Kenrith and Tojira draft

 There had been another him, more than once. He knew that. He could almost remember that other life. A prior life. This existence was cyclical. His mind roiled within the plane-space of his deepest mind. Memories of existences appeared as suddenly as they entered his consciousness, like imprints of cards being shuffled in a deck. His mind struggled to cling onto sensory inputs, recoiling from one disjointed moment to the next. He tried to interpolate the things he was experiencing, hoping for things to come together into a continuous motion picture, like the zoetropes his mother had commissioned for him when he was a boy. But each montage was more sickening than the last. He was jerked from the ecstacies of once-in-a-lifetime pleasures to intolerable lightning-strikes of paining. He went from holding his third-born son, to having his innards eviscerated by a rioting mob of peasants to conceiving his firstborn son, ever second as disconnected from the last as it was the next. To his immense displeasure, he found himself deeply relieved when Tojira removed him from his torturous dream-sleeve. His psyche birthed out onto the great, four-dimensional miasma of the Blind Eternities. He consumed space, ravenous and friction-less like a cloud of impulses and emotions undergoing infinite molecular mitosis in an infinite vacuum. His thought-form slipped in and out through the incorrigible elemental chaos. Thin, oily, impermanent, non-linear smears of him leeched all around the un-reality which engulfed Tojira. He was free, unbound by Law, whether it be originated by Nature, God, or Man frame. Hell, the Abyss, the Dark Citadel, even the perverse alternate-reality of Phyrexia tried to snap out at him, each desperate to consume him, like predators driven simple by starvation, but his thought-form was too tough and elastic. Where it did get caught within the non-euclidian jaws of a demon, the teeth rebounded, and the flesh did not stick. Devils tried to trap him within logic-tricks, technically-legal soul-contracts, and binding oaths, but his soul was too slick, too loose, and too resilient. The greased gears of diabolical infrustracture simply took him through impossible gear ratios, lubricated by his own incapacity for permanent function in this form, and he slipped out at all the gaps, borders, and edges. Through Tojira's psychic prodding, his Vril poured into place, slowly filling a mould in the shape of him as he drained in, towards his own heart, and dazzling, incomprehensible riot of liquid color slowly solidifying into a man. He was not a terrible man. Far from it, he was actually quite handsome, a jawline perfected and accentuated by Tojira's fondness for the way it worked when he was under stress. His forearms, so often flexed tightly as he gripped a longsword so tightly that his knuckles threatened to burst through his skin, were veined and lean. Her memories of him were defined by the way he appeared to her in confrontation, and she liked them that way. He had always been so striking, glaring down at him through the open visor of his elk-antlered steel-helm. His eyes tilted slightly upwards at the edge, giving him the look that a wolf has when its prey has almost escaped. The rush of his muscles over-powering her as she struggled to get away, to cast the final component of some sick, black-magic ritual... his sweat, beading on her skin as she focused the last reserves of her concentration on finishing her terrible scheme... "I really wish you wouldn't." His voice interject sharply, cutting outwards from the inside of her mind. "You know I remember." Tojira sighed. The realm around them had coalesced into a cozy cave of primordial, colorless mana. She exhaled a long, sighing breath. She fell back, and the nothingness below her changed into a soft bed of pilfered silks and cushions, some still stained with the blood of the prior owners. "Why must you spoil our love?" She bemoaned. His soul-form tightened around itself and seethed with red mana. "There is no love in imprisonment."  

Tojira pouted, intentionally letting her grasp on the field of mind-carved reality loosen. He leaked everywhere, up-down, left-right, in-out, past-future. Demons and Devils and Aboleths and Angels lapped at his emissions, drinking his richness in as he slipped away from himself. Panic rose inside him, and his soul lashed back out towards Tojira, a drowning man thrashing at his would-be savior. She warmly swaddled him inside her darkness, wrapping him back into the shape of him. She receded from him and gazed upon her tribute to his being. She grinned like she was getting away with something, and he fell back into her, portions of himself glomming onto her like they were hydro-statically bonded. His arcane momentum carried him through her, launching out the other side of her thought-form, but retained and recollected within the surface-tension of her soul. He recoiled like a shot back into the very core of her being, then slowed impossibly quickly, until his essence crawled its way back out her front-face, like molasses filtering through tar separating in slow-motion. He felt every second of her countless lifetimes. He saw her in ways that sickened him, and yet the depths of her heart had his pounding with excitement. He experienced every moment of her, and she every moment of him. The entire time, she grinned like a perversely hungry lynx, never taking her third eye off his. She drank in his disappointment, arousal, hatred, longing, surprise, approval, jealousy, and confusion like it was honeyed-wine served ice-cold on a remote isle. His soul blistered in the heat of her love's furnace. Her desire compressed and tore him like tectonic plates. He couldn't breathe within her, but he didn't need to. She reached into him and extracted his memories of the others, the Goddess, the Whore, the Doll. She tossed them aside like rotten clumps of rot-saturated bog-mud, the core of the psychic-resonance drained from the inside out into the thirsting eyes within her palms. She vomited deeply inside of him, pouring herself into him through her own throat, infiltrating him as she turned inside out. Every sin, every sacrifice, every slaughter, every slight passed through him, and he couldn't even gag to trigger an ejection. He tried to sob, but her hands reached out from his mouth and wiped his tears. She hushed him from within his own chest, curling up within the void left behind. He couldn't even recall what she had taken. The faces of... of... women? More than that. They were... her contempt and betrayal flared, deep within his gut. She tried to crawl back out of him, her scalding fingertips digging into his esophagus, but he swallowed her. He began to ingest her, intoxicated and poisoned by her corrupting form. He screamed wordlessly, his shrieking, rasping exaltation of agony rending the flesh of demons and cracking the bones of devils. The extraplanar predators shrank away into the shadows of their home-realms, no longer stretching the membrane of the Blind Eternities inwards. He fought to keep her down, but eventually vomited, ejecta and spent mana projecting outwards from his gullet. The disgusting fluids clung to her skin like afterbirth, and she wailed. He felt un-reality slip away from him, his soul hollow and relieved, purged of the torment, cleansed of the burden of what once was. He collapsed, exhausted and pleasantly surprised by the comfortable empty feeling that began to overcome him from within. She wept as he sank into the flesh of the Astral Realm, and he felt his soul collapse back in on itself, shrinking to an infinitesimal mote of stardust that nestled comfortably within the undeveloped amygdala of his next incarnation. He knew he would see her again soon enough. And yet, he quickly forgot all that he knew about her. It was... peace. It was warm. Eventually, words had never before been formed within his mind.

