38. Raid of Solemnace

Within the confines of Solemnace, a structure of age beyond the concept of mortal mind and an equal complexity, appearance, purpose, and functioning, was at its heart a strange skeletal figure of metal, the master of the lieu.

His expression, which should have been unreadable by the lack of organic material such as muscles, proved quite the contrary as a frown existed and his eyes glowed a deeper sickly green.

Tapping the but of his staff, the Emphatic Obliterator, on the ground, the sound echoed far and wide across an array of incompressible displays from the smallest and most insignificant of animals to a mummified specimen of a Neveborn species that had driven to extinction the most ancient biological sapient life form of the Milky Ways.

"That does not bode well for a salutary visit." Trazyn the Infinite exclaimed with a sound regimescent of a tongue clicking as he rapidly walked in a circle for twenty thousand five hundred sixty-ninth time, the long brilliant cape behind fluttering dramatically in a non-existent breeze.

It had been so long since the Necron Overlord and self-proclaimed guardian of history and relics felt such a way for little he could feel, and it wasn't one of the most appetizing ones—quite the opposite.

The ancient Necron Lord was as greatly displeased as to why a sensation of the like graced his non-existent cold heart. Unwanted visitors desiring to desecrate his domain were around, but the conditions behind their presence were not any less displeasing.

It shouldn't have been possible to locate his Tomb World within the galaxy, and that was because it hadn't been there, a fact that was not unique to his territory but pushed here a few degrees further. The Great Sleep, an act put into effect after the War in Heaven by the last of the existing Triarch, the Silent King, where his oath of silence was broken for the shattered Infinite Empire to retreat, hide, and enter a deep slumber until the time was ripe to awaken and regain what was stolen.

A choice based on prophecies heralded by some of the greatest of astromancers, such as his most hated enemy. It was to wait out for the most psychically gifted slave race of the Old Ones to drive itself to near extinction, and then they would awaken.

Trazyn was above this, and so he did not follow the 'strongly worded advice' for one simple and valid reason, of course. Who was there but him as the unbiased collector of history to steward it and understand its infinite intricacies? Certainly not the teetering addicts to degeneracy calling themselves the Aeldari.

And it was said addicts were currently trying and slowly succeeding in violating the sanctity of Solemnace as they did to everything with a hole or any equivalent, most often optionally artificially created.

Their fall into decadence and the subsequent reasons why among failed genocides from one of their oh-so-precious godlings. What would one expect from a psychic construct with only thoughts of murder, rage, and violence on a galactic scale?

It was like expecting a civilized conversation on the philosophy of peace with an Ork to go well. It was madness and stupidity, pure and simple.

But their masquerade of a civilization barely above that of a herd of grazing mindless herbivores running happily to a pit of flesh-eating acid was not of the current matter.

They were invading him! The gall, but it opened hundreds of questions, each more irking than the last. How did they find this place? How did they even know of the precise dimensional coordinate? How did they lock space and time itself on the exact frequencies that would shatter most escape options?

Unless the force attacking him was far, far, far grandeur, that was precisely the case from the collected data. However, any fear or anger he might have was not for his safety but for everything else.

Well, only partially, he was not deluded about the ingenious capability of the knife-ears to turn him into the most unspeakable things for nothing more than a passing puppet show if he were to be captured propper. It was only this twisted affair that they were superior to the Necron.

"Activating the Blackstone Pillars would prove… Effective but extensively destructive in theirs. Unacceptable parameters to abide by." He mumbled in irritation, tapping a metal finger on his metal chin in deep thought.

Indeed, turning these structures on would prove scarily effective. Trazyn had made sure for his Crypteks to take extensive care of them, and as such, they likely were one of the few remaining reality-enforcing devices of such quality in existence. After all, they were just as much part of his curation as any other items, their functionality charging little to their status.

And there came the problem and why he wasn't turning them on to full capacity at this instant. His collection was not purely lacking in psychic nature; on the contrary, even. As such, it came to evidence that activating the Blackstone Pillars would destroy an exorbitant quantity of his painstakingly collected hoard.

It was unacceptable.

Yet, it would work. Without the Archdjinni of the Rings, they were absolute to a point where not even the other Aeldari Gods could function in these anti-psychic fields. It would kill any would-be invader. It was why the War in Heaven would have been won if not for the insanity of Great Old One Cthylla.

From these points, Trazyn was in a great internal dilemma, which was why he had ordered the end of the Great Sleep for the billions upon billions of Necron still in stasis of his world to prepare for the battle.

He wasn't without options. Diplomacy was a possibility currently ongoing, and so was contacting… a certain cyclopean individual. To say the last was a close second to the activation of the reality fields would be putting it lightly.

Alas, diplomacy in the following hours showed remarkably unsatisfactory results, and any further attempts to contact the Aeldari proved futile or were answered with elegantly worded insults. Their verbatim levels of which he rarely was a victim. And in response to the insolent vermins, he might or might not have answered in kind a few thousand times, reducing a zeroing possibility into one infinitely deep in the negative.

He didn't even get the exact reason for their coming! And since logic was an alien concept to them, he couldn't predict their goals or if there were goals beyond the total annihilation of his Tomb World like many others.

This righteous act left him with only one solution, one he viscerally hated, but sacrifice needed to be made. Stomping on the ground, his arms flailing around in anger, he settled down, his mental preparation done.

