-Get anything useful out of it for yourselves?- I /inquired.

-If we care to sit around and refine ore for them, they’ll give us all we can handle,- he /replied gruffly. If they were going to do that, they’d rather take it all for themselves, mining in some out of the way system, instead of being a mule for someone else. Did they think the Ruk did not know how valuable their own technology was? -Other than that, they are naturally looking for higher-end Energized materials, like all species are.-

I /smirked. -I’m going to assume you’ve already analyzed their request list and have a decent idea of the technology they want it for?-

-Aye, I’ll send it over. They are very diverse in their pursuits... but you were right, they are not pursuing the Earth tree overmuch. Little of the materials they want have anything to do with Mass manipulation, other than for their Gravity Braiding technology. We are seriously underimpressed by the strength of their hulls, although their shields are excellent for the tech level.-

-That’s the Anti-Life not wanting them to get up to working with Dark Matter, even accidentally. They are promulgating ion-based tech, right?-

-Yes, it’s a weird, ah, water/fire-based tech, stripping atoms of their quarks to put them into an energized stage, then beaming them at their enemies. It’s like the worst parts of plasma and acid if done right and taken up to its limits.- Not something they worked with themselves, but obviously they’d seen the results of it before, somewhere, somewhen.

Having a species with just so much experience in such things was pretty cool. The Gardeners were older, but they’d had no interaction with other races except as weeds or weeders, as it were.

-How hard were they pressing the food trade?-

-Aggressively. We took some samples they gave us, although we were tepid in our demand. Crops are a primary carrier of genetic infiltration, and they’ve already proven to be very subtle in their skill at this matter.-

-You’ve no idea.- I /dumped the matter of the Gardeners and the xenos to his Band, and even the experienced Ruk clicked his teeth, their equivalent of a whistle, as he went over the data.

-Dark Matter infestation of genomes.- he /grumbled. -That is new to me. I can run it through our histories, but it sounds new...-

-There’s a couple of the Mythos races who have Dark Matter ties. The A’aabar, and the Sztmnvrstz.- Say that ten times fast... -However, I don’t believe either is involved in the Compact of the Black, and they might not be active in this galaxy. They may see the Anti-Life as wild beasts or elementals...-

-Would members of the Compact possibly be infected by this Dark Matter?- the King /inquired.

-Ohhh, very good. The Compact is known to not be species-wide. Some of the elder races being subverted by the Anti-Life is a good possibility, when it comes down to it. Talking a little too much with the timeless things made from the dark stuff of Creation.-

He hummed deep in his chest at having scored a point. Paranoia and experience were useful in many ways.

-Can you confirm Dark Matter infiltration in the corpses of the Compact dead you’ve come across?-

-I am certain there are cadavars around that we can do some tests upon,- he /replied with the grim certainty of thousands of years of war.

-Is there a random Ruk outpost outside your established territory that we could accidentally bring to the attention of some unaffiliated members of the Compact’s races with that data laying around in some interrupted and partially-coded manner left behind when you had to evacuate quickly?-

He had to think over that, as subterfuge games were not the strength of the Ruk. -I shall look up some of the holdings that have been left unattended, and might have a ‘treasure chest’ in them.- The fondness of the Goldilocks for fantasy-based vids had infected the Ruk, who particularly admired the Dwarves who popped up in so many of them. They liked to throw mushrooms whenever orcs and goblins popped up in them.

I broached the more sensitive subject overhanging everything. -How did the vote on the Vatted go?-

There was grim quiet on his end. The issue of population was a dire thing for the Ruk. They were a long-lived people, but their numbers had been falling for years. It wasn’t quite a genetic thing, but seemed to have more to do with Warp corruption of mana. The potential return of Faith magic had buoyed their hopes, but the tests and experiments with the ancient prayers and spells had made it plain that the ancient magic was simply not something they could call on.

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However, the disciplines of Ki, Soul, and Psi had gripped the entire race.

Psionics had a horrible reputation among them because of the Fall that had split their race. Everything psionic they were doing was watched like a hawk, and being experimented and tested very thoroughly. Many of the new users of it were as much grimly ready to sacrifice themselves for their people as they were exploring new territory that could bring hope to them.

Soul and Ki, now, those had no negative connotations, and in the end were nothing but life energy harnessed through discipline, and so very, very internally based, not subject to Corruption as long as they didn’t actively try to Shape their Souls into anything static... which would draw the Warp like Ruk to E-thorium (which, I’d been proudly told, the Ruk could sniff out within ten parsecs).

Those disciplines were garnering much, much attention. Both skills had Feats that enhanced Skill performance, as well as combat applications, and limited self-healing. The Ruk could appreciate all of them.

