Getting Warhammered [WH 40k Fanfic]

176 – Curiosity Killed the Cat, but not Me

The Inquisitor thought long and hard, her expression all but warped into a picture of narrow-eyed suspicion and focus as she undoubtedly tried to figure out what question she could ask would grant her the most information about me, my goals and the threat I posed. I also didn’t doubt that she was dubious at best about my claim at being truthful with her, and for good reason. I had no intention of giving her any answers that would be of much use to her, not after she had answered my question with a half-lie of her own.

Also, revealing myself to the Imperials just this much was a risk already. If anyone, an Inquisitor’s report was most likely to find its way all the way over to the big blue man’s desk, or worse, to the Custodians’. All in all, it was a stupid risk to take, and one I was aware of.

I was all but certain Guilliman wouldn’t care, even if he knew. The big man had more important stuff to deal with than a slippery little alien bullying an Inquisitor and her retinue, like the Plague Wars soon to be starting and the Silent King’s little project on the other end of the galaxy called the Pariah Nexus. 

The Custodians on the other hand? I didn’t know. No, but they could track me somehow even before this, so there was no helping it. 

Anything less than that, like a simple crusade fleet or some assassins, I didn’t fear. Plus, I was not going to make their job easy if I could help it, though I was pretty sure their atrocious bureaucracy and fractured hierarchy would help me the most.

The Inquisitors were not part of the Imperial hierarchy. They didn’t think they had to answer to anyone but the Emperor himself, thinking their authority infinite. As such, I knew there was a large faction of them who were scheming to depose Guilliman, as idiotic and irresponsible as that was. Not to say suicidal.

No, I really doubted an Inquisitor’s report would end up anywhere other than in their own secure little network and I was also sure Guilliman never told any of them about me. Misdirection and half-truths would be my shield for now.

Finally, Inquisitor Vail’s lips parted with her gaze focused on me, watching my every move like a hawk. 

“What are you?” She asked. “You are not human, are you?”

“What am I?” I leaned back with an amused smile on my face, tapping my chin thoughtfully. “What am I indeed. As for your second question, you are only partially right. I had been a human once, but now … now I don’t think there is a name for it. Not yet anyway.”

That’ll throw them off. I’m sure Guilliman and the Custodians believe me to be some parasitic warp entity that possessed their precious little eldritch artifact. I mused, overly pleased with myself. There was no need to come up with lies to misdirect them when the truth would do just as well, if not better.

Cain’s face warped in obvious disgust, likely thinking I’d done something absolutely vile to change myself. I didn’t blame him all that much. What I’d said echoed some of the most deluded lunatics from TV shows who’d thought they’d ascended beyond being mere humans just because they showed some strange thing into their bodies.

The twig-like man leaned forward, his withered features a picture of almost innocent curiosity. I shifted my attention towards him, an eyebrow itching upwards at the sheer strangeness of his mind. Where Space Marine minds were robust, they were largely simple, their indoctrination and enhancement having reinforced their minds to ward off foreign influence and direct pressure better than regular human minds.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The man before me was the opposite. His mind was massive, true, but in a way almost opposite to Space Marine minds, it was fragile and intricate to a fault. I peered deeper, my mental tendrils slipping deeper into his mind between numerous ever-shifting parts, and found an absolutely massive stash of information. 

I’d seen the minds of Space Marines who’d lived for centuries, and the large stash of memories, ingrained instincts and experience they had, but even those would appear like a pea-sized ball when compared to the building-sized library of knowledge in this strange human’s mind. 

My eyes widened fractionally. That was it, a library. The man before me was a walking, talking, breathing library of massive proportions. My gaze roved over his body, lingering on the obvious bionics poking out of his flesh in all over his body but predominantly on his head. Eyes, ears, and even some strange tubes snaking up from his shoulders to connect to just beneath his ears.

“What a strange human you are,” I mused, tilting my head a little as I held his fascinated gaze. “I can see you’re dying to ask me something. I won’t promise I will answer, but I’ll allow you to ask it.”

That was all he needed. A small nudge and without even glancing at the Inquisitor sitting to his side, the man opened his mouth with a gleeful look on his weathered face. I had the impression he had all but forgotten anything but me, his entire mind having refocused on the singular objective of extracting as much knowledge from me as possible.

“We have records of 543,102 Psykers and their abilities, but not one would have been capable of creating matter out of thin air,” the man said with palpable excitement, his grin almost manic as he ever so gently ran his twig-like fingers over the table I’d summoned. “But this table … It is real, not an illusion, or perhaps it is? Is my mind just being manipulated into believing that its is real? There are records of 145,012 Illusionists being capable of just that, but the chair ha been the same and I am sitting on it, which rules out that possibility. Truly fascinating. How had you done it? Is it moulded from the earth bellow our feet? Some type of transmutation? If so, you’ve done a truly masterful job, I am unable to tell the difference based on the wood’s texture. By all accounts, this truly is a simple table and chair, if a bit rustic.”

“That’s because it is, and because I didn’t make it,” I said, tapping my nails on the wood. “I am somewhat adept in what you would call Biomancy, but I didn’t make this table, I just borrowed it from someone who had … specifically, a carpenter living in the village 25 kilometres south of here.”

“Borrowed?” The man asked, confusion written across his face as he leaned forward. “Duplication? I have records of such abilities, though they vary greatl-”

“Mott,” The Inquisitor said mildly, but the overly talkative man stiffened and his parched lips smacked shut, though his expression betrayed his reluctance to stop his line of questioning. “Not now.”

