It took over four hours to get all the trucks down the elevator. Another six hours later, Rostium Al Nabez, merchant and occasional smuggler of things frowned upon, finally made his way down the warrens of the Lower Hive. His well paid, then well bribed bodyguards and other mercenaries bashing their way through the throngs of people that crowded everywhere. The occasional pulse of lasfire provided entertainment when scum tried to get their hands on some of his bounty, but Rostium was used to it.
Any smuggler of discernment had to know their way around the Lower Hive and keep a cool head in the winding routes of the Underhive. A quick stop in one his warehouses, desperate menials just waiting for them, and the caravan descended into the dark. It took them another two hours to reach the hidden route. Rostium had paid dearly for the knowledge of a new, supposedly reliable client, and now it was time to see if his gamble would pay off.
What followed was over an hour of the most miserable crawl of his life. Now he knew why he’d been told to bring menials to carry everything: in multiple segments, there was no path. Twice they’d crossed thin, swaying cable bridges in single file and thrice they’d had to slip through passages thin enough in places, they had to go sideways. A single twelve meter pass had to be taken at a crawl, the menials either pulling or pushing their packs as they went. But after another chasm and bridge, they finally saw a glimmer of light.
A larger hall had been arranged with seating, barrels of what his servants assured him was clean water and it was even heated. They rested there for a night, and moved on. The rest of the “Hunter Path” was no different, but it was better. Instead of one, the chasms had at least six, somewhat sturdier bridges each. The thin passages had been widened, tool marks obvious to his eye, and the two times crawling was called for, a small system of wheeled rails was set up for crossing. Unpowered, but he had enough menials. He considered taking some of them on the way back, but decided against it.
It was the quiet. Once they’d entered the Underhive, the distant noise of the crowds had faded, replaced with intermittent growls, distant shots and screams. In the two hours before reaching the campgrounds, his merchandize had been set upon four times. Fortunately, apart from some menials and the mercenaries, no harm was done. Since the merchant had enough menials still to carry all his goods, even if some had doubled up, this was pure profit.
But after they’d crossed the first well bridged chasm the quiet had started building. Oh it wasn’t total. Rats and critters were inevitable everywhere. But gangs, Redemptionists, mutants? Nothing. His escorts were on edge from all the quiet, one that only deepened as they advanced. Rostium pretended not to worry, even if he was a mite concerned. He’d expected to be greeted, or at least see some sentry of his intended clients, but nothing. Still, he put on a smile, joked with his Captain, and they advanced.
It took another six hours of slowly suffocating silence before they reached the end of the map. A pair of dead, massive doors loomed ahead. Guards in mottled, scavenged armor, no different than any other underhive gang barred the way further. Rostium was almost disappointed. Almost, because the chamber behind them was not usual. A sealed air chamber, rare in the Lower Hive, let alone the Underhive. After an uncomfortable moment when the air in the room was pumped out, fresh breaths greeted them along with a curtain of cleansing water.
Slowly, the merchant smiled. Things were looking up.
***
While the view on the other side had been stunning, Rostium was over it. They’d been marched into a large square and surrounded. The Al Nabez family had done business in the Nova Castillia hive for generations. Rostium knew stories passed down from father to son of hidden enclaves forming in the Underhive, secret havens, well-fortified and fiercely defended. He still hadn’t expected anything like this. The air was clean. So much so his bodyguards had dropped their filter-masks. Warm light shined down from the distant ceiling. The hall containing the walled town was massive. It was something ripped from a shrine world.
The houses had green gardens in them!
The entire thing was impossible. The town was just as crowded as the hive, but any citizen still lived better here, then many did in the upper half of the hive city. If not for the thick crowds kept at bay by their armed escorts, he’d think he was in the lower Spires!
The guards started separating them into ten men segments across the square and still, no one official had addressed him. His guards tightened hands on their guns, as worry built. Suddenly, the curious masses all started turning in the same direction. Soon, they could hear cheers coming closer.
Five figures came over the top of a roof on one of the building around the square, to shouts, smiles and cheers from the crowds. They were eye-catching, dressed in garish, shouting colours, each wearing primitive but customized armor. Rostium eyes locked on a girl no older than his niece, running full tilt, trailing a heavy stubber as if it was a company flag.
Then they jumped. All five jumped right over the wide avenue his caravan had just come down, without a hint of effort. They ran, roof to roof, armed and armored, as if their armaments weighed nothing. Like they were acrobats by trade. But it wasn’t until they simply hopped down three floors to meet the officer in charge of the guards that he felt sweat break out. They landed light. Too light. Like feathers. Witches. Armed and armored they may be, but none of them had any kind of flight harness, like the famed Space Marines.
