(Part 2 of 2)
{Gamenote: due to map design, you’ll just have to ignore the Blood Angel coloring and markings. I didn’t have any way to set them as Vols, except by making one of the other starting positions also Vols, on my side, and that was too much of a crushing over-roll.}
“Resources in this area are rather spent,” Pauel told her as they met for planning at the fortress.
“And I see,” she said with just a slight acidity, “the Legion has put down one plasma generator.”
“We have been called away. Often.”
“I know. We could have upgraded the area ourselves, already. That was my error, and I am sorry. I was critiquing myself, not you. We should have been doing more to help your operations; and I am to blame for this situation at all. I do not wish to risk my life, or even another Eldar life, for a bunch of ungrateful filthy, dying -- !” She stopped, and carefully inhaled. “But here I am.”
“Ah. Well, I’m here, too, for now, and others may come, but the first requisition should be spent on logistics, of course. We have enough defenses to parry off casual thrusts. For now.”
“Already working on it,” she murmured, sending command orders out as Bonesingers and two squads of scouts arrived.
“We still have some time. The enemy will be distracted with each other, and with building up their own presence in the area. At first.”
“Once we’re ready to go out and remove them, I recommend trying to hit them for balance, so one of them won’t get so much stronger as to finish off the other.”
“Very well said! -- you would make a good Eldar.”
“To be fair, I’ve been alive now for over ten thousand years, though mostly not in this form. Doesn’t seem that long. In the warp, I mean.”
“I understand. I don’t often meet humans older than I am, and by a fair margin. More precisely, you are the first.”
“So you were born after, um... the Eye of Terror opened?” he diplomatically put it.
“Long after. We do still breed. It is just... difficult. To avoid being captured by Slaanesh while doing so. And we don’t breed very quickly at all in the best of times. Didn’t.”
“Which is why you protect your dwindling numbers so fiercely. I understand, and I appreciate your gesture of goodwill here that much more by proportion!”
“But do you appreciate her gesture fully yet?”
Eria and Pauel were both seasoned warriors, very much so; and so though surprised they whirled toward the unexpected and oddly stilted voice, in synchrony together -- though in his armor he couldn’t turn nearly as fast, and so saw him last:
an Imperial Inquisitor.
“So, you aren’t here to fight us,” Eria inferred.
“And you did not foresee my coming. Or I would not have surprised you. Curious.” The massive black-skinned warrior quirked a smile and easily shifted his warhammer in his brilliant, thick armor.
“No, I am only here to be... inquisitive.”
“Very well,” the Force Commander said, “I am Commander Pauel.” He didn’t introduce the Farseer, nor of course his obvious Legion.
Nor did he ask for the other’s name, but paused a moment to offer a chance at reciprocation... “I am Inquisitor Mordecai Toth.”
“I know that name,” the Eldar said. “My teacher fought against you, and with you, on occasion. She said that you were a good opponent.”
“Taldeer, perhaps? I have only met one Farseer yet, besides yourself, although I am sure that I have fought against, and even with, some others. Indirectly. You understand.”
“I do. And yes, I was taught by Taldeer.”
“I felt... ...a loss, when I heard of her death, against the Necron menace on Kronus, during the Dark Crusade. My condolences,” he bowed, more like a nod in his armor. “I found her interesting. I would have been glad to study her more.”
“Dissect her?”
“Unnecessary. And pointless, for me. I would have recommended against it.”
“Interrogation then,” stated Pauel.
“Not torture, no. Any player of the ancient game, appreciates another player worthy of the match.”
“So, if you are not here to kill us, we have some things to do.” Pauel voxed some orders to prepare to bring in tactical marines.
“Protecting this fortress?” Toth made that a question. Aimed at Eria. “Eldar protecting an Imperial fortress is, to say the least, a rare spectacle.”
“There are people behind the fortress,” she answered cooly. “We are trying to evacuate them.”
“Speaking of protecting this fortress,” Pauel returned after sending out some orders, “how did you get arrive? And when?”
“Why, just now, a few minutes ago. Shall I tell him how? Or does he know? Or, does he
not know?” The Inquisitor watched the enquiring look that Pauel gave Eria; and her wariness.
“Apparently he does not,” she answered. “And I have not yet told him, that this fortress was built around and over an ancient Eldarian webway gate.”
“One in danger of being overrun by highly unstable forces, naturally capable of dangerous warp manipulation,” Toth observed.
Now she did snort. “And the mon-keigh, O Inquistor Mon-keigh: you think we think that
you are not?!” Toth squinted at that riposte. “We know how to seal off a captured webway gate.”
“Like this one we are standing over?” Pauel enquired, pointedly looking at Toth.
“This one has never been sealed, yes,” affirmed the Inquisitor. “Guarded, yes, against what might emerge, or who. But, not sealed by the Eldar, nor of course by us. Don’t you find that curious?”
“A backdoor communication channel, then.”
“Perhaps, but one not used. Overtly not used, if I may put it bluntly, keeping in mind the current situation of the Cadian system.”
“In fact,” Eria said, “some blessed saints of the Imperial Sisters recently helped evacuate some troops of yours, through some Eldar webway gates. With our permission.”
“But you did not warn us this invasion was coming.”
“...no.”
“But you knew.”
“...to some extent. Pauel should remember me saying that, during an operational briefing, before we arrived in the area.”
“Among other things, I am inquisitive,” Toth said, “as to
why. The fall of the gate, creating a risk of expanding the Eye of Terror, could by no means benefit the Eldar. Or, could it?”