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Blood soaked through his mailed gauntlet and warmed his hand. It was a brisk winter night, and the sand dunes glimmered under torchlight, alight with chaos and the roar of war. Kenrith loved crusading. There was a singular clarity to it: bringing justice to the foul goblinoids, purging them from the holy land, righting the imbalance of the world. It was his divine right, and his supreme pleasure.

The wind carried the scent of smoke and scorched earth, mingling with the metallic tang of blood. Across the dunes, Alaborn soldiers moved like clockwork, disciplined and unwavering, their armor clinking with a rhythm that mirrored Kenrith’s heartbeat. Behind them, the Steam Catapults belched fire, hurling stones and molten chains into the enemy ranks. Above, Armored Griffins circled, their sunbleached-white feathers cut through the starry night sky like blades of snow, just as their keening hunting screeches penetrated the din of combat below.

Kenrith tightened his grip on his longsword, feeling the pulse of righteous fury coursing through his veins. Every swing was justice made manifest. Every probing strike was in pursuit of retribution. Every critical blow that let loose a geyser of reeking green blood was vindication. The goblins shrieked, scattered, and fell beneath the relentless discipline of Alaborn’s forces. And yet, even amid the carnage, there was order, a pattern of life and death orchestrated by law, duty, and faith.

He glanced at the Temple Acolytes behind the front lines, their staves glowing with a soft, restorative light. They whispered prayers of courage and protection, bolstering the morale of the weary soldiers. Even in the heat of slaughter, they offered the promise of mercy, of resurrection for those who had fought bravely.

Kenrith’s eyes narrowed as he spied a band of goblin raiders attempting to flank the Volunteer Militia. With a war cry, he surged forward, the snow crunching under his boots, steel singing in the cold air. Every motion was precise, every blow an expression of Alaborn’s enduring will. He was a conduit for justice, honor, and the unshakable belief that the kingdom’s divine mandate would prevail, no matter the cost.

Kenrith’s gauntlet still bore the warmth of blood when he entered the tent, the smell of winter, fire, and iron clinging to him like a second skin. A fire crackled in the hearth, throwing long shadows across the tapestry-lined walls. The Temple Elder stood near the center, his robes immaculate, his hands folded in measured disapproval.

“You would dare,” the Elder said, voice trembling with a mixture of fear and exasperation, “to bend the traditions of Alaborn to the whims of outsiders? Talas, dwarves, these foreign artificers… their machines and engines are profane. They will corrupt the balance of our kingdom. For thousands of years, Alaborn has sustained its way of life, its order, without bending to such… chaos!”

Kenrith removed his helm, letting the cold wind seep into his hair, his eyes gleaming with the fire of certainty. “My ancestors were good kings,” he said evenly, though the power in his voice made the Elder flinch. “They defended the kingdom, upheld the law, preserved the faith. But I am not my ancestors. I am Kenrith, I have Returned, and this cycle... This cycle I have returned with the intent to not merely sell my life dearly. I am going to buy the lives of the wretched masses of sinners, evil-doers, and vile races cheaply, like an Icatian moneychanger stealing a deed out from under the nose of an aged crone. I will not fight today’s war with yesterday’s tools. Alaborn will endure, not by clinging to what has worked in the past, but by adapting to what must work now.”

The Elder’s lips pressed into a thin line. “And yet… you speak as if you remember… things that none of us have seen. Past lives? Esoteric visions? This is heresy in its own way.”

Kenrith’s jaw tightened. “I cannot explain it to you. You would not understand. My mind has glimpsed the currents of what was, what is, and what may come again. In each cycle, the end comes. Armageddon will not wait for tradition. It will not pause for the sanctity of old ways. We must be ready, Elder. For this end, this cycle, I will see Alaborn prevail.”

The Elder’s eyes narrowed, a storm of disapproval and fear. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, unable to articulate a rebuttal that could reach across the gulf of experience and memory that separated them. Kenrith could sense the Elder’s confusion. The inability to perceive the quasi-memories, the faint echoes of futures that had already occurred in other lives eluded the old man, and Kenrith felt neither pity nor regret.

“We adapt,” Kenrith continued, his voice rising to fill the tent. “We take what works from Talas, from dwarves, from wherever it may be found. Every siege engine, every innovation, every stratagem that gives us the edge will be ours. And when the end comes, as it always does, we will not be caught unprepared.”

He replaced his helm, the leather biting into his brow, and the firelight glinted off the polished metal. Outside, the snow swirled across the dunes, obscuring the battlefield, but Kenrith saw clearly. In his mind, he traced the paths of victories and defeats, of battles that had not yet occurred, of wars that would come again. He would be ready. Alaborn would be ready.

Armageddon was coming. This time, he would not be caught by surprise.

Sparks in the Machine, Pt. I: Bolt-Pistol and Death-Wish

Arcturious leaned against the grimy alley wall, pulling in a breath thick with smog and the stink of hive air filth. When he exhaled, his lho-stick's ember flared briefly, casting the sharp lines of his scarred face in a flickering glow. Smoke whirled around his ponderous head as he dropped the spent filter into the sodden gutter. He glanced down into the murky reflection he hadn’t recognized in years, and sighed. The illiterate scum of Treminus' under-hives called him the Demolisher. At first, he'd liked the fear and awe he invoked in them. Now, it felt like a mockery.

The orders had come down through the usual channels, thick with codes and meaninglessly esoteric formalities. He didn’t need the specifics spelled out for him - his job was to remove the problem. This time, the problem was a mutant, a freak of nature who had clawed his way up from the filth of Hive Terminus to take control of the Black Nail Syndicate. Reports said the bastard wasn’t human, at least not anymore, that he’d twisted into something beyond flesh and reason. His influence spread like a virus, rotting the underworld from the inside out, and now the command staff of the Warden of the Silent Edict wanted him gone.

Arcturious had done the calculations. Five shots to the chest. That’s all it would take. The approach was simple: navigate through the hydro-radiovent shafts of the fifty-fifth level, drop in silent, and put the beast down before his bodyguards knew what hit them. No alarms. No witnesses. Just another name crossed off a long, bloody list. He should’ve been relieved at how clean the job was shaping up to be, but the weight of the primitive scout-issued bolt pistol in his hand said otherwise.

He spun the revolver’s chamber absently, listening to the empty clicks. The thought had been gnawing at him for weeks now, an itch at the back of his skull he couldn’t scratch. He had killed more people than he cared to count - enforcers, gangers, traitors, witches, and mutants - but something about this one felt different. He wasn’t sure if it was the silence from his usual contacts, the way the order had come down with no confirmation, the creeping sense that he was being sent to die... maybe it was all of it. Maybe it was none of it. Maybe, just maybe, he was finally losing his mind.