That only left sorcery. The only real question was if it was the heretical or the mechanicus one. Of course, none of that was going to stop him from making a sale, but it did mean leaving fewer witnesses.
***
They’d been herded to the front, where the Hunters, as the crowds cheering called them, inspected them. Well, four of them merely watched as a fifth would look over each group with shining eyes. Though they were less shining, and more slightly glowing. Still, the number of his menials had been cut down by a quarter, and the mercenaries by a tenth, to a few shouts to the Damned. Rostium and his personal bodyguard had made it through both that test, and the following scanning by techpriests with no fuss.
He hadn’t even needed to pay any bribes!
He was less happy when ten more of these showed up and demanded he lay out all his cargo for inspection. After all the corpses and almost a quarter of his wealth was piled on one massive pile, another of the witches had set multicolored fire against it. Rostium had been close enough to listen in.
“Come on Furnace, you know this is all you’re really good at” a tall woman said, dressed in a mix of flowing blues and greens. She was holding a large combat shotgun, and had a sharp double-axe on her back.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“That’s not my name Bouncy. And you don’t hear me calling you by yours. Bouncy.”
She was also rather voluptuous, and scowling at the orange-red knight who set his hands in front of his mouth and breathed witch-flame. His armor was queer, breastplate, vambraces and grievers of plate, over regular clothes beneath. The pauldrons were paltry.
“Come on team, you know the old man is going to write everything down. Not in front of the guests.”
The heavy stubber girl, and apparent leader of the squad, tried to get the two under control with little success and they fell to bickering. The lean boy who’d executed those revealed in his eyes with twin hand cannons and carried two short swords watched his squad descend into bickering.
But all the while the guards were keeping an eye on them. And for all their mentor didn’t so much as glance their way, the merchant’s instincts told him he was studying them. How he was doing that without looking at them, he didn’t want to know. It didn’t help that the overseer was the only one in a full face helmet.
***
The mentor, a Merek Syelt had escorted them to quarters and given Rostium a few hours to rest up before meeting the Lady for negotiations. The merchant hadn’t expected to meet with nobility this far down, even imagined nobility, but he managed. Then it was back to the streets and to the courtyard of a large manor in the centre of the town. The edifice was entirely lacking in artwork for someone pretending at nobility, but really, what could he expect from gangers, even a well-organized one?
A plain redhead, dressed in conservative silks, with a vest carrying the same red shield and spear symbol approached them. Probably a prominent servant, his two allowed bodyguards inspected her as she smiled..
“Well met and welcome, merchant Al Nabez. We hadn’t expected another caravan so soon.”
She ushered him to one of the stone tables on the side. A number of such was scattered around the courtyard, with men and women, uniformed and well-dressed talking around them. It reminded Rostium of the court of some minor noble, if said noble was from a play about a barbarian planet. The fashions of high society from the Spires, the art and artistry was missing. It was quaint. Quaint and ripe for riches.
The table he was seated at held several slates. Al Nabez inspected them, first disgruntled, then mildly intrigued. It was polite of them to leave him with the negotiating rules. The official set, anyway. He’d have to work out the rest on his own.
***
He started with cheap staples to get a feeling for his counterpart. Negotiating over a slate was a handicap, but there was some nuance to the full process. One thing the merchant had learned: they were completely serious about the rules.
1) Both sides will offer goods to trade by type
2) Both sides will mark what goods they are interested from the other side
3) Negotiations begin. Past trades for those goods in this market are shared with both sides. The guest has the first bid.
4) The bidder sets goods, quantity and price.
5) The bid is accepted, or in case of refusal, a counter bid on the same goods is given, for alternate quantity and price.
6) The bidder accepts, or gives his final bid.
7) In case of refusal, the quantity of goods first proposed can no longer be bid on. No sale will be made with it.
8) The other side bids.
Repeat until business is concluded or one side resigns.
Addendum: Visitors are reminded they are not to return for at least one standard Terran year.
***
He’d taken his payment in thrones, not wishing to risk the quality of goods. For all that everything looked well, he wasn’t going to let them plant something on him for the first trip back.
They’d been interested in perhaps half of his inventory, and judging by the quantities bid back, wanted much more SP ammo then he’d brought. That had sold out fully, with a hefty markup.
