999.M41 — Few days after the fall of Cadia ||The Dark Cells; Holy Terra; Segmentum Solar
Lockwarden Borsa Thursk read through the list displayed by his data slate for the second time to make sure he has not misread the first time. His ever-present frown that would frighten weaker men darkened as the news set in.
Cadia fell. Half of the Imperium has lost the light of the Astronomican.
Inconsequential news to the Lockwarden.
His duty didn't lay in protecting citizens or planets from the horrors crawling out of the warp.
His duty was to keep whatever horrors were locked away under the imperial Palace by the Emperor himself stayed there. He and his predecessors rarely left the Dark Cells and he could count the times his Shield-Host has left the planet throughout the last ten millennia on one hand.
He wouldn't even be reading this report were it not for the fact that he failed. He has failed the Imperium. He has failed his Emperor.
The horrors have escaped their Cells and he couldn't figure out how until now.
The Immaterium has intertwined itself even deeper with the material plane with the catastrophe called the Cicatrix Maleddictum and the perfectly calibrated Ward that prevented Warp-based travel or anything of the sort have either failed or suddenly proved insufficient.
Not once throughout the history of the Dark Cell did so many prisoners escape.
A stain on their honor.
He snorted. Honor, a useless thing.
Duty. That he failed.
The duty of the Shadowkeepers would be to hunt down all of the escapees to the last from now on.
He still had a duty to guard those who didn't manage to escape. Merely a fraction of the horrendous things kept here managed to slip through the guards. They still had to guard the rest.
He would have to dispatch hunters for each of the escapees.
He glanced through the list containing all the cells that have been found empty.
His gaze darkened. He would have to lead a hunting party to secure a few of these.
Monsters that have crawled out of ancient Terran myths now once again haunted humanity.
Toward the end of the list, his gaze paused. This part contained the Artifacts that have gone missing, curious.
Some were sentient while others were so tainted by the wicked powers that they would have been pulled through the immaterial the moment there was a chance. Nothing too out of place.
His gaze stopped at the last item. The small picture depicted an Orb he knew to be only the container of the 'thing' inside.
Many things down here remained because destroying them would have been far too dangerous or even impossible. Even in an age when the Emperor still walked among them.
Then there were the ones that were far too useful to destroy even if they originated in the accursed past of humanity, the Dark Age of Technology.
This thing was one of the few such artifacts that the Emperor himself forbade the destruction of.
The Lockwarden read through the description even if he already knew it by heart.
It would barely be a threat to anything other than a feudal world if it were let loose by itself, a mindless mass of flesh that was pushed by an endless hunger. It was recorded to have absorbed the entire ecosystem of a planet once.
Its use didn't come from its destructive capability or even its use as a weapon. This was a tool.
In the right hands, it could create monsters more dangerous than any other.
He tapped his finger to the side of the data slate, his metal-clad fingers clinking on the similarly metallic tablet.
How did this psychically inert, soulless artifact disappear from its Cell, now that was a question he was quite eager to find an answer to.
He set his data slate down and stood.
He had to gather his shield-host.
There were monsters to hunt.
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999.M41 — A FEW DAYS AFTER THE FALL OF CADIA || FOLLAX IV; SEGMENTUM ULTIMA
The light, I had noticed a light before hadn't I?
The light I noticed before wasn't flickering like the cold LED lights below, it was steady if a bit darker in shade. More similar to reflected sunlight.
I backtracked on my steps, trying my hardest to not dwell on the fact that I had, in fact, murdered a human in cold blood and ate its corpse. No, I ate most of it while it was still alive, not that it makes it any better.
I found my way back to the shaft's opening, where I once again caught sight of the light.
The hundreds of distracting thoughts that have plagued me for the last hours blessedly left me alone as I religiously followed the light. Who knew half a day spent under flickering artificial lights would make seeing sunlight again so liberating?
The hallway I ended up in was a bit different from the sterile concrete one down below. The floor had tiles; the walls had some decorative paint and the ceiling had more than a hanging lightbulb every fifty meters. Not that the lighting worked so I guess those bulbs were just built differently.
The source of the light turned out to be an open doorway out of the building. It led to a balcony of sorts.
I speedily exited the building and took in the sight before me.
I was very high up.
I didn't think I was overly afraid of heights before but as I looked down into the dark depths between this building and the next, I found myself instinctually sinking my fingers into the wall, desperate to hold onto something.
The buildings were made of the same dark and metallic concrete as this one. The very definition of a dystopia.
Soviet architects would have a hard-on for this sight, even if they couldn't design a building this ugly and oppressive.
I was probably somewhere near the top of this building as I was overlooking most of the other buildings in this direction, they were steadily getting smaller and smaller the further they were from me.
My inner sci-fi nerd was giddy at looking at such a dystopian city. Well, it wasn't very inner, I loved sci-fi and science.
Not that I was too good at the latter but I kept up to date with recent discoveries and such. The first picture of a black hole, discovering new subatomic particles and new astrophysical theories was my passion. Even if I didn't understand the underlying calculations and theories that resulted in them I loved the future they painted.
This city resembled an arcology. Well not quite.
Arcologies were perfectly planned out megastructures while the creation of this city didn't seem to involve too much planning. Just many buildings with the bare minimum of structural integrity to hold, thrown together, and expanded whenever needed.
This was more like what would happen to a city when they just continued to expand it. Upwards and outwards to the limit.
Like a Hive.
A Hive City.