291 Far Future Ch. 1 – A New Hope Or, This Shit Again?!? (1/2)
”Sir, we've found something of interest down on the fifth floor.”
Dorval raised an eyebrow at the words of the Umbran Striker. While cooperation between the Order of the Fallen Moon and the Order of the Rising Sun was generally cordial, that didn't mean they'd just give out information or credit for nothing.
That was especially true in a place as psi-dead as this. Whatever had happened here had put such massive pressure on reality that psi was completely suppressed, to the extent he couldn't even manifest his mindblade. Effectively neutered and reduced to a mere sidearm, he wasn't anywhere near as dangerous as the professional soldier in combat armor and military-grade blaster in front of him.
That hadn't prevented him and his lance of Knights from coming in, of course... the Knights always went in. They'd been expecting some foul Warpcraft, demons from the Warp, rogue psykers, or even a Warp Sorceror... and found nothing to fight.
There were six great blades decaying in the main assembly hall, two stuck in the ground, the others laying on the tiles, all of them smoldering and falling apart under the incredible weight of the Null field here, ground down by the cold, hard weight of reinforced reality.
He recognized them as the weapons of a Spiral Dancer, one of the Great Demons of Amourae, unable to bear up in this suppression, disintegrating back to whence they came.
There were empty uniforms scattered all about, no flesh within them, and only the bloody remains of a skinless sacrifice, abdomen burst open, the signs of a Summoning that had brought the Great Demon here.
But all the signs and sigils were marred, cut and severed by endless amounts of hacking blades. The air wasn't stinking with the sensuous temptation and rot of the Warp, or the aphrodisiac incenses of Amourae.
Really, the Knights were just standing around and looking impressively useless, which was rather disquieting.
”Sergeant,” Dorval replied forthrightly, ”you and your men are far more useful in this place then a Coronal Knight is. What might you be needing us for?”
The Striker's eyes flickered. He'd been getting some private amusement, as had the others of his team, at the chance to show up the vaunted Knights, and even their own Umbran superiors. Having that attitude acknowledged and even encouraged by this knight's tone immediately made him think better of the resplendently clad man, despite himself.
”It's not a question of need, sir,” he said proudly, and the Coronal simply nodded at his words. ”It's of relevance to your Order.”
That did get Dorval's interest. ”Then lead the way, Sergeant. I'll help if I can.”
”Yes, sir!” The thought that he was providing bodyguard services to a Coronal Knight obviously tickled the Striker's fancy, and he was quick to lead Dorval away, gesturing to two others of his team to flank the knight as they moved.
Dorval didn't begrudge them their day in the sun, nor the stories they'd tell about them. Coronal Knights were trained intensely in how to manipulate morale, and standing up there and being seen was their greatest, but not their only tool. Letting men know they were appreciated and their skills were valuable was another.
Of course, to many Knights this was just pretense and words, but about that Dorval could do nothing. The Sapphire had their own way of looking at things, and even in this situation wouldn't be dropping their arrogance. There was a reason the sergeant had come to him and his silver tabs, instead of his three associates wearing cobalt...
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The smell was his first alert, and he put his hand on his bolter despite himself. The Strikers noticed, and their amplified voices sounded from behind their helms, ”The area is secured, sir. But it's the only area where we found actual signs of combat.”
Dorval nodded, and took his hand away. It was a show of trust; he was putting himself in the hands of these men and their professionalism. Their appreciation promptly spiked another notch.
They came off the stairs, and Dorval was immediately confronted by gashes and gouges in the wall, and held up his hand to pause the group silently. They stopped immediately as he stepped forward, putting his eyes up close to the gashes ripped through the fine paneling and the plascrete hidden behind it. ”These are mindblade gashes,” he said in no uncertain terms, which meant that these men's assessment of the situation was on point and proper, because the Coronals were definitely the experts on mindblades.
”The target is that way?” he asked after a moment, and the sergeant nodded. Dorval moved in the opposite direction, hands tracing the gouges on the walls, and the Strikers followed at a respectful distance.
There was the cloying smell of the Warp everywhere, fading in protest, and he could see alterations in the furnishings where the underlying matter had twisted at the presence of unnatural forces. The cuts had been here and here and here, backing away, a fighting retreat, from THAT room there, whose sliding door had been sliced open through its maglock, levered mostly open by the teams coming down to sweep the area.
The place was daubed in blood and sigils, which looked to have been set alight at some point, and a smear of burned goo and ooze was spread across half the floor, some once-ornate clothing decaying on top of it, and some twisted jewelry scattered within it, a notable amount of it consisting of body piercings. There was a stone altar in the room of surprisingly crude construction, with four crude bindings at its corners that looked to have been hacked through, a depression for catching blood, and an athame dropped over there in the middle of a length of ashes that looked suspiciously like a severed arm.
He didn't step in, just looking at the scene, noting some of that clothing had been very cleanly cut in two, as well as bunch of the body piercings.
”You have all this recorded, sergeant?”
”It's all on vid and holding, sir,” the Striker said promptly, meaning the Warp contamination was infecting the vids and tripping the filters, which would dump it immediately. It wasn't a perfect defense against contamination, but the obscured and burnt Sigils had lost any power he could sense, and there was only a faint residue remaining behind, rising up from looked like the decaying remnants of a Warp Cultist who had been sent to a rather unkindly end to meet his patron. Her patron?
He reached out, turning a couple pieces of clothing together, a few of the piercings, without touching the goo.
”Looks like three cuts... diagonal from left hip to right shoulder, off with the right arm, and then across the throat.” He looked at the split choker, considering. ”Fast, clean. Good with a mindblade. Obviously there were other things in here which spilled out and followed.” He stood up and stepped back, and the Strikers parted to let him, facing him as he backed along the corridor.
It took him a few steps to get the pattern down, but he pictured it in his head. ”The gouges there with the curled edges are Warp-heavy sabers chewing at things, the weapons of lesser demons. Long and straight, they're using thrusts, and not having much success. This disruption is where one of them died,” he mimicked a stabbing cut, chopping into the wall, ”losing its head after its lunge went wide.” He not quite touched the oozing gash in the wood.