He stood with a grunt, rolling his shoulders to shake the tension loose. The drop pod containing a rusted-out assault bike modified for solo urban infiltration waited for him at the end of the cavernous access corridor. He toggled the ignition, and its engine purring low like an ancient Terran tigress on the hunt. He wasn’t getting out of this one alive. He keyed the pre-launch preparation sequence into the datapanel by the troop harnesses, and the pod doors slammed shut. He knew that. He turned off the assault bike's engine and ensured it was secured by its restraints. The Marines who gave him orders knew that. He sat down in his seat and pulled his harness down over his chest, locking it into the seat's anchoring buckles. Hell, the whole damn hive probably knew that. Arcturious closed his eyes, spoke the launch-command phrase, and the drop pod shot down into the dark void of Tentrarch Tertius' darkside shadow like a nefarious meteor. But if this was how it ended, he’d go down the only way he knew how - guns blazing, leaving nothing but bodies and regret in his wake. 

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Beneath the flickering glo-globes of the Warden of the Silent Edict's Mechanicus quarters and surrounded by the relentless hum of arcane machinery, Lysandra’s world was one of paradox: cold logic intertwined with burning passion. The sanctum of the Mechanicus personnel loaned to the Divine Demolisher's orbital fortress-monastery was a labyrinth of ancient pipes, archaic data consoles, and the soft mechanical chanting of servitors. Here, she moved with a quiet grace that belied the tumult raging inside her. Every keystroke on her archeotech terminal was an act of both devotion to the Omnissiah and rebellion against a fate that sought to snuff out her heart.

Lysandra had long since learned that her position as an enginseer left little room for the frailties of human emotion. The sacred rituals, the relentless adherence to binary certainties, and the omnipresent surveillance of her order demanded perfection and loyalty without question. Yet, amid the cold, metallic corridors and the endless cascade of coded commands, there was one secret - one incendiary truth that she guarded as jealously as any classified datum: her forbidden love for Arcturious.

She recalled with vivid clarity the first time their eyes met in a forgotten alcove behind a derelict service hatch...

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Arcturious' gaze had softened, if only for an instant, when his gaze fell upon her bio-augmetically genehanced curves. In that moment, under the shadow of towering, humming spires and amidst the quiet beeps of distant machinery, something ineffable passed between them. It was as though, despite the ironclad dictates of their worlds, their souls had recognized one another as divinely ordained kin, inextricably linked by their mutual defiance of fate.

He had taken her up in his arms and made love to her - her robes had been pulled aside like so many weightless cobwebs in an endless labyrinth of techno-esoterica. He had pressed his demi-diefic manhood against her receptor-port and pushed through the petite resistances it had to offer. In mere moments, the sanctity of her hermetic purity had been broken, and she bounced against his powerful hips like celestial driftwood being torn apart by the unpredictable currents of the Immaterium...

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Lysandra pushed aside the lustful and irresistible recollections of her lover's immense integration unit and tried fruitlessly to achieve some level of rest. Later that evening, while the Warden of the Silent Edict's endless array of candles refracted through the dense clouds of condenser vapor, Lysandra sat before her terminal in a cramped maintenance chamber. The terminal’s screen glowed with lines of cascading code - a language she had mastered since childhood. Though intended only to do the Ominssiah's work, it currently served as the conduit for her most intimate thoughts. With the trembling micro-appendages of her mechadendrite tail, she began composing a message in a forbidden channel, one meant only for Arcturious. Every word was an incantation, a plea to shatter the deterministic confines that bound him to his grim destiny:

///I refuse to accept that you are doomed to this path. There is more to this damnable existence than the endless cycle of violence and duty. I will find a way to save you from the chains of your gene-sire’s compulsions that could only lead you to a final fate written in blood.///

As she typed, her mind wandered back to a long-ago encounter - a clandestine meeting in a forgotten railway station where the two had stolen a moment of quiet intimacy. The station, abandoned and echoing with the ghostly memories of a livelier past, had been their sanctuary from the oppressive edicts of Tentrarch Terminus' criminal underworld, of the Divine Demolisher's asinine orders, and the Mechanicus' inscrutable hierarchy. Beneath a flickering, broken glo-globe, Arcturious had pressed into her hand a small, intricately wrought gear - an emblem of their shared defiance. That gear, etched with symbols of rebellion and hope, became a talisman for her. It was a reminder that even in a world that knew only war, one governed by cold metal and coded imperatives, love could exist.

Now, as the digital clock on her console counted down the seconds of another sleepless pseudo-night, Lysandra felt that familiar surge of determination. Every risk she took, every breach of protocol she executed, was dedicated to him. Her love for Arcturious was not the soft, gentle affection of a quiet romance - it was a blazing, all-consuming fire that defied the clinical, emotionless systems that ruled her life. In the endless corridors of the Mechanicus, where every action was logged and every deviation marked as heresy, the thought of losing him was unbearable. Yet, deep down, she understood that their union was an impossibility - a tragic romance written in the margins of a cold ledger.

Her reverie was abruptly interrupted by the sound of heavy boots echoing down the corridor. The Mechanicus was never forgiving of errors, and the presence of patrolling servitors meant that her work was at risk of exposure. Hastily, she minimized her encrypted channel and reinitiated the standard operating interface, her cyber-heart pounding as she concealed the illicit code that bridged her world with that of the Divine Demolishers Scout-Enforcer. Every secret interaction was a gamble - a dance with fate that could shatter everything she had built.

Yet even in the face of imminent danger, she could not suppress the memory of his voice - a rough, gravelly timbre that softened when he spoke of mutual dreams and radical systemic defiance. In the dim light of that memory, she remembered how, amidst the chaos of a botched mission and the thunder of combat, he had whispered, “We are more than the sum of our orders. We are souls capable of choosing a different destiny.” Those words had ignited a spark within her, a dangerous hope that defied the cold calculus of duty.

Driven by that hope, Lysandra had spent countless nights reconfiguring secure communication nodes, seeking vulnerabilities in the rigid systems of the Mechanicus. With each successful breach, her heart soared a little higher, imagining a future where her clandestine messages might reach Arcturious in real time - protocols that allowed she could warn him, console him, even guide him away from the inexorable spiral of violence. Her fingers moved swiftly over the keys as she crafted a hidden channel coded in a dialect known only to her - and with it, she sent another desperate message into the void:

///I am coming for you. Hold on to hope, even if the world tells you it is a fool’s errand. I will find a way to break these chains. We can defy the fates, even if only for a moment.///

Each letter was imbued with the strength of her conviction, a declaration that the cold algorithms of destiny could not account for the unpredictable nature of the human soul. In that moment, Lysandra’s inner sanctum - her mind and her soul - became a battleground where logic and emotion clashed in a struggle as fierce as any physical confrontation.