Such energies could help stave off their end, but they needed to recover, not delay the sunset.

The only way to do that was a massive surge of population, and the only way to do that was the Vatted.

-The vote is hung up on the issue of the vulnerability of the Vatted to the Warp, and Possession. If they are also raising the next generation, the consequences are simply not tolerable.- Having endless Ruk Possessed, and their children as well, was simply something the Ruk would not allow to happen.

-If the worlds were White Magic worlds, free of the Warp?- I /sent the plans for the planetary and solar versions of the Warp Interdiction fields.

I could feel him stiffen. -Such a thing exists? This would work, Sensei Sama?- he /hissed.

-The only thing stopping it is enough psions at Ten to make the field generators.- I /paused significantly. -Also, Vatted can use ki and basic Soul Essence. Using such, they can perform as well as Ruk who do not have such disciplines. Even if they cannot exceed Six, they can contribute mightily to the race.-

He fell into silence again, but I could feel his slow mental /nod. -I shall bring this before the Kings and Clans. White Worlds to raise our children...-

-You’re probably going to need greenworlds, because you’re going to be raising a lot of food for the next generation,- I /noted to him. -You need, what, a minimum of ten billion to really arrest the decline of your race, right? I think psionics will also take over for magic in guiding you on your evolution, and out of racial stagnation. Ki and Soul will only purify where you are, but the Ruk should know better than anyone, after seeing so many races get uplifted and then dead-end and crash, how important evolution, however slow, still is.-

-Aye,- he /agreed, thoughts falling back to the endless histories of his people. After all, humans were basically still apes when the Ruk took to the stars, so long ago. They had built themselves up into the greatest species in the galaxy... but since the Ruks’ fall, the grim depression that had gripped the race meant they’d lost, not drive, but focus on the future. They were focused on survival... now, they had to grab the future, not just the present.

For the Ruk, it was work, and war. The Work of the Vatted would be simple: raising the next generation of Ruk. The children of Vatted were as normal as any other children. Their parents would be sacrifices for the Ruk, never to exceed Six... but they would have children, many, many children, to bring the Ruk back to the stars.

A White World, with no risk from the Warp, would be a great thing...

-If we get the Gloom Gate up, you won’t even have to travel to them with Citadels, so they can’t be tracked. Once the White Ward is up, the planet will disappear from the Warp, and the only thing you have to worry about is realspace or accidental intruders. If you can build a Citadel right in the system without a Dark Matter Core, the world will basically be invisible to anyone looking for it.-

It would mean they would have to work, and be ready for war. They were things the Ruk excelled at...

--------

I stepped out into Gloom, but a section no Elvar had anything to do with, ever.

Neither Elvar nor drow ever took external surveys of the Underweb, as it would basically be asking to be eaten by some of the creatures of the Gloom out there. The Underweb was designed so that they could use Gloom as a waystop, and not worry about such things.

The ancient devices that monitored the Underweb, tracking the many tunnels, nodes, capillaries and minor tunnels, and the Portals being opened and closed, were basically in the hands of the drow, who thus could monitor who was using what Portals and where, interfere if they liked, and do things like seal off areas, empty them out into the naked Gloom, or go over and stomp over on someone accidentally accessing something they wanted.

Unfortunately, perhaps, they had not been able to build the Underweb totally on their own, and in the end engaged the Ruk for the basic engineering and higher math of the structure. The Ruk never threw away knowledge, and even if nobody alive had ever engaged in this kind of construction, that wasn’t an issue.

Ronnie could understand everything, salivate over it all as she did so, and the Ruk were good enough to build it.

The Ruk had grafted this area onto the Underweb as an independent attachment, basically just using the Underweb as an anchor point, but not interfacing with its magic or technology at all. It looked like a sorta-dome about a hundred miles long and forty high, big enough to admit all but the very largest Citadel Fortress-class ships, which were basically mobile moons, and the heart of the race.

The White Hole power sources we had still worked perfectly well, and we went with multiples instead of big ones, as the latter might key some of the most sensitive drow equipment, which would be bad. Zero Point Modules made for fine backup, and we’d been moving the hyn who had to remain in Gloom here en masse, spreading them across the shadowy plains and forests of the landscape, the artificial ecology easily maintained by the requisite tech.

Most of the younger generations had left for the Mortal Plane, but there were still tribes who refused to go, which was perfectly fine. Gloom had its own uses for the Shadowknives, and the Void Brothers of the hyn had reached such terrifying levels of skill in recent years even the drow were wary of them now... and the hyn psions and Nulls who went out to help them were getting their own deadly reputation.

What the creatures of the Warp who came into the place thought of them stayed their own secrets, as they died in shadowfire...