Instead of bending over backward for my urges, I pulled Selene in for a hearty squeeze. I calmed down a bit as I felt her warm body within my hold.
“A-air- “she wheezed with a pat on my back with her one free hand.
I let her go, of course, and as I stepped back, Selene stumbled as she suddenly had to hold up her weight. A giggle left my mouth as I looked at her. I was worried at some point that I was looking at Selene and the others more like one would look at a pet or something, but by now I couldn’t care about that.
I liked her company, her character, her care and just her overall. Despite the considerable power difference between us, I wasn’t just keeping her around for amusement; she has proven to be more helpful than I initially thought.
If I was being pragmatic, then I’d have left her behind already or even absorbed her and taken her Warrant of Trade.
A shiver went down my spine at the thought. This wasn’t a new idea either. I wiped most of my Mind-Cores of emotion so they could make better calculations and this idea was among their recommendations. A side of me even understood why it was so. Selene was weak compared to me, and if the only reason I was protecting her was to gain the influence of a Rogue Trader, then I might as well become one when needed.
Never.
That I so certainly knew that I couldn’t ever go through with it gave me a sense of satisfaction, a satisfaction stemming from not becoming an emotionless eldritch monster despite my circumstances pushing me towards it.
Just how much of that do I have to thank Selene for?
Of course, the eldar emotions helped. They helped me ground myself and latch onto every bit of emotion I still felt, but out of everything, I felt Selene might have been my biggest source of positive emotions. She deserves to be rewarded for that...
Thankfully, she hardly opposed my flirting so far; otherwise, I didn't know what I would have done. I'd like to think I would have still managed to remain myself, still managed to feel, but... it is not a line of thought I like to think about. I have her; she doesn’t hate me, and I am still a thinking, feeling eldritch being.
A win in my book.
“You learned to Blink,” Selene exclaimed once her brain restarted. She was smiling like it was she who succeeded. She is precious.
“I did,” I grinned, then booped her on the nose. I stepped back before she could slap my hand away with a giggle.
Her confused frown was cute as well, I noted to myself with a sage nod.
“What’s up with you?” she asked.
“I just found out that I don’t know shit.” Isn’t that great? Turns out I could be even more broken than I already am.
“Okay?” Selene tilted her head. “and that is good, because...?”
“Because it means there is still much to learn,” I beamed at her.
She just looked at me weirdly, but that toaster licker was giving me respectful glances, damn it.
“What did you learn?” Valenith asked without opening his eyes, trying to cosplay as some sagely master or something.
“That it doesn’t have to make sense,” I said, a bit more subdued than before.
“That is usually one of the first things an aspirant learns,” he noted, “it is a wonder how you even managed to do what you did, one who tries to understand the incomprehensible usually ends up insane.”
“I’m just built differently,” I shrugged. As far as I knew, something much more crazy had to happen for me to lose my mind. Normal people weren’t susceptible to change their souls by feeling sad or edgy. Pros and cons.
“Sometimes I think you are my best student and then I feel like you haven't listened to anything I was trying to teach you.” He sighed helplessly.
“It is what it is,” now then, what to do in the next three days?
I needed to see how much I could alter my spells first with my expanded horizons; it was better to start with the familiar than to jump right into the deep waters and try to come up with an entirely esoteric spell, but I should be able to make some of my prior ideas work with this. Smite probably worked only because I wanted it to, but if it didn’t have to make sense, could I just fuck up demons? No, if it made sense, I could be sure that it’d work, which is even better than willing it...
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Those can wait. Firstly... let’s see what happens if I do this...
I walked back into my previous position and sat down. I didn’t reconnect to the tendrils just then and let my Mind-Cores handle navigating it for now through a telepathic connection. I folded myself up into a lotus position more for the vibe it gave me than for actual use and put my two hands, face up, to my knees and focused.
Usually, when I wanted to use Soul Energy I just wished for it and it came flowing through my Soul thread like an overeager puppy. The interesting part was that it actually didn’t go through my soul, it just went around it and jumped onto the thread. Now I wasn’t asking for energy. With my soul, I grabbed a chunk, I molded it, and compressed it. I forced it to hold everything that my purified little Sea of Souls was inside itself, represent it and become a vector for it. A vector it’d used to influence realspace directly.
Then I let it go through the thread. It didn’t take long from my body’s perspective, time was less a constant and more a suggestion in the Immaterium, even its linearity was questionable so it wasn’t a surprise that my sense of time was weird when I consciously controlled both my soul and body at the same time.
Soul Energy flowed into my soul. It created a slight Vortex at the center of my Soul Puddle and the condensed energy flowed out of it and through the soul thread entered realspace. I controlled the much too stable energy suddenly flooding my body. It was still malleable but my body was much less adept at it than my soul was. It was a humbling contrast to experience that even my best Form couldn't match the abilities of my soul. I was still limited by my current Form. Hopefully, this will close the gap a little.
The energy tried to solidify inside of me as soon as it came into realspace, but I forcefully kept it in an energy state and guided it into my palms in two steady streams. Once the energy pooled in my palm, I pushed it just outside of my skin and let it start doing what it wanted, crystals of pure soul energy smaller than nanometers started forming, each connecting to a previous crystalline structure.
I didn’t look, I couldn’t. I was much too focused on not messing up the structure. I had to make it perfectly, not a single molecule out of place or this vector, this focus, wouldn’t be the best it could be. Time passed, and it felt both like an eternity and an instant by the time the two fledgling crystals in my palms connected, both in the shape of a long cylinder just wide enough to fit in my hand.
