Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== The End, But One Of Many ==

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Millions of years in the future…
 
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Scribe-thane Escribdeus dug. He scraped at the earth with his hands, pulling away paw after pawful of sand. In spite of this seemingly primitive behavior, most observers would note that he had come a long way from his ancestors millions of years ago, which had been little more than rats.
 
He wore robes for one. He wasn’t an animal.
 
Slowly but surely, he scooped away at the stone tablet emerging from the ground ignoring the sensation of sand grains in his fur. Once it was sufficiently clean, he brought out his equipment and began analyzing the stone. Luminescence dating, to tell when the stone was last exposed to sun or heat. After a few minutes, the machine spat out its answer with a beep.
 
The numbers couldn’t be right.
 
He ran the analysis again. The answer was the same. He scooped several more handfuls of sand away from the artifact to make sure it wasn’t what he thought it was, it couldn’t be what he thought it was, but it was. The scribe-thane brushed at the emerging stone plaque, careful not to damage anything, until he saw the alien glyph of the Ancients clearly denoted upon their surface. He felt a swell of joy in his heart.
 
Scholar-Seer was going to be so pleased when she saw this.
 
Elsewhere, Mistress Scholar-Seer Senic was indeed pleased, but for reasons that were much more carnal than her thane would have thought. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. For a species that put an emphasis on tactile stimulation and social behavior it was only natural that they would put a high premium on grooming and reproduction. Add to the fact that solid-colored fur, whether her own grey or black, brown, or white, was considered an attractive characteristic by her species and it was unsurprising that she received so many offers of mating.
 
“Mistress!” Escribdeus said, throwing open the flap of the tent and completely ruining the mood, “glorious news-news!”
 
Scholar-Seer Senic let out a shriek, startled by her piebald-colored assistant. It wasn’t out of modesty, no one in the room had anything that the others hadn’t seen before, but nobody liked to be started in the middle of an intimate moment. Picking herself up off the ground, the Scholar-Seer gave the oblivious scribe-thane a death glare.
 
“Mistress,” he said, “we found one. “Two-hundred years more young-young than youngest known Ancient relic based on multiple methods of dating.”
 
Senic was shocked. She had expected they would find something here but nothing this young. This was certainly something worth interrupting mating for.
 
“You’ve done well thane,” she said, “have extra rations-treat as reward for good-good work.”
 
The scribe-thane squealed so loud the Scholar-Seer thought he was going to pass out before excitedly scurrying out of the tent. He was such an excitable sort. She wondered if she had been that way when she had come of age at five years old. She supposed she had better return to work too. Dismissing the lower-ranking male with a chitter, she donned her robes and the horned headdress that marked her as a figure of authority. She enjoyed mating as much as the next member of her species, but her true passion was in studying archaeology. The lives and ways of ancient peoples.
 
Opening the flap of the burlap tent, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the harsh light before walking through the work camp. All around her, thanes were busy at work, two arguing over cataloguing a plastic idol, another taking a break and chewing on a gnawing aid. Such was typical for her kind. When a newborn in any clan reached juvenile age, they were apprenticed under the aegis of a Master or Mistress in order to learn skills and discipline, and eventually be deemed an adult. It was their way. With their reproductive habits, large numbers of thanes were not unexpected, though in this case these were not all her own apprentices. At least with modern medicine it was better than in the medieval era, where famine was common.
 
Walking up the sandy hill to the dig site, she noticed one of the large rat-wolves trotting alongside her. Emitting a brief chirrup, the rat-wolf came close enough to her to give the domesticated rodent a piece of jerky. The rat-wolves were good guardians. Useful to have around. As she reached the digsite itself, the rat-wolf realized that it was not going to get any more jerky out of her, and turned back to go lounge around with the other rat-wolves under the tents.
 
When she reached the digsite, she saw it was still much as she had left it, neat lines of string demarcated squares over the Ancient ruins. However, at the far end of the site, she noticed the new Ancient plaque uncovered by the new excavation efforts. The Scholar-Seer’s pulse quickened. As swiftly as possible, her hind feet tread over the sand, until she reached the stone edifice itself. Crawling down into the hole, she put her hand upon the glyphs, letting her fingers brush over the alien carvings. Then she stopped. Although she could not get a good look at him, she could see the scribe-thane standing behind her out of the corner of her eye.
 
“You know what they say-say?” she asked, not turning around.
 
The scribe-thane shook his head. He had learned to make out some of the lettering on the Ancients’ monuments, but he had never really learned to read their writing.
 
“Can tell you. You want to know?”
 
The scribe-thane nodded excitedly. The idea of learning the craft directly from the mistress was something that anyone would file their incisors for. The Scholar-Seer turned from the plaque to look the thane in the eye.
 
“Assume you know basics of story. When world young-young, galaxy was in primordial chaos. From chaos, gods emerge. Our gods, the Ancients, and their enemies, Cancerous Ones. Emprah, the gold-god, decide that galaxy in chaos unacceptable. Rescue-steal Great Mother from the tallest tower of Cancerous Poxed One, who claim-kidnap her as his own at dawn of time. Mother-goddess decide to join gold-god in his quest. They create thirteen children, twelve sons and one daughter, to aid them in their quest. Lionman Russ, the savage knight. Fuegan Manus, the smith. Sanguinala, the banshee daughter. This why thirteen so important to us.”
 