Memories cascaded through her thoughts like streams of static: the soft brush of Arcturious’s hand against her cheek as they parted under cover of darkness; the whispered promises made in the safety of abandoned storehouses where the hum of generators masked their laughter; the bittersweet sorrow of knowing that every tender moment might be their last. With every recollection, she steeled herself against the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. For even if the Mechanicus would never sanction their union, and even if both the Warden of the Silent Edict itself and Hive Terminus below its' geo-synchronous orbit were relentless labyrinths of cruelty and corruption, her love for him was a truth she could neither renounce nor hide.

In the deep recesses of her memory, a recurring image surfaced - a night when the condenser-spawned rainfall had been especially fierce and the Warden of Silent Edict's neon glow blurred into a mosaic of colors. It was then that Arcturious had pulled her close, his eyes glimmering with an intensity that hid the harshness of his life. “Lysandra,” he had murmured, his voice raw with longing and pain, “in your eyes I see salvation - a promise that even the darkest gears of fate can be uncoupled.” That single moment had been etched into her heart, a defiant cry against a destiny that sought to keep them apart...

Now, as the corridor outside began to quiet down and the patrol’s footsteps faded into the distance, Lysandra allowed herself a brief, tremulous exhalation. She knew that every clandestine action came at a cost - every whispered secret, every stolen moment of passion, risked her career, her freedom, and perhaps even her life. Yet, the very thought of a future without Arcturious was an unbearable void. In the silent language of code and clandestine signals, she resolved that no matter how insurmountable the barriers, she would continue to fight for the love that burned so fiercely within her.

Slowly, she deactivated the hidden subroutine and saved its intricate lines of code into a secure vault deep within the terminal’s memory banks. The small, intricately wrought gear - Arcturious’s token of defiance - rested beside her on the console, its cold metal a tangible reminder of every promise they had made. As she traced its contours with a single finger, she silently vowed that even if their paths were fated to diverge, every moment of love, every act of rebellion, would be worth the cost.

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On the upper decks, the Warden of the Silent Edict pulsed with a mixture of decay and hope - a sprawling network of grimy alleys, grinding automated factoriums, and partially-lit hideaways where half-forgotten chapter-serfs carved out their meager existence. In that sprawling maze, Arcturious was soon to board his battered drop pod - a final, desperate plunge into a destiny he had long since accepted. But in her hidden enclave, Lysandra refused to accept that this was the end. The channel she had painstakingly crafted was not just a conduit for data - it was a lifeline, a message of hope that might yet reach him before it was too late.

In a final, defiant act of intimacy with the digital world, she composed one more message - a farewell, a promise, and a plea all at once:

///My love, if you read these words, know that my heart beats only for you. I defy the cold logic of fate, and I will risk everything to pull you back from the edge. Let not the darkness claim you; let our forbidden bond be the spark that ignites a rebellion against the tyranny of destiny. Until we meet again, hold on, for I am coming for you.///

As the encrypted data stream vanished into the labyrinthine network of the Mechanicus Noosphere, Lysandra leaned back in her creaking, ancient techno-throne, her eyes lingering on the soft glow of the terminal screen. Outside, the rain began to subside, and in that quiet, suspended moment, she allowed herself a single, trembling smile. It was a smile born of hope, defiance, and the promise of a love that, no matter how forbidden, burned brighter than any edict.

For now, she would remain hidden in the shadows of duty and desire, her every breath a silent vow to change the course of destiny - though the final chapter of their story was unwritten, she clung to the belief that even in a world ruled by cruel machinery and unyielding doctrines, the human soul could spark a revolution of love.

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With a deep breath, Arcturious swung a leg over the bike and twisted the throttle. The engine roared with hunger and shook off a cloud of toxic rust. He emptied his mind of doubts and replayed eidetic memories of his forbidden lover as he shot out of the drop pod, into the absolute darkness of the underhive - he was a ghost riding to his own execution.

[Pathfinder Fanfic] Plane Shift in the Darkmoon Woods pt 1

The bite of the medium-game trap held Allouette's leg in a predator's grip; the lightly rusted iron teeth had wedged themselves in between her tibia and fibula, causing the total fractures to compound outwards. She screamed. It was, all-in-all, a traumatic and blood-curdling affair. Five arpents south, her hellish shrieks echoed through the eerily foggy mid-morning forest. It was early Kuthona, and a mild storm had rolled through two days ago. 

In fact, the first several weeks of winter so far had been shockingly mild - in contrast to the past quarter-dozen centuries, this year had featured weather that melted permafrosts above the treeline of Droskar's Crag, and unseasonable migrations of all sorts of beasts. The ladies of Falcon's Hollow kept their summers' dresses on until early Lamashan, the bonfires of vigorous youths visiting from Olfden had burnt well into Neth, the pumpkin-spiced meads from Carpenden continued to pour into the local taverns til the ides of Rova, and Stanislas thought all that had made autumn far better this year than it had been for the past decade. He suppressed a devilish grin as he beckoned the bold woodsmen and loggers he'd "happened" to stumble upon as he searched for haplessly helpful men to aid in rescuing his poor trapped "cousin". 

One of the loggers shouted, "Écouter! <Just a bit further! I can hear her now!>" He was a bold one, standing head and shoulders above the rest, with a booming voice. The others nodded in stern agreement. The whole heroic sight nearly had Stanislas in stitches, but he locked it in. 

"Affirmatif! <My cousin is just up ahead!>" Stanislas' voice wavered, though he had these feral frontiersmen convinced that it was from exhaustion and terror, rather than his haunting sense of meta-humor. 

The group of twelve approached within a score toise of the trapped young woman. Half a lieue ancienne above the earth, a witch gazed upon them. She delicately balanced upon her broom; it was a gnarled, knotty, twisted limb that had once belonged to a vile treant highwayman who had become corrupted by Mokravud, the vile lieutenant of Treerazor. Mokravud had ordered this treant - a terrible old oak named Darklily - to waylay a nearby coven from Bellis. The witch on the broom, and her coven, had been summoned by sendings to aid their cousin-coven. They had followed through on these summons and secured a great bounty of favors in return. 

