Chapter 4:
Chapter 4: Leaving one's home is a most bitter adventure.
The triplets had decided on what they wished for as a birthday present many months in advance. Now, two months left before they would become adults, it was time to make their wish a reality.
No cake would suffice for they can make themselves as many as I will allow. No wraithbone construct would do, for nothing any of us could do would be much different than what we could find inside the Orphanage. No trinkets or sweets would please them this time.
For their birthday they had but one wish from me, they wanted to be anywhere but on this world. And as their older brother I decided to finally make it happen.
It was also a sound strategic decision. The Maton in the orphanage had told us in a roundabout way that the benefits we gained as children would continue in the city as well. As such, we would need to leave the Orphanage before their birthday if we wished to keep the updated map of the city, including the filter that showed groups of Eldar in real time.
"Standard child safety protocols" they called it. No such protocols exist to be given when the Maton are asked for it, and yet they are implemented with the zeal of the undying.
We have two months until the protection given by said protocols is rescinded.
"Have you finished hiding the caretakers?" I addressed Marsa.
There were a few tasks before we could leave and we have divided them among ourselves.
Marsa took it upon herself to finish the movement of the death crystals of our caretakers, all of them. We have all made as convincing copies as we could to replace them and the furniture they were attached to.
The only thing we couldn't remake was the red table, the tree it was made from did not grow on this world but a Wraithbone table would do.
"Yes, our kin are safe now, hidden in the cave we've made." She replied sullenly.
None of us liked that we have committed this sacrilege as rewards for Millennia of dedication to those like us but it was the only way we could think of to preserve some measure of dignity to those who have sacrificed so much for us.
"The cakes are finished and packaged with the rest of the supplies." I offered and handed her the pack she would wear with her own cake inside.
The pack was a simple Wraithbone contraption, a smooth container with straps made out of strings of the same material turned into weave. They like our armors were the standard light grey of Wraithbone with no decorations or flourishes but trice as thick as the normal armor we had seen in the armory.
'I do not care how marvelous the material, I want armor thicker than a hair is wide.' I thought as I remembered our argument on this.
I've made one for each of us, the only non-utilitarian additions to our very limited space. They were made for us to celebrate their birthday, one for each of us, so that even if we were separated in the Webway we could still celebrate.
The rest of our kit was done with similar considerations.
Each of us would carry a Wraithbone sword and Shuriken pistol, the only weapons we had available that would be of use. We were armored in a bland Wraithbone armor, whose only piece of technology is a modified Holofield capable of both functioning as a normal one if needed be as well as change our colors to mix with the nearby environment to avoid detection. This combined with our own training in warpcraft in both battle and remaining unseen and undetected by both mundane and esoteric means were our only means of defense.
The rest of our kit would be allocated to food and distractions.
Each of us had a small food synthesizer, capable of turning psychic energy into the nourishing red liquid we could subsist on in case of an emergency or our rations ran out. It could only produce food outside of its transport and even then, it could only produce enough sustenance for two days and it took it 10 hours to recharge per use, ten hours in which it could not be used at all and have to stay outside. Thankfully they could fit a container for the liquid each.
This little contraption took half of each of our kits when combined with the cake. It was thankfully light.
The rest of the space would be taken over by bedding and food bricks. The food bricks were more efficient in providing sustenance per space used if one took into consideration the containers so we've decided to go with them. Each of us had food for a year from those bricks and they took the rest of the space our Interior Displacement Packs had left.
"I wish we could have made explosives, but the Maton had been ordered to confiscate all such devices from children." I continued bitterly.
The only command that the Maton had that could affect Eldar children or at least their possessions was keeping them away from explosives. They do not care for guns, swords and any other implements of murder or torture we could think of but if a single object capable of exploding were to approach an Eldar child, the offending object would be teleported to the Warp. The same applied to things fabricating them.
I couldn't use them either.
While I could make some outside the premises and pick them up upon leaving, those explosives would be taken from me the moment I approached any of my siblings by any passing Maton and our plans required us that we stick together as much as possible, as well as make use of any Assistance the Maton could provide my siblings and that assistance was more important than explosives.
"They do not stop us from carrying debilitating items such as powders or acids." She offered again.
This was an argument we've had before, all four of us and she was the only one left unconvinced.
We could use acids and capsaicin powders but we needed the means to store and use them effectively. None of which we could do much against powerful psykers and took up space.
What we could make and use was too ineffective against any half trained psyker and for what was left we could use our swords or Shuriken pistols to deal with instead. They could kill anything we needed faster than any alternatives and thus prevent screams and attention.
"None of which can do something a shuriken pistol can't, not if we want the Maton not to take them."
That ended the conversation.
The rest of the trio were busy.
Guraith through some arcane means had managed to divine patterns into the moving of the cults, none of us could see it or understand how he came to his conclusions but he did and when attempting to predict their movements he has yet to be wrong. He was taking in as much information trying to match his predictions to reality and make them as accurate as he could.
