A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 34: Philia

"This is not over, Defender. We will always be watching, always waiting! The Great Seal will not stand forever, and on the day it falls your kind will pay for its defiance! You have no idea of the fate that you have wrought for your descendants!"

"...And yet, even so, remember on this day that you were defeated."

-Last words of Aenarion the Defender.

Imagine, if you will, an artificial habitat in the shape of a ring, encircling the entirety of a star. That is a ringworld. Such an idea is of course, impractical and nigh-impossible to build in the extreme. The amount of logistics required to move and shape such a colossal amount of building material would be horrendous. The technology required to build life support systems and linking its power needs to the star it orbits would be far beyond what most civilisations could achieve in the duration of their existence. And most of all, what would necessitate the building of something whose living space exceeded a hundred planets?

That is, of course, assuming that the civilisation which built one still faced the problem of scarcity. In the golden age of the Aeldari Empire, Vaul, great patron of craftsmen and builders, God of smiths, laid down a great commandment. "Build me a great ring to encircle a star."

And the god's call was answered. Billions of craftsmen, scientists, engineers and warlocks worked together to bring a god's dream into reality. The Aeldari Empire's first and only ringworld, Harankoulor. A megastructure of truly unfathomable scale, capable of housing tens of trillions of lifeforms in a completely self-sustaining environmental system whose sophistication matched that of the ancient Necrons. Countless fabricator units that could pull energy directly from the Warp to shape into raw material, and countless more psychomaton builder units to repair and expand the ringworld as necessary. At the apex of its glory, there was even talk among the highest echelons of the Aeldari government to relocate the capital from Nagarythe to Harankoulor.

But that was then, when the Aeldari were still the dutiful stewards of the galaxy, just and kind. Now its glory days are no more, for something great and terrible has nested there and made it its home, letting it rot and decay like the soul of its builders.

What was once clean and orderly has now been overtaken by cancerous flesh growths. Various chunks are broken off and drifting, caused by the collateral damage of its inhabitants engaging in petty squabbles with each other, and an entire section shattered during a particular incident when the Mistress of Blades sought to do battle with the master of this once-glorious ring. But the damage is minimal to a structure of such immensity.

Inside is what could be best described as fields upon fields of rolling flesh; bodies cavorting and mingling together in an endless symphony of desire, with the fluids generated from such couplings running around the ringworld like veins. Every sort of carnal pleasure under heaven can be found here, no matter how cruel or depraved or unsightly, and once touched by the unearthly temptations here only the strongest souls can ever hope to escape its clutches. This is the home of the Convocation, the cult under one of the six Dark Muses.

Past the great orgies and banquets that seem to stretch on forever across rooms the size of planets, past the One Thousand and Nine Pleasures of the Dark, past the daemongaols, there was a throne in the center of a neverending cacophony of noise and sex and bodies, with a great deal of space around it as the status of its owner called for it. Not like the comfortable, simple one that the Lord of Poisons used, nor the hard-angled mass of steel that was the Red Crone's. This one was a twisting mass of flesh several meters tall that came with its own dais of glowing cartilage, ever-shifting murals playing across it. Behind it, several limbs of pure nerve tissue connected to the back of the throne drifted lazily, the blood vessels within lit with a soft purple glow.

And the being that sat upon it was the ruler of Harankoulor. Ynesth. Ring-Queen. Dark Muse. Bearer of the Aspect Lust. Gun-Witch. They of the Thousand Rifles.

Currently, they were enjoying themselves. They always were. Candies of spun aether-sugar and spice and aphrodisiac lay scattered across the floor, alongside dozens of haphazardly despoiled bodies both Aeldari and not. Some were dead, some were alive and wished they weren't, and more still were trapped in a haze of pleasure that would last for cycles. Ynesth didn't spare a glance for them, their attention wholly focused on the scrying mirror in front of them. They had always enjoyed a nice show after dinner. Their current object of fascination was her fellow Dark Muse, the Red Crone; already Ynesth was in a fine mood after watching her fellow Muse being ambushed by the human that the Empress had pointed out to them.

"Wonderful!" The Ring-Queen giggled as they watched Hekatii charge at the new human champion with fury. "Such passion from the Crone! If only you weren't so angry all the time~" One of her hands idly rummaged into one of the body-dishes next to her, scooping out the last of the finely prepared brainmeats. A flick of the finger sent the frozen body crashing to the ground. Right on cue, Ysneth's trained servants appeared silently, setting down a new one before taking away the empty dish and disappearing in puffs of black smoke.

Their guffaws shook the room when the human sent Hekatii flying through mountains. "Oh dear me, poor Hekatii! How embarrassing for her." They slapped a hand on their thigh. "Play it again, again!" The scrying mirror looped back, showing Jorenn's air blast smashing into Hekatii's face from multiple angles. "Ha! I simply cannot wait to play this at our next council!"