It took a while to clear out everything. He’d reached his final item, one those at the top of the hive would pay dearly for. Xenos bones. There was always some noble collector ready to pay premium for them, to brag to the others. When he opened that type on the slate he was in for a unpleasant surprise.
- approx. 1 case Wraithbone
- approx. 3 cases Xeno bones
The displayed prices for the two were very, very different. Rostium had heard they were paying a fortune for Xeno bones from the whisperer, but the damn fool hadn’t told him they were only interested in Wraithbone. He cursed up a storm, but got on with it. Even with only one case selling, he’d still gain, but the venture was nowhere near as lucrative as he had hoped.
“Oh well, the other three will still sell up-spire.”
***
Hours later, the Hunters gathered deep in the mansion, in an isolated chamber. Under the careful watch of smiths and techpriests, their Lady carefully showed them how to grind the bone down into dust. She added ash and sand from the outskirts.
The first full bowl was given to Adek.
“Slow and steady, child. Keep your Aura uniform. Run it through the mix.”
The Hunter Trainee gifted with the Living Flame shined a soft red. And dust became Dust.
Lady Pyrrha Nikos took a single shard, triggered it with her aura, and threw it. The resulting small explosion silenced everyone. The Lady of House Nikos met they eyes of her foremost and personal Magos and smiled. The former and repentant Logician, with a reluctant hum, spoke:
“Praise the Omnissiah.”
It was a work in progress. Pyrrha had learned the hard way that the Logicians were not like her when the mad men decided the next experiment to try in the path to discovering a method to produce Dust was to try to grind down the bones of living children. That was not reason, truth or the pursuit of progress.
The civil war that followed had devastated their haven, but they’d rebuilt. And the power of the Mechanicus in her House, on her lands, over her people, was broken. They’d paid for it in blood.
Pyrrha still worried. Her copy of “In Defence of the Future: A Logical Discourse” had some truth to it. But even decades later, she was still working on her own: “A Tech-Hunter’s Creed: An Ethical and Responsible Application of Innovation in a Galaxy shared with the Warp”.
She hoped that by the time the Inquisition and the Powers that be found out about it, she and her House would be in a position to make their arguments in a way the Imperium understood: backed by thousands of guns and an ocean of blood.
Part of her hated it. Hated the things hidden behind the veil of reality that she could only sense with her soul. Hated the corrupt rulers, choking the worlds beneath their very feet. Pyrrha hated many things about her new home. The poison air, the casual sacrifice and slaughter of millions. Grim like aliens out to kill everything and distorted mutants, long since mad from their torments.
But even under the unrelenting ocean of darkness, Pyrrha remained herself.
“Oh, how I’ve learned to hate.” She thought, remembering yet another mass killing in the caravan, simply to remove those infected by the Warp before they doomed thousands more. She hated.
Her eyes meet Merek’s. Part of her first team. “I’ve learned hate, but it’s not what I want.”
Pyrrha left them to their excitement. Walked out of the fortified basement laboratory. The Magos and her kids would figure it out. Try different Semblances, make Dusts. She climbed the stairs and walked out onto her mansion balcony, overlooking Sanctuary. They’d built it, here in the abandoned caverns of steel. A small city of safety surrounded by danger. It reminded her of home. If only she could help more people.
But sooner or later, the nobility and the governor would notice them. Come with their taxes, thugs and tithes. Pyrrha meant to be ready for them. And now? With Dust, and Dust forged weapons and armor for her Hunters? They would be.
She needed to talk to her council.
“How hard is it to smuggle Wraithbone? It can’t be that hard?”
The stuff was expensive, in a personal sense, but as a line on the city budget, it was nothing. They just needed a bigger supplier. Sanctuary spent years, decades building up, homes, production, friends and allies, and now trade. They’d find one.
It was the one good thing about this mad galaxy. Short of another death, she had time. Not to waste, but to do it right.
***
CLASSIFICATION: *Secondary Level Intelligence*
CLEARANCE: *Obsidian*
ENCRYPTION: *Cryptox v 1.7*
DATE: *3 320 199.M40*
AUTHOR: *Inquisitor Serina Cosano, Ordo Xenos, Calixian Conclave *
SUBJECT: *Assignment*
RECIPIENT: *Acolyte Xavier Varus, Inquisition Officio, Golgenna Reach, Iocantus
“… our attention that interest in Wraithbone in the Nova Castillia Hive on Fenksworld has increased dramatically. You are to proceed there with all haste. Discover if these are merely more noble games to be noted for the Inquisitorial files, or if something more sinister is afoot.”