In the meantime, Aesan had taken to diligently rearranging the Orphanage and removing any psychic trace of our presence so that if someone came, they would think the reason it closed was that the last of the caretakers had fallen or left and not that the last of its wards had become adults.
A quick thought and a response came, Aesan was busy cleansing the passage Marsa had used to transport the death crystals. He will do five more sweeps to remove any traces he can before we leave. He also told us to leave the kitchen, before our psychic residues infest the rest of the Orphanage again.
We were doing our best to prevent it from happening already.
Guraith was already outside, he was still Looking over his map and muttering when we came out. He was in his own armor, his weapons on the grass near him to not distract him. I put his pack near him. Marsa and mine were already on our backs and Aesan's was left in my right hand.
"Aesan will be done in two hours, have there been any changes?" I asked as we approached.
It took him minutes to respond and his answer did not reassure me.
"Yes… No… The cults continue to act as they normally would but there's a ripple near the Webway gate. My predictions get less and less accurate the closer to it I am." He replied in frustration.
"Outsiders?" Our sister whispered.
I considered the option. If we are lucky, they might be willing to take us with them. We might have to find a way to pay for it but it would be worth it.
"No, unless the map provided by the Maton do not show them."
That was not something I wished to think about, our plans relied too much on this not being the case.
"We will assume the maps of the Maton are as accurate as they can be and that the interference is because something is happening in the Webway and those near it can feel it while we are too far away to do so. We will revise this assumption as we get closer." was my final answer on the matter.
We had no time to make any plans with the assumption that the Maton provided maps had flaws and my explanation was the only thing that would make sense based on what we knew.
Two hours later we were ready to leave as our brother finished his task.
I looked upon it, the white marble-like Wraithbone was subdued compared to what I knew we would find in the city and the rest of the empire. The central building where I have spent most of my second life was a small white pyramid half as tall as the hills near it. The other buildings near it, the armory, the dining room, the training rooms and pools were protected by 32 white towers, each of them automated by Wraithbone systems older than the Maton as an invention but still subordinated to them.
It was home, it was safety, it was sweet and held in it the best memories of both my lives.
I knelt, my hands near me and my body putting me in a position more appropriate for prayer than what I am about to do. My siblings did the same as me unprompted.
Two words left our lips and their echo remained to whisper back at us as the Holofields turned on and we rose. We did not waste anymore time and started running.
"Thank you."
The triplets had decided on what they wished for as a birthday present many months in advance. Now, two months left before they would become adults, it was time to make their wish a reality.
No cake would suffice for they can make themselves as many as I will allow. No wraithbone construct would do, for nothing any of us could do would be much different than what we could find inside the Orphanage. No trinkets or sweets would please them this time.
For their birthday they had but one wish from me, they wanted to be anywhere but on this world. And as their older brother I decided to finally make it happen.
It was also a sound strategic decision. The Maton in the orphanage had told us in a roundabout way that the benefits we gained as children would continue in the city as well. As such, we would need to leave the Orphanage before their birthday if we wished to keep the updated map of the city, including the filter that showed groups of Eldar in real time.
"Standard child safety protocols" they called it. No such protocols exist to be given when the Maton are asked for it, and yet they are implemented with the zeal of the undying.
We have two months until the protection given by said protocols is rescinded.
"Have you finished hiding the caretakers?" I addressed Marsa.
There were a few tasks before we could leave and we have divided them among ourselves.
Marsa took it upon herself to finish the movement of the death crystals of our caretakers, all of them. We have all made as convincing copies as we could to replace them and the furniture they were attached to.
The only thing we couldn't remake was the red table, the tree it was made from did not grow on this world but a Wraithbone table would do.
"Yes, our kin are safe now, hidden in the cave we've made." She replied sullenly.
None of us liked that we have committed this sacrilege as rewards for Millennia of dedication to those like us but it was the only way we could think of to preserve some measure of dignity to those who have sacrificed so much for us.
"The cakes are finished and packaged with the rest of the supplies." I offered and handed her the pack she would wear with her own cake inside.
The pack was a simple Wraithbone contraption, a smooth container with straps made out of strings of the same material turned into weave. They like our armors were the standard light grey of Wraithbone with no decorations or flourishes but trice as thick as the normal armor we had seen in the armory.
'I do not care how marvelous the material, I want armor thicker than a hair is wide.' I thought as I remembered our argument on this.
I've made one for each of us, the only non-utilitarian additions to our very limited space. They were made for us to celebrate their birthday, one for each of us, so that even if we were separated in the Webway we could still celebrate.
The rest of our kit was done with similar considerations.
