"Hahahhhahaha... The look on your face is priceless... HahahhhahahaAhahahaha."
Getting laughed at by her own supposed partner must have wounded her pride judging by the face she was making.
"What's your answer Eldar?"
She made a face as if she was going through the most challenging decision in her life before nodding her in great difficulty. I can tell since the veins were popping out of her face.
"Though it grieveth me to say it, I shall agree to thy terms, monke—"
She paused and a flicker of annoyance crossed her face.
"—Human."
I nodded my head as a slight smirk crossed my face.
"Good girl. That wasn't so difficult now was it?"
My tone was dripping with sarcasm and amusement as I watched her physically recoil at being called a 'good girl' while the daemon cackled madly in the warp.
"Hahahhhahaha... he called you a good girl... HahahahhahahhaAhah."
Her face contorted as if she was constipated.
I shook my head before calling out to Lappland to come and fetch Mari and get her introduced to Seris.
"Oh I forgot to ask this but does your partner have a name?"
"Oh~ you want my name~.... I'm Syll'vane. Always a pleasure~"
Syll'vane. Sibyl Vane. Why did I think of that book just now?
I put that thought at the back of my mind for now as Lappland came in.
"Boss I'm here!"
I ended up chuckling. Lappland or Lappy as she likes being called is a spontaneous ball of energy that just lightens up the mood when she comes. I gave her a pat on the head and scratching her favorite spot right behind her ears causing her to release a soft growl and her tail to wag loosely. She immediately relaxed and her guard down.
She must have been tense the whole time since meeting Mari.
"I want you to take her to Seris and have her give Mari tour of the place."
"Hmmm~"
"I also want you and the other teams to train with her since she's more experienced in combat then the rest of you and she will also help point out your flaws and how to correct them."
"Hmmmmm~"
I don't think she paying attention. I shook my head and looked at Mari and Syll'vane.
"I will fucking kill you both if I detect any kind of psychic tempering on my people, got that?"
—Snort—
"As if I would deign to do such a thing for those beneath me."
That arrogant and disdainful tone makes me want to strangle her but that's something she wants me to do. She's fucking rage baiting and it's working.
I took a deep breath and exhaled to calm myself.
I am calm. I am above this. A little bit of rage bait won't make me lose my temper. Just let it slide. DoNt LEt YoUrseFl gET ANgry.
With a calm and peaceful smile, I looked at them and just tugged that psychic tether of their's a bit and FUCKING CRACKED IT.
I saw the aftermath immediately.
Mari was on the ground clutching her head in pain, blood coming out of all her orifices while in the warp Syll'vane was howling in pain, clutching her chest.
Walking up to her twitching body, I put my hand on her head and immediately rammed her mental defenses only to jump back and dodge a dagger aiming for my throat.
"Ahh~ what a shame~ I didn't think you'd recover that quickly."
I nonchalantly said and went back to patting the whimpering Lappland.
"Thou vile cur!!!"
—Snort—
"I told you didn't I? I don't like to be messed with. So get your shit together and decide. Stay or leave."
So they can transfer their pain to one another. No its Mari transferring her pain to Syll'vane and she's feeding on it, growing stronger bit by bit. I don't think Mari noticed that fact or maybe she did but doesn't give a shit cause she more pissed at me.
As expected from a former member of the Wych cult.
I saw her take a deep breath to calm herself while Syll'vane seems to be panting in.... pleasure? Wait did she a have an orgasim?
I wanted to facepalm. Of course she gonna find pleasure in pain. She a fucking Slaneesh daemon.
Great sage whatever value you saw in them better be worth it otherwise we gonna have to throw hands.
[Answer: Noted. Current score between unique skill great sage and skill bearer is currently: 20-0.]
Fuck you.
[Answer: I have no body.]
—Tsk—
I saw her spit her blood on the floor and give me a dark look.
"I shall deign to co-operate with thee and remain. Give thanks for such mercy."
And she's back. I honestly thought she would attack me but it looks like she's more rational then I thought.
"— Mind thyself, lest thou turn thy back and find thy fate upon thee before thou even knowest the blow was dealt."
Why do I even try to apply common sense with her.
"Lappy take her away~"
—Whimper—
"I'll call you for more headpat when I'm done dealing with 626."
"Okay!! Don't break your promis boss. Come Drukhari!!"
"Release me, thou mon— human."
And just like that the enthusiastic Lappland dragged the dark Eldar away.
Now let's get down to business.
__☆__
I'm now alone in my lab, the area isolated from both realspace and the warp.
"Alright start talking great sage. Why did you convince me to let them live? I could have easily breach into her mind if I went mad scientist mode so why?"
[Answer: It is because the Prince of Pleasure is keeping an eye on 'them'.]
That made me freeze for a bit. Slaneesh is watching over them? I know I brought over a ticking time bomb but it seems like the bomb is way more dangerous then I thought.
I settled into a chair and opened up my monitor. It gave off a particular high frequency— machine spirits just love me — and then it opens up to the cameras I installed in the base. I immediately zoom in on them.
Looks like Seris is having a hard time dealing with Mari. I'll have to reward her later. I'm almost done with her and her squads weapons and when I'm done they'll probably be the strongest squad by far.
"Continue."
[Answer: As you know daemons are created from the essence of the Chaos gods and Syll'vane in particular was specifically created to monitor and slowly feed on Mari soul. I don't know how they met and how Mari was convinced into this 'symbiotic' relationship but it's—]
—chuckle—
"It's a complete sham, isn't it?"
