Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Now that I know what to look out for in the console, I gotta say that the whole Warp bullshit cleared up a lot of things. Not only had its existence neatly explained some of the eldritch phenomena happening on the recovering post-apocalyptic world, but it also was the key to accessing more spiritual matters.

After accepting the mantle of godhood, I found divinity being somewhat limited for both me and those devoted to me. Sure, I now had more convenient metaphysical senses, and I could listen to prayers with a thought, and sure I could draw from the faith of my followers to create localized miracles, but there was still a definite feeling of a low ceiling blocking me from being more than what I am now.

And as for my followers, they couldn’t draw from the same pool of faith that I used. I had to actively bestow enhancements or remove the maladies on them. There were no passive perks from earnestly worshiping me, though nobody seemed to care much about that. It still rankled that I couldn’t do much for the souls of the faithful dead at the very least.

The metaphysics of it was convoluted, but basically the ascension I took made me similar to the pantheonistic gods of old myths; far from omniscient and/or omnipotent, and their divine powers were heavily localized. You only invoked their names on the off-chance they might be watching or listening to you, not because they were omnipresent. You only prayed to them because you hoped they would deign to notice and answer it.

I didn’t want to be what was basically a psychic vampire, but with how little progress my occultists made, I had to live with this unsatisfactory state of things for the foreseeable future.

Well, up until I got me some space elf prisoners, anyway.

Thanks to the bountiful catch of Eldar prisoners, I got to learn a lot more about spiritual metaphysics, especially through the lens of my console. Probably due to the fact that these space elves were created by a more ancient and advanced race to serve as bio-weapons, they all innately had more lines on them that were hidden or absent in humans, of both standard and Astartes flavors.

I locked myself in Blacksite Tleilax’s time-dilated chamber for more thorough research on the prisoners. The faster I got this over with, the faster I could prepare for the next round of Warp bullshit. And if it was definitely the case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. I do not need some sort of psyker or Warp rift to start stealing or subverting the souls of those around me.

Thankfully it only took less than fifty Eldar raiders for me to figure out most of the important bits.

Their Warp-related lines in particular were highly enlightening, especially since they were more closely connected to their gods. Sure, most of the values had atrophied to nearly ‘N/A’ status, but the stats were still there, and they served as a clue as to what sort of relationship I could create between me being a god and my worshipers.

It took some fiddling before I realized I could use their logic chain as a template to expand the parameters of my own divinity, and in some cases I simply had to switch out the Warp-based psychic feedback of the Eldar with my own metanatural faith.

Another significant advancement was how many values were attached to the soul. There were hints of it from the Astartes and Mechanicum prisoners, but the Eldar were like a fully detailed event log in comparison. The ones that stood out most were ‘Soul.Property=CGSlaanesh’ and ‘Soul.Transfer=CGSlaanesh’, the latter being something that triggered on their deaths with a straightforward enough logic chain in each Eldar. The thing was, some of these space elves had tweaks in them, particularly the nobles, that bounced their souls to other bits of them (probably kept away someplace safe) with what my console understood as a series of ‘if true’ commands added to them.

It was what probably allowed them to reincarnate in spare body parts and such.

So I got some standard human prisoners to dabble a bit, and confirmed that yes, pasting most of the Eldar’s spiritual stats onto humans does not cause any noticeable adverse effects, and yes, I now had more features to interact with souls bound to me.

What does owning someone’s soul mean?

Well, for one, I now had an extra sensory…thing in me that could easily sense a bound subject’s presence without needing to squint too hard. I teleported a soulbound prisoner to a Martian outpost, and I could definitely tell that the criminal was wriggling helplessly even from where I was several dozen feet under Earth’s surface. Some fiddling with the lines allowed me to perceive multiple souls without suffering any sensory overload. It took some focus to keep track of more than a dozen souls though, so further refinements would be needed before I could effectively keep track of every follower I had. But it was still an important step towards omnipresence.

I also got to use the metaphysical link to finally channel my powers through them. The subjects I used could, with some practice, heal themselves if they had sufficient faith in me. It was a bit lackluster, considering they were condemned prisoners, but it was a good enough proof of concept that I could later test it out with my girls and 1st Company.

What else could I do with the soul I owned? I could speak to it, like hooking up a telepathic link, though the criminal test subjects were constantly screaming for forgiveness. They didn’t have to be dead too, just soulbound. So, potentially useful for my actual followers, though some form of filtering was surely needed. Unless I could attain omnipresence to communicate on an individual level…

Hm. Maybe I’ll have to go god hunting after this.

Anyway, I could also drain and convert the souls to add them to my metaphysical stockpile of faith. Or just snuff it out of existence.

Basically, I got one big step closer to being a real god. Now, I just needed to figure out how to set up the right macros to make binding easier, and then the all-important bit of figuring out how to set up an afterlife to shunt all the souls of my believers into. Since the Warp is real, no way was I feeding any of my people to its resident Chaos Gods if I could help it.

More prisoners, human and Eldar, were ordered into the chamber, and I hunkered down to further research the matter. A few months in here was what, a few days realtime? The girls have covered longer times, and the results here would be very well worth it..

I already accepted the mantle of godhood from my citizens, it’s time to work towards filling the expectations that came with it.

The Imperium had its reluctant God-Emperor after all, and I can’t have the shiny bastard, or anyone for that matter, hold an advantage over me.

*****

Magnus’s lone eye twitched as a disturbance in the Great Ocean interrupted his meditation. It was but small waves, but small waves in such still waters of this system was an anomaly within an anomaly. Curious, the primarch reached out with his psychic senses, and was surprised to find the source of the disturbance to be coming from the Nexus’ homeworld.

