Into the Black

(Throne Room, Inner Throne, Aurum Throni, Terran Orbit)

The lights of the throne room were dimmed, to the point where only those with enhanced vision could see further than the reach of their own arm. It was not like candle-light, where one might have some points of light in the darkness to focus on, blinding them to all else. That would have been a simpler feat. No, rather it was an overall dimness, spread throughout the room, with no apparent source, giving the entire throne room an atmosphere of the first shades of twilight, before the dawn.

Which is not to say that the room felt empty. Indeed, there was a palpable presence that filled the room, a pressure that rested upon anyone who came too close. A ‘light’ felt and seen with the mind more than with the eyes shone from one end of the room, from the throne.

Upon the throne sat the Empress of the Terran Empire, wearing golden power armor that glimmered in the dimness. The armor was ornate and gilded, made by master craftsmen from across the Empire, and would protect the Empress from weapons that would take out entire cities. While wearing this armor, sitting here, upon her throne, behind her legions of defenders and the guarding fleets outside, she could be said to be the most protected creature in the physical universe. But that was only part of the armor’s duty.

The true reason she wore the armor, even now, was because of the changes that had been wrought in her when the veil between dimensions had been ripped open. She had been transformed, molded and empowered by the will and belief of the people she ruled. Indeed, she had become so powerful that, even with her powers under some semblance of control, it was dangerous for the common citizenry to be in her presence.

She knew what they said about her, in the streets. The myths they wove about her, after her ascension to the throne. One story said that the armor she wore was originally black and red, in the colors of her house, but that her power turned it golden by the simple fact that she was wearing it. That was foolishness, of course, though not without reason. She couldn’t change lead into gold, but she knew that the armor she wore was more than it had been when she put it on. Simply basking in her psychic aura had changed it in a way that science had trouble explaining.

Another myth with a grain of truth in it was about her appearance. The story ran that she appeared differently to each person who gazed upon her face, and sometimes changing even as they looked upon her. The truth was that she only had the one face, but her power could not be fully contained by her flesh, and leaked out when she was not actively suppressing it. That aura would cause people to change how they perceived her, sometimes in wildly different ways.

So many stories, told in fear and reverence of her. And, thanks to the training she’d undergone, she now knew that those stories, and the beliefs behind them, were, perhaps, more powerful than reality. Through the twisted dimension of Hellspace, where psychic powers came from, their prayers and beliefs were changing her, enhancing her.

That was why the lights were so low. A new ability had manifested itself, and she needed time to learn to manage it. The dim lights helped with the meditation, allowing her to more easily turn her mind inward, as she had been taught.

She wasn’t alone, of course. Her loyal guards were in the throne room, naturally, but they did not approach. Only one person was at hand, her trusted advisor, the Nomad. He was helping her make sense of what was happening, and taking notes, so that nothing was missed.

“What do you see, Empress?”

“I see the terrors and nightmares surging from the depths. From hell itself come four terrors. One known, and three yet unheard of to mine ears.

“From the West, the rotting husk of fallen Ihm, held up by Pride alone. The goddess they have wrought sends forth her champion, a demigod imbued with her power, greatest of all her perfected ones. Through the fire, they will purge and purify those they find, until they, too, have been perfected, or died in the attempt.

“From the East, a great hunger arises, a Devourer of Worlds reborn from the depths of hell. The loss of the great world-eater before sent ripples throughout hell, and another of its type, born from that plane, now rises, the swarm at its back. But who shall stand against it, when so many foes are rising as one?

“From the North, I see the incursions of the Takers. They do not create, they take, they assimilate, they amalgamate. None of it new, none of it original. All of them bound to the will of a single mind, one made of many. Consensus. They will seek to add new beings to their group, and gain a new Consensus.

“From the South, Wrath incarnate. No thoughts but unending slaughter. Blood and death to sate their ancient god’s appetite. Fight to Kill. Fight to Die. All in His name.”

Lucio de Lici, the Empress’s Hand, frowned slightly at that, but kept taking his notes. The idea that the LARPers might have been right about something was disturbing enough on its own. He just hoped that this Wrath god didn’t have a throne of skulls, or there was a risk of lawyers getting involved, and no one wanted lawyers getting involved.

The Empress continued speaking, unaware of Lucio’s thoughts. She was only barely aware of his presence, truth be told. The visions were pressing down upon her, like her aura pressed down on the room. They needed to be witnessed, or she would receive no sleep this night.

She shuddered. “Hell has intruded upon the waking world, and, in so doing, awoken those who had thought to slumber. Victors and losers of a great war amongst the heavens, that spanned the stars when the stars were new. Ancient beings, slumbering the ages away, now returned to waking, their soulless vessels stirring in the darkness.