"Orikan." He called cooly through a device shaped like a sarcophagus with only noticeable features: a glowing green symbol of a half circle connected by a straight line to a circle itself ending in four lines. A symbol he would have scratched off not for its importance in the device's functioning.

"I desire an exchange of favor between peers." Trazyn continued the mere insinuations of their equal status, almost physically hurting him. However, he knew that saying that would irk his counterpart equally, and as such, he would do so again and again.

There was a long minute of silence, then a sickly green hologram of the Necron Cryptek he called manifested, the size in such a way the cyclop could look down on him. It was a petty power play he wisely ignored.

"I will hear you, but be swift; time is precious, and yours evaporates. It would be wise not to let it flow into the sand of history." Came the sardonic reply edging on jubilant joy among a sea of unhidden displeased annoyance.

"Let's not play games, Orikan. Do you comprehend the reasons for my calling, or do I overestimate your capabilities?" Trazyn replied curly, the hold on his staff tightening.

"Mayhaps yes, mayhap no, the Devil's rebirth and awakening tragically blur my sight. I cannot assure you that your accusations are founded in reality or dementia. But I do accept your offer." The Necron Cryptek said cryptically in response.

"The Devil? His death was grossly exaggerated, it seems. And what of it?" Trazyn probed. There was more to it than what was let on. There had always been something about his rival on this God of Darkness, a minute shift he sensed.

"Everything, Trazyn, everything, from the massacre of the arrogant saurians, children, and adults to the existence of the Necron to this day, even after the greatest of defeat since time immemorial." The astromancer revealed, and Trazyn took a lengthy second processing what was said and its implication, explaining grand mysteries filled with inconsistencies he barely grasped until this moment.

Trazyn understood that the Diviner had commuted with the Archdjinni of the Rings.

"You are a traitor." He said more of an emotionless statement than an accusation.

"And so are you by not heeding my auguries. You assented for our species to undergo the cursed gift of the Deceiver. You eagerly partook in the destruction of our people. If there were a traitor here, it wouldn't be me." Orikan answered back in a similar tone, but venom could be tasted behind that statement.

"I did no such thing, Orikan." Trazyn exclaimed in silent rage, certain of his words on the matter; the bio-transfer had been forced upon him. Yet, at least he embraced it instead of brooding on an inaccessible, unchangeable past. If it were a denial of reality or reality itself, both Necron would swear otherwise.

Then the world shook, and a magnificent pottery representing the three suns of an unknown planet shattered on the ground. Alarms quickly followed it and further shook, destroying even more priceless art of long-gone species and ancient cultures.

"Lord Trazyn, the dimensional realms are shifting. They are slithering through the fissures. What are your orders?" The smooth, suave voice of Sannet echoed after the sound of air collapsing, causing the one-eyed Necron of the two to snort in amusement, the timeline of the event confirming his suspicion.

"Already, your defenses are failing? Appealing to me at such a time, foolishness has not left you, it seems. But I won't judge your dubious choice and reasoning; accept this information and follow the instructions. There is little time to waste." Orikan said mockingly, offering a green flying rectangle of light to Trazyn, who, grumbling, took the data packet and shared it with his Arch-Cryptek with a summary of what had been said.

"What manner of arcane wizardry is this madness?! Shattering the veil and pulling through the Abyss of the Immaterium by interfacing by psionic matrixes… What is this realm? How are those layered calculus connecting to the-what is that? What is this language? This doesn't make any sense! I don't understand!" Sannet was the first to voice his thoughts, but he understood that it was essentially a 'spell' with the purpose of 'cutting' a fragment of the Materium and 'pasting' it elsewhere.

"I see," Trazyn said in a far calmer tone, calculating the dimensions given to what could be saved from his museum, and he didn't like the result at all. With that, he could save a non-insignificant portion of what the Blackstone Pillars would destroy. He wasn't pleased, but sacrifices were required, or all would be lost.

"Open gates through the annotated coordinate by following the protocols, and we can begin." And with those last words, the life-like holographic image of Orikan the Diviner fizzled out.

"Do as he said," Trazyn ordered.

"I must inform you of the great consequences this reckless act will have on our weakened defense's integri-" The Arch-Cryptek couldn't finish, interrupted by his Overlord with a wide, dramatic hand gesture.

"I know, Sannet, but unless you would prefer the alternative, I order you to follow their instructions to their every last-minute detail. My punishment, if you fail this simple command, if you fail this simple command will be lesser than our uninvited guest as I do not possess the same mastery with their twisted toys. But you do not want to experience their wonder no matter their wielders?" Trazyn hissed the threat with a brilliant flash of light as he vanished to begin organizing his collection for defense and safekeeping.

Left alone, Sannet placed a vase back on its pedestal and glared with his vibrant optics at the expense of the collection spanning to the heaven where the sky was shattering, and he followed on his liege command. The recent burst of information changed things for the worse, no matter the outcome of the ongoing event.

Unless he was ready to forgo everything and prepare for the worst by working on achieving that until his given task came first, even if he was doubting it from start to end, freeing the C'tan shards for them to devour each other and form a complete one was a more sound plan than flinging a tenth of the planet to somewhere unknown.

It didn't matter if it came from someone as esteemed as Orikan the Diviner. He could as well be a trusted ally as a death-sworn enemy.

*

My P@treon if you are interested.

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