They plucked a fresh eyeball from the new body-dish, letting it melt in their mouth. Karadataimori were the highest pinnacle of Aeldari cuisine: Each separate part of the body, from the organs and meat to the marrow and hair, was taken out and either cooked to perfection or replaced with something equally delectable. For example, the liver could either be spiced and seared to perfection, or replaced with a liver-shaped gyrinx pate loaf. Each body part was prepared differently, so that the end result was a composite of hundreds of premium foods in a single whole, with no Karadataimori being the same. The most enjoyable part was that the body was still alive in the process; the more awake the mind was, the more flavor it added to the entire dish. In fact, the highest grade of body-dishes were made from especially psychic-sensitve individuals. Sometimes they were mobile, sometimes not; it was said that some connoisseurs enjoyed letting them shamble around while slowly ripping pieces off.

Karadataimori were ruinously expensive delicacies even for the noble lords of Commorragh, requiring the hand of a master chef to create, and were often only served at the most lavish of banquets and orgies, being the star piece of the spectacle. Ynesth had five strewn carelessly across the room.

The Ruiner of Virtue continued to watch excitedly as the human brought Hekatii to her knees, only for the Crone to rise in the fires of malice and slam the human into the ground. Ynesth paused to drink deeply from the golden chalice that was gripped in her other hand. A wonderful artifact which drew directly from the Great Ocean to turn its waters into wine, it flowed endlessly to match their bottomless thirst, making it a constant companion of the Dark Muse.

"Yes, yes! Tear the flesh from her bones, Hekatii! I know you can!" Ynesth cheered, one of the bodies on the floor pulled to them with a flick of a finger. They took another gulp of wine before proceeding to forcibly make out with the unfortunate courtier, their eyes still glued to the mirror while hands and other limbs began to roam all over Ynesth's prey. +Rend her apart!+

Ynesth dropped their plaything in surprise when the human tackled Hekatii into the Warp, which now began to spasm and scream on the floor as the undiluted Warp-wine began to course through their body. +Quiet! This is the good part!+ One of the throne's limbs smashed his head into pieces, silencing him. The Dark Muses watched with rapt attention as the combatants tumbled through the Great Ocean, only for the scrying mirror to go black as the both of them disappeared into the deepest parts of the Ocean beyond its sight.. Ynesth stomped a foot in fury.

+Gods-damned machine!+ They shouted. Ynesth drew the pistol on their hip. It was massively oversized for a pistol to the point of being borderline comical, long as an arm and just as thick, with an extended barrel covered with holographic runemarks that hovered slightly above the surface, with a customised grip of the finest . Forged with the capability to fully channel the psychic abilities of the user even through the ammunition itself, the shuriken pistol was loaded with monomolecular discs that had a Warp-powered disintegration field generator integrated into each one. Named Shiranui, the gun spun in their hands, before Ynesth cocked it at the ceiling above and fired several shots in a rage.

The shurikens tore through the roof, crashing through both bodies and walls as it pierced the outermost layers of the ringworld and flew into space, before curving around and homing in on a target a hundred thousand kilometers away. The same shurikens flew through another multitude of hulls and made mincemeat out of a orgy room filled with daemons and Aeldari. This of course attracted the attention of a roaming band of gluttonous hunger-addicts, who immediately began to devour the flesh in the shattered space.

The Dark Muse was about to fire off another volley when the scrying mirror turned back on. "Wait..." Ynesth leaned forward. The scrying mirror showed the human's wretched form crawling out from the depths. Expectantly, they stared at the screen waiting for the Red Crone to burst out behind her and finish the job.

A minute passed. Nothing happened. Ynesth dug out a finely roasted heart from one of the Karadataimori, letting the finely cured fats and proteins melt in their mouth, and waited.

The minute turned into a cycle. The cycle turned into two. Ynesth's eyes never left the screen. A parade of concubines entered the room, bodies cavorting with each other and dancing the song of lust as they serenaded the Dark Muse, but Ynesth's eyes never left the screen.

"I don't believe it." Ynesth threw out their senses, scouring the galaxy. "But that's..." No matter where they searched, the Red Crone was nowhere to be found.

A throaty chuckle bubbled up in their mouth, starting out as a gentle song that roused the spirit and developing into a demonic rumble that shook the foundations of the world and causing waves of lust to roll over the surroundings. +Ha! Out of all of us, I never expected you to be the first to fall, Crone! And by a human no less!+ Ynesth doubled over in laughter, a fresh set of tentacles bursting from their back with their own mouths that cackled as well. "Oh, what a jest! What a jest!" The piles of bodies cavorting around their throne laughed along with her, without knowing why they laughed- all that mattered was that they had to laugh.

