Chapter 315: One from the Warehouse, One for Me
For the following month, Nor'n entered a state of pure focused craftsmanship.
Four hours of sleep per night. Every remaining hour: at the forge.
For himself, he produced a full set of reinforced armour plates, a master-crafted bolter, a thunder hammer, and a combat shield.
For Antonius: two mechadendrite legs, one adamantium drill bit, and a collection of smaller adamantium components.
For Kian: the greatsword already delivered, one large shield, a set of Enhanced Heavy Reactive Power Armour — system-rated at Protection Level 7.5 — one adamantium monomolecular combat knife, and one mortal-pattern bolt rifle.
"Fully automatic," Nor'n mentioned when he handed it over. "I've worked alongside Battle Sisters before — this pattern follows their standard. Fires bolts on full auto. Extremely aggressive output."
Kian held up the ruined butt stock of the Lumberer before Nor'n could move on.
"Nor'n — could you forge me a replacement barrel for this? Twenty millimetre, Lumberer pattern."
He explained: "There's a Wrathful Machine Spirit inside this gun. Unlimited ammunition draw — the Spirit pulls rounds straight from the Immaterium rather than running from a physical feed.
Only problem is it can't stop shooting once it starts, and it melts its own barrel from the sustained output. Last time I used it on the hulk, it fired close to ten thousand rounds and killed nearly a thousand Orks before it burned itself out."
Nor'n stared at the butt stock with genuine interest.
Antonius couldn't contain himself. He launched across the room.
"A Machine Spirit?! Did you just say Machine Spirit?!
Give that to me right now! You cannot modify a blessed mechanical construct that carries a Machine Spirit, I absolutely forbid it!!"
Kian stepped between him and the gun.
"Back off. This is mine."
Tech-priests were famously possessive about machinery with active Machine Spirits — especially anything displaying behaviours that defied conventional physics, like unlimited ammunition generation. It made them territorial in a way that went beyond reason and into something closer to religious frenzy.
"Give it to me! You're not qualified to care for it! Only servants of the Omnissiah can properly maintain a Spirit like this!!"
He lunged for the gun. Kian kept him off it.
Antonius was almost vibrating with distress. A Machine Spirit this active, this clearly manifested — an extraordinarily rare thing. And this violent, careless man had owned it, used it until it physically broke, and now wanted to modify it further.
The image that came to Antonius's mind — which he found deeply upsetting — was not one that needed to be shared. Suffice to say he felt profound, jealous outrage on the Spirit's behalf.
When the grab attempt failed, Antonius shifted tactics.
"I want that gun. If you refuse to hand it over, our partnership ends here. I walk out, I tell Magos Traiton everything, and this whole operation gets demolished."
Kian snorted.
"Your hands aren't clean either, Father. Don't play that game with me.
You want to blow everything up? Fine. Then I tell Nor'n exactly what your lot have been doing — digging up Necrons in our star system and planning to let more of them loose."
The Sons of Vulkan were one of the very few Chapters with a genuine, documented commitment to the lives of ordinary Imperial citizens. That was the whole point of them.
If Nor'n learned that the Mechanicus had located a Necron tomb, and rather than sealing it, were actively pushing to excavate further — the reaction would not be measured.
Mechanicus and Astartes maintained productive working relationships throughout the Imperium, but at the end of the day they were two independent factions, and the Imperium had a long tradition of those factions going to war with each other over far smaller grievances.
The Mechanicus wasn't afraid of a single Astartes or even a whole Chapter, exactly, but they'd prefer not to have that particular conversation triggered unnecessarily.
Antonius took a step back. A meek smile spread across his face.
"Ha... merely jesting, Count. Merely jesting."
Kian gave him a long look, then handed the Lumberer's remains to Nor'n and left the forge to deal with other matters.
The xenos-kill mission was complete — which meant the Emperor's Shrine was ready to advance to Level 3. Which meant he needed to acquire the upgrade materials: three relics, specifically, items that had absorbed large quantities of faith from Imperial citizens or Ecclesiarchy personnel over long periods of time.
The criteria weren't spelled out precisely, but Kian had a reasonable working theory of what qualified.
He drove to the Ecclesiarchy's spire in the upper hive and met with the Planetary Bishop.
"I need three relics," he said, without preamble. "Can you help me with this?"
The Bishop, for his part, was perfectly willing to help someone he suspected of being a Living Saint — the more favours owed between them, the deeper the relationship, and the more interesting their future collaboration might become.
"Of course, Count. Follow me. I'll take you to the reliquary — take whatever you need."
They moved to a heavily armoured chamber lined floor to ceiling with glass display cases, each one housing an object of apparent historical or religious significance.
The Bishop pointed to a circlet in the nearest case.
"This belonged to the first Planetary Bishop of this world — the man who established the faith on this planet from nothing. One of the oldest relics we possess."
He opened the case and offered it to Kian.
Kian opened the system interface and pulled up the item's listing.
Excavated last week. Mass-produced. Wholesale price, Synthetic Fabrication District. Suggested retail markup: enormous.
He looked at the Bishop for a long moment.
The Bishop looked back, visibly confused.
"Count? Is something the matter?"
Kian studied the man's expression. He genuinely seemed baffled. No performance. He apparently had no idea this was a reproduction.
Kian's expression shifted into something close to pity.
"Nothing. Just... one from the warehouse, one for me. That's how it always goes."
He set the circlet back, moved to the next case.
He went through a dozen so-called relics, one by one, checking each against the system's assessment.
Not one of them passed. Either confirmed reproductions, or genuine items that simply didn't carry enough accumulated faith-energy to qualify. The whole collection was, from a system standpoint, essentially useless.
The Bishop had been watching this process with increasing unease. By the end, he'd drawn his own conclusion.
His expression went dark.
"Someone in my organisation has been stealing the real relics and replacing them with fakes. There must be an informant. I will conduct a thorough purge."
Several days later, a fire broke out in the Ecclesiarchy's reliquary.
A large number of rare, genuinely ancient sacred objects — some with histories stretching back thousands of years — were lost in the blaze.
A tragedy, truly.
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