Bonus chapter for reaching 1400 Powerstones
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To ensure the safety of the Crusade, Guilliman orchestrated the fleet's formation with the precision of a master conductor.
The Macragge's Honour held the center, a sun orbited by a constellation of escort ships. From massive battleships to nimble frigates, every vessel held a pre-calculated position, overlapping their firing solutions to ensure that the fleet could react as a single, devastating entity to any threat.
But the first threat did not come from the Warp. It came from within.
The Pride of Hera was an aging vessel. Despite the extensive maintenance and the binary blessings of the Tech-Priests before departure, the old ship lived up to the curse of its years. Shortly after the fleet went into the Warp, disaster struck.
Its main cooling pipes ruptured.
Scalding steam flooded the lower decks, turning the ship into a pressurized cooker. On the surface, it appeared to be a routine malfunction of an ancient machine spirit straining against the Empyrean.
But Guilliman's honed intuition caught a whiff of something else. Something unnatural.
A team of Tech-Priests was immediately dispatched for emergency repairs. Zeke, whose task was to establish a logistics network by building Nether Portals on every major ship, tagged along with the repair crew.
The assault boat slammed onto the landing deck of the Pride of Hera. The moment the hatch hissed open, a wall of heat punched them in the face.
Zeke stepped into the connecting passage, his face instantly flushing red. Sweat beaded on his forehead before he had taken two steps. The visibility was near zero, the air thick with choking white steam.
It's like a sauna in here, Zeke thought.
He didn't idle. While the Tech-Priests rushed off, Zeke set up a Nether Portal frame, linking it back to the main hub on the Macragge's Honour.
The temperature inside the cabin was pushing fifty degrees Celsius. The mortal crew was suffering, gasping for air in the oppressive heat.
Zeke reached into his inventory and pulled out blocks of Packed Ice, mined from Klaisus.
Defying the laws of physics, these blocks carried the logic of Minecraft: they refused to melt, even in this inferno. Instead, they radiated a supernatural, steady chill.
"Saved..."
The Ultramar Auxilia gathered around the blue blocks like men in a desert finding an oasis, pressing their faces as close to the chill as they dared.
"Tech-Priest, is it fixed yet?" Zeke shouted, leaning against a maintenance panel to cool off.
"Soon," a mechanical voice rasped from the darkness of a vent.
Great. "Soon." Zeke knew the Mechanicus too well. "Fixed" meant hours; "soon" meant they were nowhere close.
Deep inside the maintenance tunnels, the Magos stared at the auspex data in confusion.
The cooling pipes were the source of the failure. But when he examined them, he found them eaten away by rust. The data logs confirmed these pipes had been replaced with fresh plasteel before departure.
Oxidation took time. Why would they rot so quickly?
The Tech-Priest replaced a section of the rusted pipe and turned to check the next junction.
A movement caught his optical sensor. He turned back.
On the surface of the brand-new pipe he had just installed, a layer of dark red rust was blooming. In mere seconds, the metal pitted and flaked.
Hm?
The Tech-Priest leaned in, zooming his lenses. This time, he saw it.
It wasn't chemical oxidation. It was alive.
Countless microscopic entities were clinging to the pipe, jumping and breeding with joyful abandon. They were eating the metal, reducing thick plating to a blackened lattice that groaned under the pressure.
Then, the swarm noticed the Tech-Priest. With a collective chitter, they happily jumped onto him.
Outside in the corridor, the Auxilia soldiers lay groggily against the Packed Ice. Navigating the dangerous Warp meant they dared not remove their armor, which only increased the heat.
"My Lord... can you put down more ice?" a soldier wheezed.
Zeke dropped a few more rows, but he frowned.
Static blocks aren't enough. We need active cooling.
Wait. He grinned. I have just the thing.
Zeke stacked two Snow Blocks vertically. Then, he lifted a Carved Pumpkin and placed it on top.
Rise, Snow Golem!
The blocks fused. The construct sprang to life—a body of packed snow, two stick arms, and a pumpkin head with a goofy, carved grin.
Snow Golem: A friendly mob. It creates snow trails wherever it walks and throws snowballs at enemies.
Thanks to the Cadian regiment's tales, the Auxilia were already familiar with Zeke's "Iron Golems." After an initial moment of flinching, they realized this new, smaller construct was harmless.
Better than harmless—it was useful.
Everywhere the golem waddled, it left a trail of fresh snow layer. The snow sizzled against the hot deck plates, absorbing the heat instantly and cooling the air.
Let's ramp up production.
Zeke built several more. Then, he splashed them with a Potion of Swiftness.
Suddenly energized, the golems began zooming around the cabin, turning into high-speed, infinite snow machines.
A curious young Auxilia soldier looked at the fresh snow accumulating at a golem's feet. He glanced at Zeke, who nodded permission. The soldier scooped up a handful and put it in his mouth.
His eyes widened in pure bliss. In this steamer of a ship, that mouthful of ice was ambrosia.
"It's clean! It's fresh!"
The surrounding soldiers scrambled over. Seeing this, Zeke crafted a stack of wooden Bowls and distributed them. He even pulled some Sugar from his backpack.
"Shaved ice party, boys!"
A group of hardened soldiers crowded around the waddling golems, fiercely scooping snow into their bowls. The golems didn't mind; the snow regenerated instantly under their feet. The soldiers clicked their tongues in wonder, frantically consuming the sugary ice.
The tension in the air vanished, replaced by the crunching of ice and relieved sighs. The oppressive atmosphere of the Warp was diluted by this unexpected absurdity.
As they ate, the soldiers studied the magical creatures.
"Is that... a helmet on their heads?" an Auxilia soldier asked, staring at the pumpkin. "Or is that its actual head?"
Curiosity is human nature, even in the 41st Millennium.
"I bet there's a face under there," another soldier mused. "Probably something stoic. High and cold. Like a killer."
"Hahaha, makes sense!"
Warp travel was dull and terrifying; any distraction was welcome.
Zeke listened to their theories and smirked. He took out two Iron Ingots and crafted a pair of Shears.
"Time to reveal the mystery," he announced.
The soldiers leaned in. Zeke grabbed a passing Snow Golem and right-clicked.
Snip.
The pumpkin helmet popped off. The Snow Golem's true face was revealed.
There were no stoic features. No killer instinct.
Just two tiny, beady eyes set wide apart, and a squiggly line for a mouth that looked like a child's bad drawing of a smile. It radiated pure, empty-headed "wisdom."
The soldiers stared for a second, then erupted into laughter.
Zeke looked at the golem's derpy face and couldn't help but chuckle himself. It didn't matter how grim the universe got; that face was always funny.
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Next Goal: 1500 Powerstones.
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