The man nodded, clearly displeased, but a moment later he was absorbed in examining the table once more while muttering to himself under his breath.

“For your information, it is not duplication,” I said, my gaze lingering on the man as he startled. “It’s transportation. Much more simple.”

I smiled, and with a snap of my fingers I teleported the palm-sized side-arm that had been hidden away in the Inquisitor’s boots just moments ago. The small weapon, some type of plasma pistol by my quick examination, fell on the table with a small clutter, drawing everyone’s attention. Inquisitor Vail stiffened, while Cain stared longingly at the open flap of the tent. The other man, Mott, was entirely mystified by the sudden appearance of the sidearm though and after a moment, poked it experimentally.

“It’s real,” he exclaimed, as the weapon shifted ever so slightly. “Isn’t that you sidearm? The one you keep in-”

“Mott, not now,” The Inquisitor ground out, hesitation and a hint of fear flickering behind her sky-blue eyes for only a fraction of a second. Then the passive, diplomatic expression was back on her face, carefully concealing all emotion from any regular onlooker. By the few echoes of thoughts that escaped her mind, I felt she was thinking, calculating and recalculating. “Let’s put aside the small talk, tell me, what is it that you want?”

“Nothing,” I said with a tight smile. “I want nothing you can give me, nothing I don’t already have.”

With that, I held the artifact in my palm. 

“All this,” I continued, motioning at their group and myself. “It's just courtesy on my part. If I’m stealing your artifact, I thought I might as well show my face. That way, you can at least write something in your report.”

“Would anything convince you to return it?” Inquisitor Vail asked, her face impassive and through an extreme effort of will on her part, none of her muscles as much as twitched as her mind readied for something. 

“You could tell me what it really is,” I mused like I didn’t feel the soldiers gathering and the autocannons rotating to aim at our tent. Though I didn’t know how they thought I’d ever miss the obtrusive null-field emanating from Jurgen getting closer. “I know you didn’t lie, but your words rang false still. I don’t doubt that this thing protects the soul … but if I had to guess, that’s just a side effect of its primary function, isn’t it?”

That’s … disappointing. I thought, leaning back as I watched the three before me impassively. Cain and Mott had little idea of the converging soldiers, but the woman opposite to me seemed to be different. Oh she knew, if not ordered it herself. Is she just that desperate to not let the artifact slip out of her grasp, or had I not driven home how futile attacking me would be?

They likely banked on Jurgen’s Blank-ness carrying the fight and saving the job once more. I had shown myself to be a Psyker after all, and they had no reason to suspect I’d be able to cope with a Blank’s nullifying aura.

“We don’t know for certain what its primary function is,” Vail said after a moment’s hesitation. For a change, it sounded like the truth. Her gaze flickered over to the artifact. She might not have known what it did, but she just have known more than she’d told me. “We also know that it is dangerous, it might protect the soul, but it does so in a way that warps it irrevocably. All its previous users had become addicted to it, refusing to part with it.”

“Hmmmmm.” I eyed the artifact, carefully examining it with both my eyes and aura. I didn’t push, or even prod it, just tried to get a feel for it, passively taking in the ‘vibe’ the artifact was radiating. It didn’t feel malicious, but then again, the most insidious things never did. Amberly had been truthful again, and while I knew why she did it, it did nothing to change my suddenly plummeting interest in holding on to the artifact. “Is that so? Nasty.”

It felt pliant, almost similar to my supremely pliable eldritch flesh, just for a spiritual mass. I could very well imagine this thing melding into my spirit the moment I allowed it to, or at the very least, linking with it so deeply that separating the two might be challenging. 

There is something more to it though. At its depths, beyond the pliant spiritual mass was something dense and powerful. What could that be?

As if feeling my interest, the thing pulsed, sending the shell surrounding it into a whirl as tendrils of energy reached out like a boxful of ravenous snakes smelling a meal. I dropped the artifact with a hiss, my soul energy surging to wrap myself up in a dozen barriers in less than a nanosecond. Thankfully, the tendrils reached no further than the surface of the gem. 

It can’t reach me if I’m not touching it. I heaved a sigh of relief, my lips thinning as I stared at the idle gem. Maybe it was truly just a mindless artifact that only intended to help its wielder, but I would not be blindsided by an insidious artifact. Even just touching it had been moronic, now that I thought about it. There were Daemonic artifacts in this galaxy that could warp the mind of a Primarch in a blink if only they touched them, case in point: Fulgrim’s Laer Blade. 

I would have felt it if the gem had even a lick of daemonic energy to it, but there were other horrible things in the Warp that had nothing to do with daemons. In realspace too, for that matter. Who knew what manner of sinister alien originally crafted this thing? They could have made it as a malicious prank, making the gem addictive, yet empowering. Like the Warp itself.

I had half a mind to just teleport the damned thing into the nearest star and be done with it. Honestly, this galaxy would be much easier to deal with if there weren’t a billion and one random artifacts, buried under every other piece of rock that had some ridiculous abilities. 

My musings got interrupted as a wave of uneasy disgust washed over me, my aura all but vanishing into my body in a blink. While I was distracted, Jurgen’s Blank aura had thickened and wrapped around me.

Frowning, I looked up finally and stared into the open barrel of a laspistol. Unperturbed, I glanced up at the man wielding it: Cain. A single tiny flicker of weakness and they pounce on me like a pack of starving hyenas.