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Rapid pulses of psychic energy, like the staccato of a pulsing laser, flickered faintly. He’d never felt anything like that before, yet there was something intrinsically familiar about the emanations. The utter silence of the Immaterium around him allowed Magnus to peer closer at the phenomena with more clarity. It was more than just spikes of emotion, and less than mortal death cries. Something akin to sacrificial and channeling rituals, yet still distinctly not. Whatever it was, the phenomena was free from the heavy taint of misused or abused psychic powers, yet even from out here, there was a waft of something…different about the whole thing.

The currents of the Great Ocean were gentle and slow, yet something was definitely roiling within the Nexus homeworld.

What was the Nexus up to? It didn’t feel like a weapon, nor did it bear any hallmark of any rituals Magnus had encountered during the Great Crusade. Sending an astral projection to investigate was too dangerous at this point.

Frowning with concern, the primarch of the Thousand Sons rose up from his meditation circle as he turned his psychic being back into his ship.

“Amon,” he telepathically called for his equerry, “Gather the Rehati and Magisters into my chambers, and ready the warding circles. Something is amiss.”

*****

After fending off two different interstellar attacks, Piper was not taking any further chances. While Sev was busy prying out the secrets of the sharp-faced aliens, she and the other girls took charge of overseeing the defenses. And without Sev’s…Sevness to offer clues or insights, they erred on the side of caution.

The sensor grid built in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was switched to active detection, scouring the system on the off-chance that a third attack from some other alien race would materialize. At the same time, some attention was allocated to the Imperial fleet still loitering near Neptune. General sentiment within Tupile wanted to send out the Nexus fleet to obliterate the genetic brutes and cybernetic freaks of the Imperium. Sev wanted to play nice though, so everyone had to settle for wishing that the Imperials would do something to break the recent treaty.

Unfortunately, the Imperium wanting to establish communications did not count as a hostile act, and so Piper, Cait and Curie had to entertain the foreigners trying to grovel their way back into Sev’s good graces again.

“If nothing else, I would wish to offer my deepest thanks to Sev for…restoring me,” the big, former berzerker offered with sincere enough gratitude on the screen. Piper didn’t fully trust these primarch things though, not when their very presence gave her the heebie jeebies. That sign of metanatural activity told Piper and the rest to remain on their toes. If not for Sev enhancing everyone, who knows what kind of eldritch corruption would’ve infected everyone in Tupile's command room.

“Yeah. Well, we’ll pass it on to him once he’s free,” Piper replied dismissively and waited for the reply, skillfully hiding her annoyance. That these so-called super soldiers and their Imperium used laser communications was further proof of just how advanced they were not. Sure, their version had reduced the lag to just a few dozen seconds, but it was still that many seconds more than the Li String Particle Network the Nexus was using.

Another primarch, Sanguinius, the one Sev marked as ‘Golden Hawk Boy’, appeared with a humble, dashing smile. Once again, Piper didn’t fall for the blondie’s unnaturally good looks and the primarch’s (as yet) unidentified aura put her on edge. “If it is possible, we would seek to wipe the slate of our misplaced hubris clean, and restart diplomatic relations with the Nexus.” His voice sounded too understanding, too gentle. Her eldritch defenses made the back of her neck itch.

Sev said that the primarchs probably couldn’t control their psychic auras, so again, the unnatural charisma couldn’t be considered an act of hostility. A shame, really.

Piper drew in a steadying breath, but Cait beat her to a reply. “Straight to the humble approach, huh? Tell you what, why don’t you tell us why you’re really stalling out there instead of leaving like Sev told you to?”

Goldilocks gave a gentle, sorrowful sigh, and Piper could practically feel the restrained revulsion from her friends around her. If not for Sev’s generous anti-eldritch defenses, it was possible that the whole room would’ve been fully bewitched and fawning over this Sanguinius primarch. It’d be another Vienna Purge all over again.

“In our haste to aid our brother Horus, we sent out a call for aid,” the primarch explained. “Our message was received rather…severely.”

Piper quirked an eyebrow at that. “So you got reinforcements arriving. Is that what you’re bringing to the table? A threat?”

Sanguinius and Angron looked suitably mortified, though the latter also seemed far more ashamed of the fact than the former. The blonde primarch spoke again, “No, I am just being honest about our matters. Me and my brothers would prefer to take the steps in establishing friendlier ties with the Nexus-”

Cait huffed aloud. “But your reinforcements might have other ideas?”

It was Angron who answered this time. “We are…not sure.” He stared at the command room with determined eyes, and Piper’s neck flared with irritation at the unnatural force of his personality. “You have my word that I will do my best to dissuade them from taking regrettable actions against your Nexus. It is the least I can do.”

For some reason, the other primarch had a surprised expression pasted on his face.

Piper shared a look with Cait and Curie, then after exchanging silent shrugs and shaking of heads, she returned her gaze back to the primarchs on the screen. “We’ll call you when Sev’s available, then you can send another delegation over. He calls the shots, after all.”

And he had instructed everyone against a face-to-face meeting with the Imperium without him, due to potential metanatural issues. Of course, Piper wouldn’t be telling the primarchs that.

Hopefully Sev would at least reconnect to the rest of the world soon, if he couldn’t be done with the research by then. The isolating limitations of the time dilation rooms were quite annoying at times like this.

In the meantime, Piper had no doubt that Eva was already organizing with her AI siblings after hearing about this latest development.

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