And what is the report ?”

“Daemons, my lord.”

You clutch your Omnissiah’s axe at the mention, information such as this is strictly controlled, though if anyone would potentially break the rules and find out the truth would certainly be Omnolph. His desire for truth seeking is half the reason he is so unstable, or so you’d like to think.

“What of our forces, the target objectives ?”

“Th- they, uh, they are being overwhelmed. There are daemons in the fields, the local populace, and the local garrison had all gone insane, they are fighting against us and their numbers appear to be endless. I know not of the other Forge-Masters, but Forge-Master Krahr is holding the peninsula of the Special military exclusion zone. The infrastructure had been heavily damaged and the garrison there stabbed us in the back, but we had won, and fortified. Bu-, but we cannot hold, many of our men are dead or dying, we need help, everyone I have aboard this vessel is injured, we had no other choice.” Panic rising in his voice, the young man states.

”Fabricator-General, I had checked the records. One named Elias Kess had officially received his second lieutenant commission only two years ago.” The voxmaster rapidly informs you.

“A choice, lieutenant ?” You state, already sending a mental order to build up power in your voidship’s weapons.

“I- I-“ You only hear stammering on the other end.

“You are either a traitor, or a deserter. Which one is it, lieutenant ?”

“W- we could not take it anymore, my lord, please, we are made of flesh, we fought non-stop since landing, the men here, I swear upon my honour, they are all injured, they cannot fight anymore, but they would still have been sent to the front, it is a death sentence !”

“And your betrayal had already condemned others.” You ruthlessly respond.

You only hear silence on the other end, as the lander keeps its course, not like they can go anywhere else.

”Fabricator-General, we cannot maintain the weapons at this readiness without firing them. Orders ?”

>>6277245

Looking upon the lander through the auspex readings, the small dot coming closer and closer, you make a swift decision:

>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.

>You shall be merciful, allow them to dock then sentence them to Servitude Imperpituis, giving them a chance to redeem their honour.

>Were it not for Odysseus, you wouldn’t even consider it, but, allow them to land. They shall be put under watch and given medical aid. Let the A.I. decide their faith, if he desires to grandstand so much.

>(Write in)

Once that matter is dealt with, you still have more questions to answer.

First of all, what is to be done with the voidstation, Surewrought and the forces sent to secure them:

>You shall mount another expedition to secure them. You still have the manpower to spare.

>You will launch a rescue effort, then blow the place into atoms.

>You will launch a rescue effort, then leave the station be, for now at least.

>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.

>(Write in)

Then for Kanzula itself proper, if the words of the deserters are to be believed, at least one stronghold holds and your forces are still fighting down there.

>You must redouble your efforts ! Dedicate whatever you can spare.

>Mount a rescue attempt, then commence an exterminatus. The threat of daemons cannot be underestimated.

>Mount a rescue attempt, then depart, leaving the planet alone, enough blood has been spilt.

>You’ve wasted enough resources as it is, simply commence an exterminatus, giving everyone down there a swift death.

>You’ve wasted enough resources as it is, simply depart and leave everyone to their fates.

>(Write in)

Sorry for the lack of updates. GW kicking the fanbase to the curve more than usual as of late really destroyed my motivation to continue, but reading some other quests brought it back, again apologies.

>>6277246
>>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.
>>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.
>>You’ve wasted enough resources as it is, simply commence an exterminatus, giving everyone down there a swift death.
Fuck daemons and fuck chaos. With the lack of reports for two weeks from both the planet and the voidstation we should assume the worst, besides we only sent out people that were expendable.

>>6277246
>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.
>You will launch a rescue effort, then blow the place into atoms.
>Mount a rescue attempt, then commence an exterminatus. The threat of daemons cannot be underestimated.

should be just a token effort. we just need the info then we dip

>>6277246
>>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.
>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.
>You must redouble your efforts ! Dedicate whatever you can spare.

>>6277246
>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.
Seems most in-character for Gane. I don't think he'd bother sparing them unless Ody was around to annoy him with lectures on the value of human life.