“They shall attempt to reclaim that which was theirs. Dynasties of a bygone era shall rise again, as the sole survivors of the ancient conflict take to the stars once more. Great and terrible shall be their coming, for their ancient foes are no more, and the powers that be are ill prepared for a war the likes of which they can bring.

“And yet, these dynasties are not unchecked. Once unified, that which bound them has passed out of these stars, into regions unknown. King shall fight king, in order to prove their dynasty’s superiority.

“But, in their ranks, the remains of a twisted mind spreads like a poison. Codes of vicious hate corrupt their vessels, as the last vestiges of a legion is burnt away. The mind is gone, but the poison remains, flaying the minds of the fallen as they flay the bodies of their foes.”

The Empress shuddered again upon her throne, as the visions wracked her. The experience took its toll on her, both mentally and physically, but she couldn’t stop. Not yet. She had been given this power, to peer into the many paths of what may be, and she would use it as best she could, to protect her people.

A new vision swam into view, causing her to gasp in shock and horror. “Oh, lament and ruin! The river runs red with the blood of the fallen! Those who would seek to understand the secrets of the universe trespass upon profane grounds, probing secrets which should never have been uncovered!

“A Nomad fallen, yet not allowed release. The consciousness passes on, but the flesh remains behind, losing most of its potency, yet retaining enough of a spark to allow unholy minds and profane hearts to conduct their experiments. Sundered souls form the corrupted core of the new machine, spurred on by those fearful souls who are willing to commit atrocities in the name of safeguarding their people.”

Lucio frowned as the Empress spoke, still taking his notes. A Nomad fallen, but not allowed release? That sounded like something had interfered with the normal respawn process.

There were plenty of ‘natural’ things that could interfere with a ‘normal’ respawn. Dying when your ship is blown up in space was the most common one, of course. When that happened, the game made you respawn elsewhere, so you didn’t get stuck in a death loop in deep space.

Of course, there were also the ‘unnatural’ ways of interfering with a respawn. Exterminatus could throw things for a loop, naturally. The Grand Arenas were their own special brand of Lost Tech weirdness. It was said that the Hundeherstelar nanites could do something similar, but no one was willing to test that.

But that didn’t sound like what was happening here. This sounded deliberate, like enemy action. Someone was hunting Nomads, and trying to trap them in the state between death and respawn. But why?

Well, the answer to that was obvious. The ability of Nomads to communicate instantly across the galaxy had proven far too useful for people to ignore. Especially those people with power. Having a Nomad in your group meant that you had access to intelligence you wouldn’t normally, and if you could get several of them to key points? The ability to plan and react to situations in real time, or as close to real time as was possible, was not something to underestimate. There was a reason why every military force in Known Space was looking to snap up every Nomad they could.

But there were some glaring problems that were obvious to anyone who looked at the situation. First off, there weren’t enough Nomads for every place you might want to get connected, and when Nomads logged off from the game world, governments would have gaps in coverage. Then there was the fact that the number of Nomads who could pass security screenings for high-value positions were not dime a dozen.

That was a problem, since the Nomad communications couldn’t be detected. When you passed information from one Nomad to another, you just had to trust that the Nomad didn’t broadcast it to every Nomad in the game. Just as bad, you couldn’t tell if you had a spy in your midst, reporting on your actions to the rest of the galaxy. The military and intelligence services wouldn’t accept something like that, not willingly.

The obvious solution, then, would be to find a way to take Nomads out of the equation.

The Empire owed its continued existence to Nomads. Literally, without Nomads like himself or Mollen, the Empire would have fallen to the Mad Usurper, and even if he never contacted the AI on Venus, it would have led the Empire on the path to destruction. Because of that, any attempts to do the more extreme tests had been stomped on, hard.

Oh, sure, there were tests to try and find a way to detect Nomad communications. But those were all done with people being paid for their services, completely consensually, and there were none of the real… nasty experimental models being used. This kept breakthroughs at a slower pace, perhaps, but it didn’t risk antagonizing one of the Empire’s greatest strategic assets.

But other groups, groups who hadn’t been so blatantly saved by Nomads? Or those that had actively been hurt by Nomads? They would have far fewer concerns about such things. He hadn’t seen any intelligence on it, but now that he thought about it, he would be shocked if there weren’t groups trying to figure out how to detect, block, and replicate a Nomad’s communication ability. How that would work with the game’s mechanics, he didn’t know, but he was certain there were in-game groups trying to figure it out.

Which meant that, as soon as the Empress came out of the trance she put herself in, he needed to make a few calls.