A man and his wolf walk into a bar.

Wait, wrong century! Or millennium, whatever.

While the Machine Forge is gearing up for extra production, I took a small step through the Pharos and arrived at my other Forge World. Retribution.

The place where science is being re-discovered right now. Where psykers need to be fortified to Heaven and back lest they explode. Really, too much enforced reality can make a psyker disconnect from the Warp, and they just die. Even normal people may suffer the same fate, depending of their mental and soul resistance. Thus, only tech-adepts and Blanks can live on the planet now, and some Sisters of Battle that simply don't care and keep on holding the Faith. Especially valuable when they are non-militant Orders like Dialogus or Familious, or lore-keepers and matchmaking types, so they can teach their own lessons. Other teachers are competent tech-priests that were able to split off from doctrine and teach only the basic facts, although some of them also teach the Mechanicus doctrine as well.

Teacher Aristotle has command over the single higher learning institution that humanity has in 40k right now, called the Temple of Knowledge. It helps that he is a cloneskein of Primarch Vulkan, so most people got used to his giant size by now. Primarch Vulkan gets to step on a real planet and meet a few of his other clones, and boost our research by an order of magnitude. And soon after, the Blade and Speranza will get their planetary cores and increase our learning curve by another order of magnitude.

My poor Fabricator Dominus of the Forge Retribution had a heart attack and several brain siezures while reading the list of STCs and other discoveries I brought back. The faulty heart was replaced with another electoo-mechanical pump, and a few brain lobes got replaced by new cogitator cores, then a bath in holy oil restored my brave tech-priest to...function. He was still happy as he gained 22.21% more memory space and contemplation rate from this event. "+++ More Machine = better. I even got closer to the ideal of the Mechanicus Cult, Lord Lancefire!" the Fabricator exclaimed happily as he began the holy download once more.

I nodded and patted his red hood. Then also patted my wolf on his head, which sadly lacked a red hood.

"Grrrr." Canis warned me while glancing hatefully at the tech-priest's smelling hood.

Got it, big boy. No hood for you.

"I also have a damaged STC constructor and an Ancient Core inhabited by a Machine Spirit pre-dating the Dark Age of Technology, but those things are somewhat dangerous. I'll try to obtain their cooperation peacefully, before resorting to sustained percussion diplomacy." I added as the Fabricator got lost in contemplation.

"++ That sounds/looks > great, Holy/Revered Emissary of Omnissiah. But/wait perhaps give me +++ time to assimilate the current >>> knowledge?" the Fabricator muttered in half-intelligible words mixing Gothic with Tech-Lingua.

I shrugged and stepped off, reaching the good Primarch and his awed students. I mean, religious iconography considered and depicted the Primarchs as Holy Archangels of the God-Emperor, with Vulkan being the incarnation of Perpetual Motion via Immortality and superior tech knowledge originating directly from the Omnissiah.

Or rather, the strange mix of cults on my strange Forge World made it so? Most certainly, probably.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I wish people would stop kneeling and spouting prayers in my presence. I am only a man." Vulkan spoke gruffly as the Sisters murmured prayers side by side with tech-priests and various acolytes of both Faiths.

"That's exactly what the Emperor said. Good luck with that." I quipped in a light voice, and shook hands with Aristotle. He used one hand, I used both.

"Folks! Stand up and silent. Primarch Vulkan has a few words to say." I shouted via the giant amphiteather's vox casters.

Vulkan grunted at me a bit annoyed, then spoke in the deadly silent hall. "For 9000 years while I was absent, humanity had to survive without guidance, and got clogged with ritual and superstition. And while these rituals had some benefits like maintaining an unified culture and a modicum of repairs for our tech base, humanity in general has declined. This is much worse in the Imperium proper, where corruption, abuse and slavery have become the norm. My Brother, Primarch Guilliman must be tearing his hair out trying to restore the Imperium as its Lord Commander."

I sent a recent pict of Roboute on the main screen, showing his half-bald head to give a better visual aid for the audience. Nobody laughed though, ruining my joke.

"What I will tell you next is the Truth. The Imperial Truth as the Emperor called it. He wanted humanity to rule the stars, guided by reason and science and not superstition. At his order, thousands of religions and cults were destroyed, including those which worshiped him as a God. But it was not to be. My Brother Lorgar Aurelian invented the Imperial Faith and for that, his homeworld of Monarchia was burned to the ground by the Ultramarines. Lorgar was also the first of my Brothers to fall to Chaos." Vulkan spoke in a sad rumbling voice.

I stepped forward to repair the big hole left by the blunt Primarch. " That was then, maybe 12000 years ago. The Emperor was a man of science, spending most of his time in laboratories to create weapons for humanity. The Imperial Lasgun we all know and love is his creation. The Primarchs, the Custodes and the Astartes were all created by the Emperor as genetic weapons, to protect humanity against all threats, foreign or domestic. However, after his Ascension on the Golden Throne, the Emperor could not walk among the people like a man. He tried to help with advice and psyker powers at range, and those were interpreted as miracles. And then, thousands and thousands of years and prayers created the new Truth, the Imperial Faith. The Emperor became the God-Emperor, safeguarding the soul of humanity from the Warp."

Vulkan frowned as he analyzed my own speech. The Sisters of Battle were not quite happy either. The tech-priests stared at me with glowing blue eyes.

So Canis walked forward and howled, filling the hall with a golden holy aura forcing everyone down, even the Blanks among the students. The Primarch grunted and withstood the aura somehow, while I just sighed. The golden aura excluded me, as if I wasn't even here.

"Canis met the Emperor in person, and was blessed by his hand. This is not by accident or coincidence. Wolves were the first animals to be tamed by humanity, and they have guarded their humans faithfully and loyally ever since. Since Canis was thus blessed, he has become an Imperial Living Saint, able not only to fight daemons, but also devour their souls and grow stronger from it. My daughter Janice lives now by the side of the Emperor and she is also a Living Saint. Also the only ruler of Adepta Sororitas." I continued in a softer voice.

Vulkan snorted and ruffled the fur on Canis like he was a normal dog, then also patted my head from high above. "Lord Lancefire has spoken. As did his wolf. Anyways, if you want to learn in this Temple of Knowledge you will follow my rules. Science first, superstition later. Or else, you have to fight me hand-to-hand. I would be excited and forgiving if I lose."

Canis glanced at me, then up at the huge Primarch, even more impressive in his green armor. He was also a wise wolf, and ignored the challenge.

I also ignored the Primarch, and teleported on the nearest moon to deploy the Ironhead Votann and begin negotiations.

"Thief! Give me back my squats!" Ironhead yelled for his first words.

I just kicked his metal shell in return. Percussion diplomacy might work on the Ironhead, maybe. "I can kick you all day, Ironhead. Read a star chart first."

"Errr. We are far away from Necromunda." the Votann noticed after scaning the sky for a minute.

I unlocked the Pef/M41 files, and sat down on his metal case. "I also have the higher ground, Ironhead. Choose your next words carefully." I advised the giant data-core while sitting on its head.