Each of us would carry a Wraithbone sword and Shuriken pistol, the only weapons we had available that would be of use. We were armored in a bland Wraithbone armor, whose only piece of technology is a modified Holofield capable of both functioning as a normal one if needed be as well as change our colors to mix with the nearby environment to avoid detection. This combined with our own training in warpcraft in both battle and remaining unseen and undetected by both mundane and esoteric means were our only means of defense.
The rest of our kit would be allocated to food and distractions.
Each of us had a small food synthesizer, capable of turning psychic energy into the nourishing red liquid we could subsist on in case of an emergency or our rations ran out. It could only produce food outside of its transport and even then, it could only produce enough sustenance for two days and it took it 10 hours to recharge per use, ten hours in which it could not be used at all and have to stay outside. Thankfully they could fit a container for the liquid each.
This little contraption took half of each of our kits when combined with the cake. It was thankfully light.
The rest of the space would be taken over by bedding and food bricks. The food bricks were more efficient in providing sustenance per space used if one took into consideration the containers so we've decided to go with them. Each of us had food for a year from those bricks and they took the rest of the space our Interior Displacement Packs had left.
"I wish we could have made explosives, but the Maton had been ordered to confiscate all such devices from children." I continued bitterly.
The only command that the Maton had that could affect Eldar children or at least their possessions was keeping them away from explosives. They do not care for guns, swords and any other implements of murder or torture we could think of but if a single object capable of exploding were to approach an Eldar child, the offending object would be teleported to the Warp. The same applied to things fabricating them.
I couldn't use them either.
While I could make some outside the premises and pick them up upon leaving, those explosives would be taken from me the moment I approached any of my siblings by any passing Maton and our plans required us that we stick together as much as possible, as well as make use of any Assistance the Maton could provide my siblings and that assistance was more important than explosives.
"They do not stop us from carrying debilitating items such as powders or acids." She offered again.
This was an argument we've had before, all four of us and she was the only one left unconvinced.
We could use acids and capsaicin powders but we needed the means to store and use them effectively. None of which we could do much against powerful psykers and took up space.
What we could make and use was too ineffective against any half trained psyker and for what was left we could use our swords or Shuriken pistols to deal with instead. They could kill anything we needed faster than any alternatives and thus prevent screams and attention.
"None of which can do something a shuriken pistol can't, not if we want the Maton not to take them."
That ended the conversation.
The rest of the trio were busy.
Guraith through some arcane means had managed to divine patterns into the moving of the cults, none of us could see it or understand how he came to his conclusions but he did and when attempting to predict their movements he has yet to be wrong. He was taking in as much information trying to match his predictions to reality and make them as accurate as he could.
In the meantime, Aesan had taken to diligently rearranging the Orphanage and removing any psychic trace of our presence so that if someone came, they would think the reason it closed was that the last of the caretakers had fallen or left and not that the last of its wards had become adults.
A quick thought and a response came, Aesan was busy cleansing the passage Marsa had used to transport the death crystals. He will do five more sweeps to remove any traces he can before we leave. He also told us to leave the kitchen, before our psychic residues infest the rest of the Orphanage again.
We were doing our best to prevent it from happening already.
Guraith was already outside, he was still Looking over his map and muttering when we came out. He was in his own armor, his weapons on the grass near him to not distract him. I put his pack near him. Marsa and mine were already on our backs and Aesan's was left in my right hand.
"Aesan will be done in two hours, have there been any changes?" I asked as we approached.
It took him minutes to respond and his answer did not reassure me.
"Yes… No… The cults continue to act as they normally would but there's a ripple near the Webway gate. My predictions get less and less accurate the closer to it I am." He replied in frustration.
"Outsiders?" Our sister whispered.
I considered the option. If we are lucky, they might be willing to take us with them. We might have to find a way to pay for it but it would be worth it.
"No, unless the map provided by the Maton do not show them."
That was not something I wished to think about, our plans relied too much on this not being the case.
"We will assume the maps of the Maton are as accurate as they can be and that the interference is because something is happening in the Webway and those near it can feel it while we are too far away to do so. We will revise this assumption as we get closer." was my final answer on the matter.
We had no time to make any plans with the assumption that the Maton provided maps had flaws and my explanation was the only thing that would make sense based on what we knew.
Two hours later we were ready to leave as our brother finished his task.
I looked upon it, the white marble-like Wraithbone was subdued compared to what I knew we would find in the city and the rest of the empire. The central building where I have spent most of my second life was a small white pyramid half as tall as the hills near it. The other buildings near it, the armory, the dining room, the training rooms and pools were protected by 32 white towers, each of them automated by Wraithbone systems older than the Maton as an invention but still subordinated to them.
It was home, it was safety, it was sweet and held in it the best memories of both my lives.
I knelt, my hands near me and my body putting me in a position more appropriate for prayer than what I am about to do. My siblings did the same as me unprompted.
Two words left our lips and their echo remained to whisper back at us as the Holofields turned on and we rose. We did not waste anymore time and started running.
"Thank you."
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