"As for you..." Ynesth turned their attention back to the mirror, which was now showing the human crawling onto a machine ship, with more of her kind surrounding her and chattering urgently before carting her away. +I'll be having quite the bit of fun with you later. You're not too ugly for a human.+ They made sure the human heard it, even through the vast distances that separated them.

The human's eyes swiveled until they were looking through the mirror directly at Ynesth. The Ring-Queen enjoyed the flare of panic that filled the human's eyes, and it tried desperately to shout something through its melted, broken mouth.

Ynesth laughed and swept a hand, the scrying mirror going dark.

"I should begin my moves as well. It is only proper, after all." Ynesth pondered her meal, idly swirling a pattern in the sauces of an opened cranium with a finger. "Perhaps... I should venture into the Webway, and save that old peddler Shaimesh. But that would be so, so boring." The sauces began to congeal into a pillar, forming stubby hands and legs. "Maybe I could..." Ynesth looked at the brightest light in the humans' little dominion. A beacon, rudimentary but effective, bathing the entire galactic west in stark Warp-light even as darkness loomed over the horizon.

Even a casual scrying saw that it was extraordinarily well defended. One of the great metal orbs hung nearby, with millions of satellite artillery installations drifting around the system. There was even a World Spirit under the very beacon itself, sleeping for now.

It looked fun. Ynesth hummed and flicked the figurine of sauce away, which rapidly scuttled away and hopped into the mouth on an insensate body, which woke up and began screaming as it started to eat his intestines from the inside.

"Very well, I've decided!" Ynesth declared triumphantly. +The Convocation will sail to their homeworld and take it for myself. Bring my guns to me.+

Barely five minutes had passed before a procession of slaves, finely oiled and waxed, trooped into the room with each one bearing an item from Ynesth's vast collection, heads lowered and eyes blinded for they were not worthy of laying eyes upon that which they held in their hands. Ynesth leisurely examined their collection, hemming and hawing as they stroked and purred over the various masterpieces that she owned. D-Cannons, fusion rifles, distortion rockets, various pieces of splinter weaponry, brightlances, neurodisruptors. Every single projectile weapon in the Aeldari Empire's arsenal, the Ring-Queen was certain to own one.

"Load all of them onto my ship." Ynesth announced, while snatching a splinter shotgun and mounting it on their wrist. "Empty my house of all the slaves and soldiers and ships. We march after this party... or another, I haven't decided yet." A gargantuan rapid-fire shuriken catapult cannon was strapped to their back, alongside an equally large railcannon designed to fire neutronium slugs, every bit the equal of a Necron Tachyon Arrow. +Oh, and bring out the fleets too. All of them.+

At their command, panels along the ringworld's curvature began to open. Ships of all shapes and sizes, the bulk of which had been mothballed, began to move from their moorings, from the smallest corvettes to the juggernauts. A particular set of gates wide as a small planet soundlessly opened, disgorging two fully operational Talismans of Vaul. And behind them was a craft only slightly smaller than the two of them combined: Camychor, Ynesth's personal pleasure barge.

Ynesth skipped over to the end of the procession, daintily picking up a missile launcher that was loaded with singularity ammunition, and unhinged their mouth. A single gulp, and the gun disappeared all the way down their gullet.

"Right. Now, begin the opening parties! I expect to have two, no at least three before we march off and make a good slaughter." Ynesth announced. The King of Lust twirled Shiranui in a hand before pointing it at the ceiling and firing a single shot, then licked their lips as they descended into the tide of lustful flesh around their throne, baring their body.

The shuriken flew high above the ringworld, carrying the intent of the one who fired it and exploding into a pulse of thought that rippled through the Aether, visible to every Aeldari's senses. It was an invitation to plunder and destroy all things in their path, a declaration of both war and intent. It said that any Aeldari was free to come and join the march to humanity's homeworld.

It echoed across the sea of stars, across every single battlefield. It echoed into the deepest reaches of the Webway, where the Black Library stood. It reached the ears of Nagarythe's master, who only nodded in satisfaction. It was heard by humanity's golden defender, who could only clutch his fist in grim resignation.

It made its way into humanity's cradle, into the ears of the psykers that dutifully watched the Warp for the enemy. An emergency warning was hastily written, encrypted, and sent to the Supreme Commanding General of the Solar Federation's armies. He didn't congratulate himself. This was the expectable outcome that any Iron Mind would have seen.

More missives accompanied it; The armies of Commorragh had begun to deploy in earnest. Blackstone Fortresses had been sighted, and Aeldari Titans were starting to appear on enemy lines. The blitzkrieg was over. Orders were issued to every Iron Mind to fall back and establish beachheads. The time for the full offensive was over. Now the enemy had woken up proper, and it was time to weather the storm.

Now the war began in earnest, and Horus Lupercal began the preparations to defend Terra as the Convocation started its march.

End of Arc Two

Arc Three: Siege of Terra