One such reward whistled through the wind between the witch's knees as she rolled over into a dive toward the canopy below, pulling her coven's cloak of invisibility over her body, such that only the broom was visible - it floated in eerie silence three pied du roi above the leaf-spattered forest floor. She followed the group as they stumbled across the densely intermingled tree-roots towards the trap that lay ahead.

Yvraine is preggy-weggy oops

             Yvraine rolled over on the bed centered within her lavish, if somewhat messy and disorganized, personal chambers. She sighed angrily, staring up at the ceiling through the sheer black and red sashes, curtains, and veils hanging from her walls, filtering the witchlights manifested above them in delightfully macabre colors. She was absently fondling her heavy breasts, which had gotten larger as of late, along with her thighs and ass.

Why now, of all times, must I have fallen for a mon’keigh? Mother warned me, every damn night, not to trust their men, regardless of how gene-hanced… her thoughts drifted off from her mother’s teachings and instead slid down a very slippery slope towards sensory memories of his flesh against - and within - hers.

Gene-hanced indeed… she thought, a smirk curling her lips.

Her hand had drifted down her body, running across her black nightgown, and sliding beneath its inner red folds, her fingers then impersonating a fractal as she slid them within her own inner red folds. She checked to see if Alorynis was asleep; the large blue feline was, thankfully, slumbering in the corner of her bed.

She wetted her fingers within her own warmth, rubbing her clit in a gentle circular motion, the memories of Guilliman’s cock devastating her body’s general structural integrity lighting up her mind as her clit lit up her ash-white skin, causing her to glow a deep red around her cheeks, ears, neck, breasts, hands, and vulva.

Her self-satisfaction was self-lived, though, having been cut through like a weakened dreadnought joint falling to the edge of a wraithbone’s blade.

“By the love and grace of our savior Ynnead, Visarch, is there any possibility within the materium that you could say something to me, right now, that would make this intrusion worthy of wasting my scantily available solitude?” She growled out, the smug aura of the Visarch permeating her living-space. Alorynis stirred; the gyrinx slinked off the bed and began lurking in a shadowy corner, his predatory eyes analyzing the Visarch’s every movement with a cold, animal efficiency.

Should her finely-tuned Aeldari ears have been any sharper, Yvraine swore she could have heard his smile. “Perhaps not any spoken communication should suffice,” the Visarch replied, “but within the purview of the physical medium I am of utmost certainty that I could make my worth known with a different sort of intrus-”

A sudden yell of exasperation from Yvraine cut his spoken communications off at the pass and startled Alorynis. Yvraine replied, “No, Visarch, I do not think I would find any worth in such ‘intrusions’ at present, particularly not from an ally lacking intimate knowledge of my form.” She sat up on her bed, drawing her knees up to her chest and glaring at the Visarch, who’s smirk grew. Alorynis’ hackles raised and he bared his fangs, but he remained silent.

“Oh, but Lady Yvraine,” the Visarch replied, “you could reveal unto me the intimate secrets of your material being, by which means I could make my intrusion useful to you.” He stood up straight, wiggling his shoulders ever so slightly as he drew himself to his full height, nearly as tall as the Primaris marines Guilliman was so damn proud of.

This time, it was Yvraine who smirked. She spun about and flopped backwards, her head hanging off the end of her bed, and half of her right breast laying exposed by an artfully implemented tug of her gown. “Oh, by the very means of creation, I beseech you, please, do elucidate through your songful voice in what manner, precisely, your assertive and intimate intrusions could ever prove desirable to me, Visarch?” she asked, her voice heavy with a breathy disdain and her natural resting expression of contempt laced with facetiously fluttered eyelashes.

The Visarch grinned, rolling his shoulders back and causing the fur that adorned them to ripple as he responded, “Dear Yvraine, it is within the full understanding of all who have known me that my skill with the blade is quite phenomenal. Perhaps you’d benefit from ascertaining a refresher on the lessons I imparted to you in your youth? I assure you, with my wholly honest heart that you’ll find the experience quite… stimulating juxtaposed with the tutorship you received from me so long ago.” He paused for effect, a habit he had which never ceased to make Yvraine smile. What a dramatic man… she thought, perhaps I should sell him to the harlequins…

Her darkly painted lips lifted at the edges, a subtle, calculated smile that she knew would not go unnoticed by her former mentor. She rolled over onto her belly and propped herself up on her elbows, pressing together her lewdly proportioned breasts, expertly crafted for her by a stupendously skilled Haemonculi (and likely a dead one, considering the recent movements of Jaghatai Khan within Commorragh).

“Shall we wager on this sparring match, Visarch?” Yvraine asked, tilting her head to the side and allowing her gaze to linger on the Visarch’s noticeable bulge.

The Visarch smirked harder and nodded, glancing down at the floor for just a moment before returning his simply smouldering gaze to her eyes. “A deal I would be most keen to meet, Lady Yvraine,” replied the Visarch, “though, I do desire to ask, what prizes are to be cast between us?”

Yvraine stood from the bed, letting her gown fall free as she strode across her chambers to her dressing room. The Visarch watched her as she went, not moving a muscle save for the turn of his head and eyes.

When she’d disappeared within, the Visarch heard her voice slip out from the dressing room. “Honorable Visarch,” she said, “if either of us should confront the other with a firm victory, we may ask but one favor of the other, a favor which must be fulfilled to the best of one’s ability.”

The Visarch laughed and shot back, “You present it so plainly. What hidden condition do you play at, Lady Yvraine?” For a little while there was no reply.

Then, Yvraine strode out, wearing her black body glove, bearing her cronesword and bladed fan in hand. “The ‘hidden condition’, my dearest mentor, lies within the stakes of our battle; I will be fighting to draw you down, to bring you within an inch of your life.” She paused, and watched as the color, warmth, and friendliness drained from the Visarch’s face; the mask of a warfighter had formed where his eyes had once been.

Yvraine smiled and said, “I suggest you do the same.”

The Visarch lunged across the room, and the blade at his waist flashed out from its scabbard. His movement was dead silent and nearly instantaneous. His blade clashed against the blade Yvraine was holding, having just barely interrupted his sword strike. His blade slid along the flat of hers and skipped off the handguard. He was already rolling away from her before she could follow her parry up with a riposte.

The Visarch stood five paces away, a cold anger lighting up his eyes. “I did not spend decades training you for you to lay out slack on your fundamentals, Lady Yvraine,” he spat out, his glower intense enough to incinerate lesser elves. “How could you become a Succubus with such a flawed technique? Or is your focus perhaps clouded by memories of Mon’keigh co-” His taunt was cut off as Yvraine flung herself at him.