When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing. However, the meaning of 'nothing' changed when instead of not seeing anything in my hands, I was blinded by a white light so intense that it caused the Navigator Eye in my chest to narrow and shield itself. A moment after, the light disappeared and with that final surge of energy, I completed my new Staff.
Hopefully, I know fuck all about making Psychic Foci, but while doing it I was sure this would help me channel Soul energy better.
Jumping to my feet, I let go of the newly made staff and let it float in front of me as I twirled it around to look at it because now I could actually see it. It didn’t look like much to my physical eyes, a simple pure white staff as long as I was tall with the only artistic part of it being the upper end of it which looked like a bunch of my tendrils curling around each other with a slight gap between them which held seemingly nothing at all but all of my non-physical senses begged to differ, that was the most important part of the staff.
“W-what is that thing?” Selene asked as she looked at my new casting implement with wide-open eyes.
“Beautiful,” Valenith murmured as he stared longingly at it. He was up on his feet too and his illusion was cracking and flickering as clear evidence of his slipping focus.
My third eye snapped open, and I was almost forced to close it again. The staff didn’t radiate power; it was much too stable for that and radiating the energy it was made of would put a shelf life on it. No, what the staff was doing was influencing reality around it. It had an aura, so to speak, which weakened realspace and reinforced my will above all else.
“This,” I looked at it fondly, this could be the first of many but sentimentality had power in the Immaterium and as this would be a vector to enforce it upon reality, I wanted to make it important. For it to be important, it should have a meaning, a reason. Or... I could name it something dumb... something ironic, which would only be funny to me... I did name myself like that. Why can’t it be both? I wondered and a name from one of my favorite games jumped to the forefront of my mind. It felt right, “Is Atiesh, my Staff from now on till the end of time and beyond.”
Atiesh... The great staff of the Guardian. The Guardian whose sole reason for existence was the eradication of demons. This will do.
Now... Let’s make some upgrades to this form... I wonder what having bones made of this material will feel like...
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OCTAVIAN GAIUS
999.M41 undetermined time || Above Holy Terra; Imperium Sanctus ||
Octavian was both appalled, honored, and somewhat nervous about what had transpired since his induction into the select few who Dreamed.
The words of the Lockwarden were ominous and prompted action, but he and his brothers thought otherwise. The Lockwarden wanted to attack, to detain and seal the being that escaped, but the Dreams kept coming and were increasing in frequency ever since that fateful day. These Dreams prompted caution and in Octavian’s humble opinion, diplomacy.
Octavian was not alone in his opinion, either. He felt their Lord wanted them to either protect or cooperate with the being that they were to meet. He didn’t know if this being was the escaped thing, was possessing it, or was in possession of said thing, but if the Emperor willed it dead, there were much less convoluted ways of telling his servants that.
Unfortunately, the opposition was also many, many only wished to eliminate the threat that could make their Lord communicate the utmost urgency.
As evident by these opposing factions, Octavian wasn’t alone. He threw a glance behind him. Three of the Ten thousand were leaving Terra. This was a monumental day and yet Octavian felt a tinge of unease.
Octavian himself wore the standard Custodes auramite armor with crimson red robes and pauldrons, the figure on his left only differed from himself in the latter, wearing royal purple where Octavian wore crimson. An Aquilian Shield. A Gilded Guardian. Theirs is a Shield Host who works closely with those who Dream as they are usually the ones actually carrying out the Lord’s will, protecting seemingly unimportant people who all turn out to be pivotal for the Imperium’s future. Martyrs, Commissars, Inquisitors, usually when they are still far from their intended posts and fates.
Octavian glanced at the other, but quickly averted his eyes as the pure black winged helmet snapped at him. Black auramite armor with golden accents and a crimson robe to cover it all, the Shadowkeeper was a being of perfection and with what little Octavian knew of them it was doubtful whether even if he and the other Custodes worked together they could prevent the Warden if he wanted to kill their target.
As for where they were...
Octavian didn’t glance at the man sitting in the command chair of the voidship. He found himself thinking it disrespectful to do without reason and despite Custodes not adhering to any Imperial hierarchy, he himself was happy to be here.
He glanced out of the window and beheld the planet below, Holy Terra and the gigantic form of the ship he stood on.
A Gloriana Class Battleship. These ships were always a rarity, titans of void warfare from an age where humanity could build better and bigger. They were the flagships of the legendary sons of the Emperor during the Great Crusade and each became a symbol of their Legion.
Any who learned even a bit of history would be intimately familiar with their names, The Invincible Reason of the Lion, The Iron Blood of Ferrus Manus, The Red Tear of Sanguinius... and The Vengeful Spirit, the flagship of the Archtraitor Horus himself.
Out of all these legendary ships, very few were still in service and only one still had the fortune of once again being the chosen vessel of a Primarch.
This one. The Macragge’s Honor, the flagship of Lord Regent Roboute Guilliman, the Lord of Ultramar and the Primarch of the Ultramarines legion.
Octavian didn’t quite tighten his fist on his spear, but he had the urge to. The Primarch was going into war, on a Crusade to reclaim what was lost, a crusade the size of which hadn’t been seen since the Emperor last walked the stars ten thousand years ago.
The ship’s engines roared somewhere far below, but Octavian could make the resonance out.
The Indomitus Crusade has already started.