Chp 4: Temperance

A day after his unfortunate coupling with a vine, Adam was subjected to the extreme mental torture that was Kaldor's lessons in avoiding corruption from the warp.

----

'Imagine your mind as a submarine on the planet of Armageddon' said Kaldor sitting just above the water'.

'What's a sub...' replied Adam quickly scratching his head with a funny look on his face.

'Imagine a warp craft but in a sea...', seeing the dumb look on Adam's face, Kaldor thought it best just to meet the next question before it came, '.... which is a large body of water found on the many planets amongst the vast swathes of the imperium where life can survive.

Perhaps a sub is a bad example, I've never mentioned it before, because only a few planets PDF ever make use of them, however, they work well as an analogy for the point I'm trying to make, plus they tend to be a forgotten dimension of war when dealing with Ork infestations, remember that one'.

Waiting for it to sink in Kaldor continued.

'When you are on the surface you are exposed to the elements, which can be calm or a furious raging storm. This is what a Psyker feels just existing, the more powerful they are the worse it is. In some circumstances, this storm will be enough to send an untrained Psyker to the depths of madness in of itself'.

'You can then imagine making use of the warp, as descending into the depths of the ocean, your main concern is no longer the storm above, which still affects you but is by no means still the primary risk, which is in fact threefold'.

'First is the risk of being swept away by a current into its depths of the warp, this is what you exposed yourself to when you wandered with no direction.

But you were saved by one simple fact, here the spiritual and the physical overlap somewhat. In the materium your attempts to extract yourself from its thorns would be like trying to hit a wraith with a spade you could swing and swing and never hit the damn thing'.

'Which is why when you draw on the warp you must know exactly how much and from where you intend to draw', Kaldor said firmly.

Adam sweat dropped.

'The second danger' continuing in stride 'is the sentient creatures of the warp. But the danger is not really the vast ranks that make up the demonic forces of chaos, but the ones that prey on your mind. You must always be aware of their presence'.

'To provide another waterborne analogy, drawing on the warp is much like bleeding into the sea whilst banging on a drum and shouting come eat me which could draw all the beasties in from the surrounding area, for instance, a particularly mean Kraken from Fenris, which before long would have you trapped in a tentacled limb and dragged into the icy depths below.'

'If you continue to use the warp at this stage its grip will only tighten on your mind and it will breach through your mental defences no matter how strong. For to draw you must allow a way in.

If that ever happens cut your connection immediately, expelling what's left of the warp from you as fast as you can or else you will be devoured at that point of no return'.

Which is also why there is such a necessity to also be skilled in more mundane forms of combat when using the warp becomes too risky.'

Adam groaned remembering the physical conditioning, cough torture Kaldor had put him through from the age of four.

'Was the plant one of these predators' asked Adam, struggling to concentrate through the rhythmic pulse of pain coming from the massive cut up his leg.

'No fortunately it wasn't, it was only a source of power in the warp, an aspect of growth, part of Nurgles domain, for decay and life are like two faces of the same coin. If you knew how to use it, you could have turned your skin to bark or controlled the roots to attack an unsuspecting assailant'.

'So I almost got done in by the collective thoughts of plants' Adam said sounding embarrassed.

'That you did' replied Kaldor, looking rather smug.

Finally, there's the greatest risk, but one you're entirely in control of.

Going too deep or too deep too fast. Your body like a sub can only take so much pressure, but you can go much deeper much quicker than you can realise you have gone beyond what you can withstand, this can burn out the very soul of a Psyker if they attempt to use more of the warp than they are capable of. This is why when you draw on the warp do so as little as possible and if there is no other option choose to die .... as the death of the body is much preferable to burning out and extinction of your soul.'

'Now can I try and use the warp' said Adam

'Absolutely not, were YOU even listening' shouted Kaldor, 'no you will build your mental defences and only when they are as strong as adamantite and you can clear your mind at the drop of a krak grenade, will I give you the freedom to dip a toe into the waters of warp'.

'Now onto building your mental defences'.

The next day

Adams's lessons had been cut short today as Kaldor's head whipped towards the horizon sensing something.

'We go now, we only have a short window to make it' he said sharply.

Standing up he turned and walked towards the direction in which he had been looking at not even pausing to see whether Adam was following.

'My leg' shouted Adam after him after it was clear he was off, 'It's too sore to walk'. Kaldor grunting, turned back without a word grabbed him by the back of his pants and dropped him on his wide hulking pauldrons.

Carefully shifting his head to look at Adam who was sitting on his right shoulder, 'Be careful with the purity seals if you mess one up there's no member of the eclisiarchy to give me a new one, those fanatics don't tend to last long in the warp as their perception of reality tends to crumble their brains quickly'.

'Hold on'

Kaldor launched into a jog quickly reaching a speed of 35mph.

----

After a few hours, they left the red dusty rock outcroppings behind which made up the outskirts of the Great Bulwark and began to see the bright pulsing light of the boiling span ahead

(The southernmost reaches of Khornes realm, evidently the warp doesn't work like that but for simplicities sake, I'm going with it).