“You speak as though you stand above me in sexual discretion,” Yvraine hissed, “throwing about your ‘affection’ for young women without a care for how they’d be hurt should they leave your current fancy!” Her blade swung high, and the Visarch smoothly slid away from its biting edge. 

The Visarch countered with a light slash at her belly, cutting through her body suit and opening a hairline gash on her skin, painting the flesh around it with a thin veneer of blood. Yvraine exhaled forcefully as she pushed down the pain. 

“I haven’t the slightest inkling of what you mean by that!” he roared in response, “I have courted you earnestly for the past three decades, seeing no other woman! I have offered up nothing but love, respect, care, and support, yet still it is you who has cast my affections aside!” His blade glided past hers, leaving a long but superficially shallow slash pulling down from her collarbone and ending across the top of her left breast.

Yvraine growled, the heat of the cuts burning her thoughts from below. She swung her blade and shouted, “You dare?! Three decades! You bastard! You slept with my mother while you were training me! You were courting me, training me, and fucking my mother! You were the first man I fell for as a young woman, of course I am spiteful towards your advances!”

“Your father wasn’t meeting her needs! She was lonely!” The Visarch parried.

Yvraine shot out a warp bolt from her palm and screamed, “Because you were FUCKING MY FATHER!” The Visarch’s blade was shattered in his hand, and he flew backwards.

The Visarch skittered and rolled backward across the ground, coughing. “You… you… you wench!” he sputtered out after coming to a stop, “How dare you! At least I don’t forget myself, breeding with lesser creatures. After all, unless you suddenly decided to stop caring for that body you spent so damn much on, that’s the only explanation for why you haven’t been fitting so well in your clothes lately… that is, when you aren’t taking them off for that mon’keigh warlord-” his spiteful rant was cut short as Yvraine lifted him into the air upon psychic tethers, one tightening around his neck.

“Mind yourself, honorable Visarch,” she growled, her eyes burning with contempt, “when you speak ill of the father of my child in my presence.” 

The Visarch sneered and hissed back, “Y-you’re keeping the bastard!?” Shock had overtaken his voice and face.

Yvraine smiled, an expression entirely forced in nature. “Yes, Visarch, I am,” she said, her voice strained by her anger, “and perhaps you should wield a thicker, heartier blade next time you wish to spar with me. After all, you’ve seen Guilliman’s longsword; and I assure you that his technique is certainly not ‘flawed’, nor is the inheritance granted to him by his Father lacking.” Yvraine threw the Visarch back, his defeated form coming to rest at her doors.

The Visarch stood, coughed, and brushed himself off before saying, “What was your favor, then, Lady Yvraine?” He had put a poisonous emphasis on ‘Lady’.

Yvraine met his eyes with hers and said, “You will do me the favor of never again interrupting me while I am pleasuring myself to the thought of Lord-Commander Roboute Guilliman taking me as his wife, lover, queen, and breeding-consort. You are dismissed.” She shut the doors in his face, locking him out of her chambers.

She sighed and walked back to her bed, flopping down onto it and wriggling her way out of her damaged body suit. She cooed at Alorynis, who had firmly curled up on a pile of pillows and blankets beside a hookah-couch across her room. The Gyrinx seemed unwilling to come to her call, so she slid beneath her covers.

Why must men be so much to deal with, she thought, her hand already descending down her belly as her mind descended upon her memories of Robu like a hungry falcon upon a yard of fat chickens. 

----

The Visarch stormed through the halls of the craftworld, his handsome features slicing through the air like a shark’s fin through the water. His eyes were alight with fury and hurt, burning so bright that none dared meet his gaze as they passed him, squeezing themselves against the walls to put distance between themselves and the scorned swordsman.

Pretentious cunt… he thought, his jaw clenched tightly as his teeth ground against one another.

Coming to a door marked with the symbol of Lelith Hesperax’s Wych cult, the Visarch waved a gloved hand before a panel set into the door frame, and the solid sheet of metal unfolded itself like the purple petals of a fell-flower. He stepped through the entrance, and the door silently reformed again behind him.

A group of Succubi laid lounging before him on a litter of exquisite pillows, smoking some sort of intoxicating herb from a set of complex water pipes. They dozily looked up at the Visarch, then one waved her hand, and a pair of Hekatarii slinked out from the shadows to begin disrobing the former Incubus.

“Wherefore doth the honorable Mistress Hesperax retain her absence?” he asked pointedly, his formal speech belying a demanding intent. The Succubi tittered and chortled amongst themselves, but did not immediately respond, instead preferring to look upon the stunning and sculpted form of the Visarch’s pale-skinned abdomen, which had been revealed to them by the busy hands of his Wych attendants.

The Visarch waited a moment before he followed up his initial question with, “I request again, wherefore-”

A dark skinned Succubus propped herself up on her elbows and said, “Oh, dear Visarch, your request did not fall upon deaf ears, for we did register your inquiry initially.”She had a dainty smile on her face, one imposed by a passive state of intoxication rather than any true glee.

The Visarch’s greaves came away from his flesh, permitting his substantial member to fall free from the codpiece’s captivity. “As such, I must implore you, do justify your choice in remaining unspoken in response to a simple inquisition, relayed truly and succinctly.” The girls on the couch giggled harder, and the one to whom he had initially spoken snapped her fingers.

The pair of Hekatarii who had been removing from him his arms and armor sprung upon him, running their hands across his body, the silky, translucent scarves worn over their enticing bodies stimulating his skin in a pleasing manner. “What is the meaning of this?” The Visarch growled.

Yet again, the Succubi tittered. “We are merely ensuring you possess no weapons by which to do us harm, most honorable Visarch.” Her voice was lofty and swirling, akin in form and composure to the charming smoke that filled the upper reaches of the chamber they lounged in.

Before the Visarch could respond, one girl had taken into her mouth the entire length of his hexblade, which began to stiffen within her throat, whereas the other had taken upon herself the responsibility of performing an exploratory digital search of his internal abdomen, her other hand running along his hip as her lips caressed his skin. The Visarch groaned softly, his outstanding girth running past the girl’s tongue as she pulled away from the root of his evil.

“A very thorough search, Visarch.” the lounging succubus said, biting her lip as she observed the security measures continue as planned.

“Surely,” the Visarch replied breathily, “You know that even without armament, I can slay a handful of Succubi?”

Now seated fully upright, the leading Succubus replied, “Oh, dear Visarch, are you levelling menace at me, or swearing an oath?”