[Answer: Affirmative. What we saw as her soul being black and white was just camouflage, a mirage. Mari has already lost half of her soul and doesn't even know.]
I wanted to burst out laughing at this. This is crazy. Absolutely fucking crazy.
"Your thinking of turning her— no, both of them into our test subjects aren't you?"
[Answer: Affirmative. They meet the requirements needed for 'that' project, along with experimentation on soul restoration and operation 'God slayer'. We need the data from them to complete and continue onwards on the path we chose.]
"Hahaha... HahahhhahahaAhahahaha!!!"
Oh this is priceless! She was just a puppet on strings. Prey thinking they're the predator. The hunted thinking that they're the hunter.
~ My hands are shaking! My head is spinning! I love this shit! ~
"~Ahh~~ I really wonder how'd she feel and look like when she finds out... hahhaha~"
"~I can't wait~~"
__☆__
3rd POV.
Ever since that battle against the horde of The Damned. Against those plaguebearers. Something had changed or broke —whatever word suits it better— in Arthur and he noticed.
There is no normal person out there who has killed hundreds of thousands of beings and still remain the same. There's no way someone would still remain sane after seeing hundreds of thousands of souls being tortured, tormented, and devoured without being able to do anything. There's no way for someone to remain sane after seeing and somewhat understand the horrors of the warp.
A normal person would go completely crazy. Even those with a strong will would go insane.
Now imagine Arthur. A person who went from just your average person to someone who sees more then most, understands more than most and has the power apply what they understand and use it to its fullest potential.
Now, what would happen when if that person was corrupted and broken by the knowledge he has, broken by what he has seen. And is on the verge of insanity only held back by his unique skill and his people's faith.
Faith is tangible force in the warhammer 40k and he is actively using it to cleanse himself from 'THEIR' influence, from 'THEIR' corruption.
He KNOWS 'THEY'RE' watching him. He knows that he's a variable in 'THEIR' plans. And he know that 'THEY'RE' going to come after him. To use him. To break him. To devour him. Yet he's only curious. How long will this cat and mouse game go on and who's gonna outsmart who. Who's gonna use who. And WHO'S GONNA GET DEVOURED IN THE END.
He knows he's in a dangerous situation, an extremely dangerous one at that but he doesn't care.
Fear? What's that?
Anger? Can he eat it?
Caution? Who's ever heard of that?
All he feels is curiosity and that's dangerous if it's not kept in check.
It's as the saying goes curiosity killed the cat—
And he's about to learn and see the consequences of his curiosity if not kept in check.
__☆__
Arthur's POV.
[Query: Have you calmed down now?]
Yeah sorry about that. Looks like the corruption is feeding on my curiosity and making me more unstable.
[Answer: It does. Now back to what I was saying, Syll'vane is an important subject because she is more connected to Slaneesh then other Chaos demons, she reports to THEM, her location is always on THEIR radar. If she dies THEY will immediately know and open a hole where her death was last recorded. What she sees, THEY see, what she hears, THEY hear and what she feeds on, THEY feel it.]
"Damn. Okay now that's really bad. This also means THEY might have me on their radar too."
I realized I might be fucked if I don't handle this carefully and cleanly without THEM finding out that I know.
"So now I need to learn how to fool the senses of a chaos god, just wonderful."
I spun in my chair while in deep thought. I already have tech that can suppress ones psychic signiture, sever it, contain it, locate it and now I have the means to study how to nullify it or even amplify it, if needed.
Since I'm working on creating a safe zone of my on in the warp I will need to uses Syll'vane to gather data and continuously refine and improve the technique until I have a completely sealed of zone in the warp where I can trap and contain any warp entities. I can also place my soul there so that it remains hidden from THEM when I get the chance.
—Sigh—
"The things I do to keep myself and my people safe. Already thinking of scheming against chaos gods at this stage in my life is already bad enough, now I'm already at the risk of corruption."
So how goes the purification rate? And what about knowledge acquisition on the warp drive?
I've been building my spaceship in the G.O.B ever since I got enough material and now a perfectly advanced ship is about to be delivered to me to take apart and learn more on Eldar tech. For some reason I can't find anything on them in the warp or maybe someone or something is blocking our search.
Meh if I can find it I'll create one myself.
[Answer: It is going well. Soul purification is about 10% complete. Knowledge on warp travel has been aquired and is being analyzed. Currently removing any defects and filtering false information.]
Hmmm. This false information again huh.
Seems like THEY really wanna mess with me. Looks like I'll have to step in and help. Inform me when your done so that we can start building our warp drive.
After Vera and her squad are well rested, I'll send them to retreave the ship so I can dismantle it. I'll also need to pick up on my training too.
I got up and used telekinesis to gather my tools and materials need for new invention.
"It's time to build a teleporter and a storage device for the squads."
It's time to get back to work. Immediately a golden protal appeared in front of me.
"Great sage, play the Feel Good Inc cover by Leo."
[Answer: On it.]
—skrrrr—
The vox turned on and then the song started.
~ Feel good ~
~ Sha-ba, sha-ba, sha-ba-da-ba, feel good ~
Once the beat started, I walked into the portal. I've got a long day ahead of me and I can't waste any more time then I did dealing with those two.
__☆__
And chapter 14 ends like that. Honestly I feel like this chapter is a jumbled mess even when I was rewriting it but it at least captured what I wanted to convey and that is how much Arthur has changed and how he knows more then he let's on.
Hope you guys liked how I dealt with Mari and her situation since comments from the last chapter helped me see how bad Arthur's situation is and now he knows but he still took the risk anyway. All for the sake of science.
Anyway hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.
Omni out ~