>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.

>Mount a rescue attempt, then commence an exterminatus. The threat of daemons cannot be underestimated.

>>6277246
>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.
>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.
>You must redouble your efforts ! Dedicate whatever you can spare.
If we can't figure out how to rid Kanzula of daemons after this, we can go with the nuclear option.

>>6277246
>You shall be merciful, allow them to dock then sentence them to Servitude Imperpituis, giving them a chance to redeem their honour.
>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.
>You must redouble your efforts ! Dedicate whatever you can spare.

>>6277246
>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.

Nurgle corruption in the agri-world probably means we shouldn't eat anything from that place anymore.

>You’ve wasted enough resources as it is, simply commence an exterminatus, giving everyone down there a swift death.

As much as I hate to see the chance of a Kanzulan campaign, we are pressed for time and we can cover for the loss of the agriworld later. I hope we get to witness our insane commanders soon enough.

>>6277374
>>6277620
>>6277684
What reason is there to try and reclaim the planet at this point? The locals have all gone mad and would need to be exterminated either way and any food the planet produces will always be suspect.

>>6277908
yeah, it'd probably be a good idea to just start large scale agriculture on Deimea at this point, even if it has to be done indoors in controlled environments.

>>6277246
Even a great demon. Damn nurgle trying a lot. Then again chaos always throws everything they can for even the smallest chance of getting Ody ass. Or anyone associated with Ody ass.

Too bad, I was hoping for the local Kazulians to not be just all chaos. And maybe even resisting alongside the Mechanicus garrison. The fact that the liutenant (lol i remember Antonius !), was drowning previously in a all those sounds doesn't get my hopes up about him. Most unfortunate since there is an extreme lack of any characters that isn't a techpriest so far.

More of the same i guess.
Kazula sound hopeless, and i have little doubt that the vast majority of the Deimean leadership in this military expedition wouldn't just either die or get corrupted by Nurgle (i mean its clearly already happened or is happening down there and in that station. And I remember we sent more than a few forces down there and in the station). Some are half in the way of being evil or mad in some capacity on their own. Little good to defend themselves with, lot of violent, mad or evil thoughts to play with for demons instead.

The thing about Kazula though is that, the local population was in the few millions. Nothing special same for their tech, still faithful imperial despite the kind of shit that happened to Sector Clarus. So the occupation of the Deimean Mechanicus seems to have pushed them in creating an unexceptionally well lead nurgle cult. One powerful in psykers too. And they where capable to just appear as mundane rebels that did guerilla against the Deimean invaders. Genius for them, since the Mechanicus garrison was unable for proper pursue or hunt.

Anyway a few millions is not enough population to be an unending tide, which means the world and the biosphere with it is corrupted. Now thats a lot more corpses to play with. There was an hint of this with the world being greener in a previous update. With a great demon being in the space station, 100% there is a warp portal on the world too. So basically this cult is on the way to make this agriworld a demon world outright.

>Order the weapons to fire, you will suffer not the traitor to live. You must also consider the possibility that this could be a trap.
So long Elias, or Demon wearing Elias face, next human character !

>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.
Kill everyone !

>You’ve wasted enough resources as it is, simply commence an exterminatus, giving everyone down there a swift death.
Kill everyone !

It doesn't particulary despair me on the food front. Odysseus has 0 issues in setting up food production anywhere he wants (in space, on a planet of just rocks, on the hellscape that is Deimea etc...), even in his current weak state. Its just a matter of doing the work, which would be easier if there was time to do said work and everything wasn't in a poor state. Or an enemy invasion wasn't throwing itself at Deimea. Most of Deimea population is also rapidly surpassing the "i am going to die horribly" limit. So feeding the survivors will not be an issue, if they aren't eating themselves on their own, it will be a miracle if there is a billion left. Or if we survive in general.

I can only hope i can convince others to deploy our Combat Body soon enough against the Eldar strike force. Both because it makes for a cool fight scene, and also because we can 100% kill more Eldars as they never fought something quite like that i believe. And are anything but ready for it. Which should help us, because we can then concentrate on the orks.