The Visarch grinned and replied, “Engage with me and come across the truth for yourself.”

----

Cato came to a t-intersection that led out into a gantry held fifty meters above the ship-bay, where he found himself fenced in by a Grey Knight bearing a power halberd. The Knight’s fist came up to target Cato with a storm of bolt shells, but the blind grenade Cato had primed moments prior detonated in his hand, releasing a massive cloud of smoke and electromagnetic-blocking filaments from either end of its casing, forcing the Knight to guess Cato’s location. A line of shells shot to his left even as the son of Guilliman dove right.

Barreling out of the cloud, he dove and rolled under the arm of the Grey Knight, finding his cousin spinning about to strike Cato down. The Talassarian drew his power gladius just in time, parrying the halberd just enough to deflect its arc, saving him from a certain bisection. Rolling into a crouch by the balcony, Cato sheathed his blade even as his legs launched him into the air like some great and mighty toad of death, leaving behind a second primed blind grenade.

Flying through the air, Cato drew his pilfered plasma pistol and shot a section of rigging free from its ceiling-mount, causing enough to fall down that Cato could catch onto it with his free hand, clambering up into the centuries-old rat’s nest of wires and scaffolds in the ceiling above.

----

Sighing heavily as he withdrew his member from the underhive of the Succubus, the Visarch paused to watch a thick pearl of genetic material drain out in his wake. Then, he asked, “Now that I have played your games, it is time for you to answer me: where is Lelith Hesperax?”

The Succubus exhaled warmly as she shut her eyes and an expression of utter satisfaction passed across her face. “Lady Hesperax is visiting with the Mon’keigh of Ultramar, milord…” her voice trailed off as she began to pass into a slumber.

The Visarch’s face lit up red and he sputtered with fury.

----

As Cato slipped down from the ventilation shafts in the ceiling, he found the monomolecular edge of an impaler pressed to his throat. He heard a subtle shhh come from the wielder of the blade, and he dared to risk his life as he turned his head to look at who was holding him to account.

His eyes met Lelith’s, and he sighed a barely audible exhalation of relief. She shook her head and held her finger up to her lips. 

A moment of silence passed, then a squad of Scions armed with pulsating plasma guns sprinted past the shadowy hallway they were standing in. The pair waited a few more moments before Lelith’s blade drifted down to her side and she said, “Lady Yvraine requested I aid you.” 

Cato smiled. “Come, then, my brother is in containment not far from here,” the Defender of Ultramar replied.

----

Theoretical: through shared belief in the divinity of the Emperor, the Adepta Sororitas have created for themselves a communal psychic shield that protects them in battle. Practical One: The Sororitas have created an entirely new warp entity from their shared belief, and this entity is granting them eldritch powers. Practical Two: The Emperor is divine.

No matter how many times he ran through the mountainous pile of accounts, evidence, and testimonies about the Emperor’s divine reach, including encounters Guilliman himself had with so-called “Living Saints”, beings closer to Imperial Daemons forged from human souls and Imperial faith than any sort of ascended mortality, he found himself coming back to the same answer.

He lied before… thought Guilliman, as new theoreticals and practicals began to form in his mind centering on the Emperor’s potential reasons for hiding his divinity when a vox-alert chime sounded out from a vox-caster resting upon his desk. He reached over to press the glowing red tri-dimensional holo-glyph floating above the device.

A soft click sounded, then a simple message spoken by a familiar voice played, “I have managed to secure the asset.”

Excellent, thought Guilliman.

----

"Lord-Commander! This is an outrage! Your mutant son conspired with Aeldari militants to infiltrate, sabotage, and ultimately destroy an Inquisitorial vessel, free a heretical Astartes, and slaughter dozens of Ecclisarchy assets, including a Grey Knight! What have you to say for yourself!?" The small, bulbous Inquisitorial representative was waving their decrepit and knurled finger up at Guilliman, though they were almost a meter and a half too short to come anywhere near the Primarch's nose.

Guilliman maintained his composure, despite the growing desire in his belly to take the Lord-Inquisitor by the skull, crush their head in his hand, and cast the corpse onto the immense stone table as a matter of principle. Instead, he glanced over at the Captain-General of the Custodes, a towering, bronze-skinned man who almost met Guilliman eye-to-eye; granted, the Captain-General was wearing his full powered armor regalia (sans helmet, which was tucked under his armor), whereas Guilliman was barefoot in a toga.

The genehanced warrior shrugged his gilded shoulders, indicating a lack of interest in intervening. Guilliman sighed, and turned back to the Lord-Inquisitor. "My friend, I wish to tell you a story my Father told me, during the Great Crusade," Guilliman held up an immense hand when the Lord-Inquisitor attempted to interrupt, which quelled the complaint in their throat, "about omelettes. Omelettes were an ancient food item, far preceding myself, the Imperium, the Dark Age of Technology, and perhaps, even, my Father himself. They were a simple dish; to make an omelette, you would take a handful of eggs from a small food-fowl, and you mixed the yolks and whites together until they formed a thin, runny liquid. You then added chopped vegetables and meat to the mixture, poured it all into a pan, waited for the egg to cook, and folded the omelette over, thus rendering it ready to eat."

Guilliman paused to relish the looks of anxiety and anticipation growing on the faces of the mortal High Lords. "But to make an omelette," he continued, malice seeping into his voice, "you must break open a few eggs."

Guilliman's glare had become so intense that the four century old Lord-Inquisitor had shrunk back against the table, and sweat had drenched their robes. "Your assets are my eggs. In the absence of my Father, who is by all means preoccupied as of now, the entirety of the Imperium are my eggs. I loan these eggs to you, by the good grace of my twin hearts, and by the good grace of my twin hearts, I will break them whenever I please. I really wanted an omelette, and your assets became obstacles, rather than aids."

Guilliman paused just long enough that the Lord-Inquisitor began to speak, then he roared, "SO I BROKE THEM AND I MADE MY OMELETTE. PRAY TO THE CORPSE OF MY FATHER THAT I NOT BREAK YOU NEXT, LORD-INQUISITOR!"

The Lord-Inquisitor fainted, and Guilliman waved his hand. "Dismissed. Begone from my sight, all of you, save the Captain-General."

"Box Canyon in the Ass-End of Nowhere" Type Vibes

"I'm tellin' ya, man, this 'Emperor' chad is a fraud." Dalton spat bits of food as he talked, partially rehydrated globs of wheat-bar and the crushed remains of the quartered nuts which had been embedded in his ration.

