9-1 BYRGENWERTH: Hail the Nightmare

Pyotr offered the gray strip of meat to the Skitarius. "You folks eat, yeah? It's cinereoniger jerky. It's. Well. It's not good, exactly, but it's calorie dense, I guess."

The Serberys raider and his mount turned their heads in unison. "Interrogative: What is cinereoniger?"

"It's a big translucent slug, lives all over the exclusion zones. It's got some weird proteins that deactivate a lot of the worst isotopes from the engine leaks. Makes it the least radioactive critter in the zones. Turns out, if you flash-desiccate them, they don't taste that bad."

The raider nodded, shadowed by the gargantuan canine he rode. "Inloaded. Thank you, but no. Further questioning: why is a volunteer insurgent so knowledgeable about the local fauna's resistance to radiation?"

Pyotr laughed. "Camarada, the Choir is headquartered in the most radioactive place on the planet. You either learn this stuff, or all your hair falls out and you die."

The joint recon team, a pair of Achilles ridgerunners and a pack of Serberys raiders, were deployed to survey the outskirts of Kasr Skala for a site with a very particular combination of features: bedrock composition, proximity to power generation infrastructure, incoming weather patterns. It was slow going. The ridgerunners had to stop every few kilometers to use their mining lasers for their intended purpose for once, while the raiders took atmospheric snapshots and compared them to the ideal parameters laid out by the secretive Choir scholar, Micolash. The survey mission had already dragged on for three days, and time was running out.

A few days previous, a 9-1 BYRGENWERTH assault clade, including the raiders, had blasted a hole in the Cadian's picket lines and successfully infiltrated the Kasr's perimeter security systems. Techpriests aboard the PRUDENTIA were using their access to bombard Kasr Skala with junk data, which kept the Cadian stronghold from noticing the odd couple doing laps. Pyotr gnawed on another bite of slug jerky and looked up at the massive fortification on the horizon, and prayed that the cogs were keeping its gigantic defense cannons blind and deaf.

The Skitarius wheeled his mount around to face Pyotr in the gunner's nest of BLACKSKY One. "If you are finished eating, let us continue. We will have to cover another dozen kilometers in the next hour to remain on pace with optimal projections."

"You got it, camarada," Pyotr said, his mouth full of dried mollusk. "Kos willing," a wince from his companion at Pyotr's heathenry, "we find what we need and get out from under those wall guns."

++

Valtr didn't enjoy talking to Micolash.

It wasn't that Valtr disliked the scholar. Valtr found him largely unoffensive much of the time. But talking to the man about any matter of consequence was an experience akin to pulling teeth.

"Please, try to explain how this will help our efforts against Kasr Skala." Valtr said. "I understand our frustrating inability to properly infiltrate the place, but I fail to see how your, ah, proposal will help. At all."

Micolash cocked his head to one side and smiled too wide, his eyes largely unfocused. "Ah, of course. Let us sit about, and speak ...feverishly. Look into my eyes. No, no... look harder. Umbasa."

Valtr shifted uncomfortably. Something about the scholar's dreamy, stumbling cadence felt wrong.

"To beckon the Nightmare, to cloud the great lake with grime. We will inflict a beastly idiocy upon them, swirl and churn their brains, umbasa. The rite needs ...sparks. And. Iron, to better conduct our dream. We will still the deeps, create a grand lake of mud. They will be made downside-up, the fools. Our dream, ha, yes. They will be made to be low, and we will. Ascend. Be made closer to the cosmos, or some say, Kos," Micolash ranted. He leaned in close. " A Nightmare, to cloud their brains with grime. Soak the vacuous beasts in mud."

"I... see." Valtr lied.

+++

++ENTRY FROM SANGUIS VETERIS PRUDENTIA WARP TRAFFIC AUGURIES++

IMMATERIUM SIGNATURE DETECTED

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DISTANCE: 1.349 AU FROM CURRENT POSITION

HEADING: INTERCEPT WITH CELESTIAL BODY 864.DUR04.01

CONTACT CLASSIFICATION: IMPERIAL NAVAL VESSEL

VESSEL CLASSIFICATION: //working//

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VESSEL CLASSIFICATION: //working//

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VESSEL CLASSIFICATION: ADEPTUS ASTARTES GLADIUS-CLASS FRIGATE

VESSEL REGISTER: //searching archives//

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VESSEL REGISTER: //searching archives//

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VESSEL REGISTER: FAULT: VESSEL UNREGISTERED

BEGINNING PICT-ANALYSIS

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PICT-ANALYSIS COMPLETE

VESSEL AFFILIATION: INQUISITION ORDO XENOS CHAMBER MILITANT DEATHWATCH

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