The scribe-thane nodded again. He knew the story, everyone learned it as a child.
 
“Great Mother and Father and their children fight war against cancerous ones. They seal away Cancerous Ones in the netherworld. Some guess-think that this myth explanation of why life and death happen. But no one can deny that Ancients exist. Great Mother go on to have many children. Many species-things. Populate galaxy with new life. For many-many years life bountiful. But then gods vanish. So do children. Leave only us, youngest child of gods. No one knows why.”
 
Scholar-Seer Senic turned back to the tablet.
 
“This tablet-stone important because it younger than any other, and so reveal-tells more of gods’ story”
 
“What happened?”
 
The Scholar-Seer put her hand on the tablet for a moment. Then her face fell.
 
“Things change. Final war-battle began. Center could not hold. Slaves of Cancerous Ones broke free from the Netherworld, intent on dragging mother-goddess back with them. Dead-things from before age of gods returned and took revenge to reclaim lost thrones. Great devourer come from east, eat fourth of galaxy. Much death-death. Home of gods under battle-siege. Many desperate things done. Moon of unnatural-things, prison of those not meant to be, opened. Oblivion-god set free to make war-death on those who trod upon his kingdom. All children-species called for final war. Cancer-gods try to kill last hope in cradle.”
 
The Scholar-Seer studied the tablet.
 
“And then what?” the scribe-thane asked.
 
“I…do not know. Story-tablet stops there. Had to guess, think it fear-warning for future. Tell not-born generations what happened. Not sure why.”
 
The two shared a moment of silence for their sobering discovery, only for the chitter-bead tagged in the Scholar-Seer’s ear to go off.
 
“Mistress. News-news from star-watchers. Most important. They see-see ship in atmosphere. It look…look like crescent moon.”
 
 
 
 
GOOD END
 
Lofn Ulthran stood at the bridge of the Lady Betsy, looking out at the surface of the planet over which the ship orbited. She wasn’t happy. Few people would be if they were woken up at three in the morning several days ago and told she was urgently needed, and I quote, “right the fuck now”. And then were unable to get a good night-cycle’s sleep for the next few days. Going somewhere “right the fuck now” took on a very different meaning when you knew someone with access to a Necron inertialess drive ship. 220 years of being a diplomat and you would think she get a little bit more respect.
 
That said, the decidedly less sleep-deprived part of her brain could understand the need for urgency. Odysseus had finally shown up again. During all the craziness that went down during the Second War in Heaven the planet, which previously orbited the near-Sol star of Epsilon Eridani, had been shot deep into the Warp like a pinball. It had gone so deep that at least among the Administratum there was a betting pool of if and when the previously habitable planet would ever show up again. And then it happened to show up in the Skavos cluster, a region which until recently had been covered by a Warp Storm for as long as she could remember. Lofn shuddered. Odysseus had been so deep in the Warp there was no telling how long it had been there. Subjective millions of years could have passed for the people on that planet in the 220 years the planet disappeared from realspace. She couldn’t imagine what they could have gone through. It was no wonder the Imperium had asked her to represent them. Who else would you call to make first contact with people who hadn’t seen the Imperium in centuries, if they even remembered at all.
 
The door opened with a hiss, breaking Lofn from her rumination, and an eight-foot-tall metal skeleton stomped into the room behind her. Lofn smiled.
 
“Obyron,” she said to her old childhood companion, “I assume everything is okay on the ship?”
 
Obyron relaxed slightly. “Nothing much. A Watcher and an eldar got in an argument on the lower decks. Had to step in and separate them.”
 
Lofn smiled. There were few things in the galaxy that shut petty squabbles down quicker than a Necron leaning over them with a death glare.
 
“Any other messages I should be aware of before we make contact?”
 
“No. Well, one message from Ynnead, asking to make sure if you are okay, but that’s to be expected.”
 
Lofn rolled her eyes. “Ynnead worries too much. If I were ever in trouble, he more than anyone else would be the first to know.”
 
“He just does it because he cares.”
 
There was a pause in the conversation.
 
“I only wish the Nemesor could have been here to see this,” Obyron muttered.
 
Lofn frowned. She barely remembered the jovial old Necron from her childhood but he had always seemed like the nice sort. Although Obyron may have technically been the captain of the Lady Betsy, Lofn would never refer to Obyron as such. She knew he would take offense to it. To Obyron, the Lady Betsy only ever had one captain.
 
“I wish he could have been here too. He would have probably loved it. But I don’t think he had any regrets about how things turned out.”
 
“I should have been there, it was my duty.”
 
“You had two conflicting sets of duties.” Lofn responded, “It was either obey your lord and potentially let him die or disobey him and potentially let me die. How many times have we been over this, Obyron? You can’t keep beating yourself up over this.”
 
Obyron grunted. Lofn knew that was for her sake. She knew this argument wasn’t over, but Obyron was willing to let things lie for the time being in the name of getting the job done.
 
“Well,” she said, “let’s go meet the neighbors.”

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