Hiro's lip twitched as he fought the urge to sneer in disgust at his spotter's eating habits. Instead he took a draw from his Slickoil vape stick, causing the use-alert lumen embedded in a blue-crystal housing at the base of the device to shed a cool cerulean glow. 

"Dawg, all you told me was the Emperor ain't one kind of magic, he's only pretendin' to be, while also sayin' he's not, he's ACTUALLY another, and its all a big secret to keep us 'plebs' down! You're as nutty as these dry-ass rations." Hiro replied, his words infused into the clouds of green-lined vape smoke that escaped from his lungs.

Dalton shook his head and the last third of his nutri-brick at Hiro, swallowed, almost choked, swallowed harder, cleared his throat, took a drink of water, and then said, "No, no, no, man! Ya aren't gettin' it! The Big E keeps tellin' everyone religion is bullshit, right? So why in the name of Terra's saggy old tits is he lettin' those red-robed robo-freaks call him 'The Allssiah' or whatever?" Dalton had an infuriatingly smug grin on his face, as though he had just presented some irrefutable evidence, and Hiro suppressed the urge to slap him.

"I'm still not gettin' where this 'fraud' shit comes in. The dude's supposed to be like, fourteen feet tall and wearin' gold armor and glowin' and shit. That's pretty Godly to me. Maybe the cigar is just a cigar." Hiro looked back out over the Sprawling Wastes of Sa'Seed Chi-to. The outpost they were perched atop was watching a stretch of desert hundreds of kilometers in all directions broken only by the occasional shattered remnants of truly ancient hive spires. These hosted all kinds of shantytowns, filled with gangers, crime families, and horrible mutant populations.

"Nah, man, maybe the cigar is a giant, sorcerous, lyin', gaudy, gold-plated dick! Look, all I'm sayin' is there's no way that Easy Money didn't do some sneaky shit, man, there's no way he could've just known that bullshit language before he met 'em!" Hiro had zoned out and taken up his machine-sniper to gaze through its tech-assisted sighting array at the surrounding wastes. It was a clunky, aging, worn-out, belt-fed affair that used chemical propellant and heavy metal slugs to open the minds of raiders, miscreants, and rebels to the idea of submitting to the Emperor's rule.

"Damn, there's really nothin' out here, Dalt. D'ya think we'll ever see action again like we did when we were fightin' the Porwahsogen Anarchs?" In truth, Hiro was simply trying to change the subject, but a not insignificant portion of him missed that campaign. Five years spent deep in the cavernous, ever-night belly of the Porwahsogen Hive Super-Cluster, taking part in dense, urban combat with nothing but street lights, neon signs, tracer rounds, and lasfire to see by. It had been the best years of Hiro's life, so far.

"Huh? Uh... I guess we might, if we get redployed to the outer belt like the Captain said we might. I dunno, man, I don't really wanna go to space." Dalton's face fell, and his tone became morose. Hiro felt a twinge of regret in his stomach and cleared his throat.

"Yeah, right, we're gonna be just fine, bro. Look, hey, run your thinkin' by me one more time." His quick diversion had the exact effect he'd wanted, and Dalton's face lit up with a surprised joy.

"Oh! Okay, look, so the servant robots that the Big E uses here always used a computer code called 'Binaric', ever since he started makin' 'em a long-ass time ago. Y'know who else uses Binaric?"

Dalton paused with an expectant grin on his face.

"Um, the Mechi- Mechanicult? The robot dudes from Mars, right?" Hiro was unsure of the exact details, but he knew Mars had been taken into the newly-trans-planetary Imperium recently, and surprisingly without a single shot being fired.

"Right. That's wild! So wild that the Robots in Red decided that he must be the human version of their god, 'specially after some 'miracles' he did when he first showed up there, like healin' broken mecha-walkers just by touchin' 'em." Dalton's eyes were alight with a mad flame, and Hiro fought the urge to laugh.

"Okay, so?" Hiro asked, the edges of a giggle creeping into his voice.

"So? Ain't it obvious? He used magic to look at Mars from Terra a long-ass time ago, read all their books, spy on all their deep secrets, an' then he made himself look exactly like their All-siah dude!" Dalton's tirade had gotten so loud that he could have been marginally quieter if he had spoken it into a megaphone.

"So... you're sayin' he's not the one kind of magic, but he is the other?" Hiro lost his composure as he watched the crinkle of Dalton's brow. He belted out a powerful string of laughter that afflicted him with such intensity that he suffered from a series of dry coughs at the end.

Dalton rolled his eyes, sighed angrily and went back to his nutri-brick. Both remained in silence for almost ten minutes before the quiet was sundered by the entrance of their platoon's lieutenant.

The hatch in the floor of the sniper's nest flew open and slammed hard against the metal floor. The man who clambered out was tall and lanky. He bore the overconfidence of middle-management, and an expression he would have likely called 'dignified', but his men typically called 'pretentious' or 'douchey'. 

He straightened out his uniform, adjusted his las-pistol in its holster, and then addressed the sharpshooters, "Well, boys, what have we got to report? Say, Hiro, that wouldn't happen to be Slickoil, would it?"

Hiro slipped the vaporizer back into his coat pocket. "Thank you."

"No problem." Hiro replied, an undertone of sass woven into his words.

"Excuse me, Specialist?" The officer's eyes narrowed, and his head tilted back slightly. Hiro tried to reply, but found himself unable to cobble a response together.

"No, Lieutenant Toxx, Hiro an' I don't have any contraband on us an' ya won't find any in our shit back at the barracks if we have a surprise inspection tomorrow." Dalton interjected with a nervous waiver in his voice. 

"Thank you, Corporal. Now, status updates. What have we seen as of late?" Lt. Toxx's expression softened, and the tension under the tin-roofed pavilion dissipated.

"Just dust, sir." Said Hiro, the previously defiant confidence sapped from his voice.

"Thank you. I will see you boys at the meal hall for supper."

"Yes, sir." Came the unison reply.

"That is all. As you were." With that, the trio saluted simultaneously and Lt. Toxx turned about to climb back down the ladder. He paused just before his head disappeared below the lip of the ladder shaft to nod sternly over his shoulder at the two of them before he grabbed the hatch and pulled it closed behind him.

The pair waited silently for the hatch to latch shut and lock. Then, Hiro slowly and deliberately withdrew his vaporizer to hand it to Dalton, who took it and hit it, all while the duo stared angrily at the hatch.

"What a dick." Dalton muttered, his mood soured by the confrontation.

"Right?" Hiro replied through a dry cough. Their words hung in the air just like the green-tinged smoke that had been emitted with them.