Adam could see far in the distance a great moon in the sky, which on second glance seemed to wink at him.

What the, he thought confused like an Ogryn in a maths test.

'See that lava' below pointed out Kaldor still moving at the pace of a family car.

'Yes' replied Adam swallowing hard as his mouth was dried out from the ever-growing heat, even hundreds of meters away, where they stood.

'You can't see it yet but soon enough a string of chained isles will rise up and out of it'.

'How do you know that' asked Adam?

'I have travelled its great length before, but more obviously if you look just at the lip of the plateau you can see black links of chain beginning to move, when the islands rise they rise fast and we won't have long to reach the other side and escape out into the formless wastes.

Arriving at the lip Kaldor and Adam waited with bated breath, watching as the massive dangling length of chain draped into the lava sea below.

'Whooooosh'

The first island jumped out of the lava quickly gaining popping up like a buoyancy aid forced out under the water. Before the length of the chain even moved Kaldor leapt out into the air travelling tens of meters in an arc, before plummeting like a tank out of c-130, gathering speed by the second.

'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh' screamed Adam.

Then the chain whipped out under and up towards them, which Kaldors bent feet met, HARD, quickly dropping to his knees as he slid down its quickly raising length, sparks shooting off.

After ten seconds of truly narly rail slide down, the length of chain reached above the horizontal plane as a consequence of the island still leaping into the air, the next few islands popping up in the background.

As their inertia expended itself, Kaldor kicked the floor, causing it to whip like a wave down its length, hitting the island with a bang, before the wave motion returned launching them back through the air, clearing the first island before they tumbled down towards the second island.

Adam on Kaldor's shoulder held on for dear life. The old man's smile made it look like he had truly lost his marbles this time or at the very least was in the final extreme later-stages of dementia.

Landing with a skid Kaldor not losing any momentum leapt towards the next chain running up its length and towards the third island. Before long he had to use his arms to climb as the incline approached seventy degrees. Finally hauling them both onto the small island. He pushed on stopping only for a single breath, running towards its other edge only to stop suddenly.

'Oh ... No' said Kaldor.

Staring off into the air where the next rising island should be.

'It's missing'

'What's missing' said Adam who was mentally still somewhere on the first island.

'The Island' said Kaldor, 'Our way up, something must have happened to it', looking down at the dangling length of chain, swinging loose and broken beneath them.

With a shudder the island reached it's apex.

'We're going to have to swim' stated Kaldor

'Swim it's lava' said Adam mouth open wide.

'Hopefully my armour will remain in one peice long enough to reach the bank of the lava sea it's only about four hundred meters'.

The island was now already half way back to the spitting surface of the boiling lava below.

(Lavas' max temperature is 1200 degrees centigrade there is no published melting point for ceramite but it's made from a ceramic base which typically have heat resistance to at least 3000 degrees. Lore wise plasma weapons melt it which are about 5'500 degrees so I feel comfortable saying Kaldors armour wouldn't immediately melt plus he's functionally unkillable after M'Kar was killed by virtue of the curse put on him).

Kaldor quickly placed Adam on the island the surface of the soles of his boots melting almost immediately on the still sweltering island. The boots were scavenged off the fresh corpse of Cadian shock trooper who had dropped out of the air and onto a pile of other corpses they had wandered past three months earlier.

He knelt down in front of Adam, looking serious, placing one hand on his shoulder.

'You're not ready to learn cellular control, but you have to learn fast so we are taking a short cut else you will be a steam-boiled lobster before we reach the other side even if you don't touch the lava lying on my back.'

Kaldor is now back in teacher mode at 2.5 times speed.

'The purpose of cellular control is to dispel and protect the effects of moving in an environment', 'To do so you need is balance your humours and then pass warp energies through your meridians in a specific sequence to achieve various effects. Which I'd teach you over the course of about a week, but...' looking down over the edge, You have about fourteen seconds to grasp it'.

'Close your eyes, think back to when you opened yourself to the warp' said Kaldor hurriedly.

Quickly clearing his mind of his emotions as he had been taught, Adam carefully opened his mind to the warp, feeling the raging wrath of the mountain in close proximity.

'Now cast your mind further towards the crystal realm and feel the icy cold in its reaches'

Adam did so letting it throw through him, feeling, ice quickly spreading through his cells a think later forming all across his skin.

'Quickkkk before it consumes you, feel the heat around you draw it in till it forms a balance with the cold'.

The island hit the lava with a splash.

'Jump on my back now it's sink or swim' said Kaldor.

Adam scrambled up Kaldor, face flashing between pale and flushed as his control teetered from one extreme to another, trying to do two things at once.

The island began shaking as it teetered to one side forcing Kaldor knee-deep into the lava.

The heat quickly conducted through Kaldor's armour started to feel scalding to Adams's exposed skin.

'Ahhhhhhhhh' he yowled.

The heat got hotter as it rose to Kaldor's waist.

Bright blisters formed all over his hands the heat now unbearable, the section of metal beneath his feet now starting to turn orange.