And also to try that doubt trick.
It doesn't cost us much that one, and even a few seconds of doubt and uncertainty are more than enough for our robots to kill or wound those eldar.

>>6277247
not an issue. If anything seeing your update as put me in a good to continue on something i started threads ago.

>>6277923
*mood

>>6277246

I realise I forgot one vote

>>6277849

Add to vote

>The effort is clearly lost, simply blow everything apart.

I also don't buy that we have an entire fortress holding out against daemons considering a great one was able to manifest in Surewrought. Things must be really in the shit down there and it's suspicious our first communication with the ground was from deserters. Lets mercy kill this planet and move on.

Vote count as of now:

Deserters:
>Kill them
6277365
6277370
6277513
6277620
6277374
6277849
6277917

7 votes

>Show mercy
6277684

1 vote

>Ask AI


Surewrought:
>Another Expedition

>Rescue then bathe in holy fire
6277370

1 vote

>Rescue then leave be

>Bathe in Holy fire
6277365
6277513
6277620
6277374
6277684
6277849
6277917

7 votes

Kanzula:
>Redouble efforts
6277620
6277374
6277684

3 votes

>Rescue then Exterminatus
6277370
6277513

2 votes

>Rescue then Leave be

>Exterminatus
6277365
6277849
6277917

3 votes

>Leave

>>6278725

Thanks for counting the votes, anon. It seems that I will be needing a tie breaker about what you anons want to do with the planet.

Other than that, turning the deserters into atoms and blowing up the voidstation along the Surewrought win with quite the margin.

>>6279148
I'll switch to exterminatus.

Alrighty, votes locked in. You are all pressing the "oh fuck" button for all of the situations. Update coming this week.

Genuinely surprised to see that outright exterminatus had won for everything. Puritan Inquisitors would be proud.

>>6279372
I would have acted differently if we weren't already so pressed for time and that the threat we are facing wasn't chaos.

Time and time again we've seen just how diligent and patient you have to be to root out chaos completely, and if we want to retake Kanzula at all that action needs to be now, the only moment we do not have the luxury to wait and purge the unclean.

The value Kanzula provides isn't worth the effort it would take to liberate it, when we have the opportunity we will save a thousandfold from the grip of chaos but this turn we need to show mercy with a swift death.

>>6279372
We are playing Gane here so it kind of fits. He would make this kind of decision if its in front of him. Still the situation looks pretty bleak down there, even as playing Odysseus here i wouldn't be sure if we can save 1 man nevermind all of the ones down there. Not even talking of the station or Kanzula it self.

Also the Deimean Mechanicus isnt geared for war here. Is just too much everything. This cult growed under the disguise of being guerilla rebels and they now influence an entire world worth of biomass. Its quite clear the military needs to be remade after we make the headcount of who survived back home. Probably government too. Fresh air never hurts.

In regard to Puritan Inquisitors .... i am not sure they would give even thought about the number of people to help/save before hitting the button. We do instead, but if we decide to save and help many others might just die. Or a disease comes on board. Or a warp portal from runes made on a dropship opens. Could happen.

Unlike imperials we do not get holy buffs in case we do heroic or selfless acts. I still want to save people, but we are not even able to get out of our proverbial bed in the ruined pension we currently live in.

>>6279413
Well, maybe if the number of people worshipling us increases that may very well change. If we decide to go to the route of infiltrating the Imperium through subversion of the faith we will probably have to think about the reality warping effects of belief (and perhaps warp interference with our programming)

>>6279427
I think we should conquer Sector Clarus while it's in a state of anarchy and build up an independent empire. Then we do what the Tau do and slowly bring more planets into the fold by essentially bribing them with better living standards. Fuck the Imperium.

>>6279450
The Tau model of conquest will serve us well but it only works because they offer more than just improved living standards.

We ought to create a new ideology, like the greater good, a synthetisation of our philosophies from the dark age and the necessities of the current one. Something people can cling to in the absence of an oppressive faith.

Still have to learn a lot more about chaos before that