“That is a fascinating question, which we shall have to return to later,” Pauel declared. “You are welcome to join our fight here. Your blows against Chaos spawn would be very helpful. But if you aren’t allowed, or might get into too much trouble, I’ll understand.”
“...you would let me take command of a squad of your Marines?”
“Under supervision, yes.”
“Or, if you prefer, I would allow you to fight along with a squad of Banshees,” the Farseer invited -- a little pointedly.
“That would be... a novel experience,” Toth agreed, cautiously. “If you are serious.”
“Very.”
“Ah, of course,” Pauel slightly smirked. “They would keep a better eye on you in case of treachery.”
The fight began in earnest, now, outside.
It continued. For some time.
{Gamenote: to be honest this fight was rather boring -- the Nids and Demons fought each other so much we barely saw them before advancing outside the fortress, and we had plenty of time to max up to an overwhelming power. The map is really designed for a 2 vs 1 fight, not free for all. Also, my game crashed before I finished off the Demons, who had already beaten the Nids after which the AI seems to have given up trying to decide what to do; but I was well on the way to rolling them, too. Please accept these snapshots as indicative.}
“I rather hoped,” said Eria after, “the Tyranids would overcome the Chaos demons, if there should be some clear victor between them.”
“Less Chaos that way,” Pauel explained to Toth. “Relatively. Thank you for your service. My men and I appreciate it.”
“As do we,” the Farseer said.
“Returning to our fascinating discussion, as we finish up here: I myself would like to enquire,” Pauel dryly asked, “how exactly did you ever learn how to travel the webways?”
“Yes, a worthy question.” Toth had to have noticed that this was not exactly where the topic had been left off, but he continued anyway: “I will be glad to answer, in exchange for knowing why the webway was never closed, or even destroyed from within, despite being captured by the Inquisition. Farseer Eria, as I’m sure I heard you called by various subordinates: I don’t suppose you would care to explain as well, why you never used it?”
She nodded once, her lips drawn thin. Toth, with a gesture, invited her first to answer.
“My teacher gave out explicit instructions, to keep the gate unsealed.”
“And did she have that authority? Or did she foresee why?”
“Not normally, no; and so that answer is yes. But she didn’t specify. And yes, before you ask, I did ask her.”
“Curious. Do you have any guesses you think worth prudent to share?”
“Until just recently, I had no clue. Just recently, though, my guess is that she saw the gate would be used by you.” Eria smiled, thinly, to see the Inquisitor’s lips now thin in turn.
“...a reasonable guess. I suspected you might answer that -- once you told me the Farseer ordered, prophetically, the gate be left unbarred. So, you deployed to protect the gate for my...”
“As you have just realized, clearly not: once you arrived, we would have had no reason to stay any longer, if that had been my primary goal.”
“...you expect me to return the way I came. The gate must therefore stay protected, so that I may go back.”
“A not-unreasonable guess,” she smirked, “except for being clearly very faulty. I didn’t foresee your coming, and you caught even me by surprise. Quite an embarrassment to me, remember?”
“Or, that is what you want us to believe,” said Toth -- glancing pointedly at Pauel.
“Hm. I’m going to take a guess myself,” the Force Commander said: “you don’t understand her yet. At all.”
“And you do? Are you so sure?”
“I do have more experience than you, not only at dealing with her, but also with strange manipulations and lies, far beyond whatever an Eldar might dream up! So no, I think she meant what she said was her primary goal here; and that was...?” Pauel prompted. “She told you, too, shortly after we met.”
“To save a bunch of ‘mon-keigh’?!
You don’t understand the Eldar well at all, I dare to say.”
Pauel glanced at Eria, as they walked back toward the fortress, through the ruined destruction, with the remnants of their army, working together. “Anything,” she said, “I said, might be deemed suspicious, or else redundant if you do understand me. Correct?”
“Well answered!” Pauel laughed. “What you may not know,” he answered to Toth, “is that she herself was instrumental in bringing us all together to work with each other, to fight against Chaos. Not against the Imperium, if we can help it. And she has made her prejudices clear, about our species. Self-critically so. And that, she said, is why she has chosen to fight here -- commanding her own people to their deaths, some of them. She said that she is at fault, for not having done enough to fight to save our people yet, and that this situation here was her own....”
“....yes?” Toth inquired. “Her own fault, did she say? How so?”
“She had manipulated the Nids and the Demons into fighting each other, to keep them occupied and not so much a threat to our recovery efforts, to get as many people off this planet and safely away as possible.”
“A very typical Eldar move on the board, I agree.”
“But, the enemies had started trying to outflank each other in this direction, which put the population at risk. Thus, her responsibility for their endangerment.”
“Which she perhaps considered you would blame her for, and so,” Toth suggested, “to protect her status and goodwill in your force, she sacrificed her people to clean up a political mess she had made.”
“She doesn’t like to sacrifice her people,” Pauel replied, shaking his head, waving off the idea. “That isn’t it. No,” he rubbed his chin, “I think it’s something else.”
“Do tell,” invited Toth, still with a satisfied smirk.
“...ha! A-
hah!” Pauel’s victorious laugh caused that smirk to falter. “I see the plot! You,” he whirled upon Eria, “
arranged for that tendril of their war to reach out in this direction -- in order to convince those people, finally, to trust us to evacuate them!!”
“I did. Well seen. The people needed to see the Eldar helping, too, and I had put them in danger, so it was fair that we risk our lives for them.”
“Bah.” Now Toth was waving that off. “I utterly fail to believe you now regard the value of your people as being equal to our own, so that you would sacrifice them to help us. There must,” he said to Pauel, “you must understand, there
HAS TO BE another plot behind this!”
“Of course,” she pertly said. “Considering the circumstances, as they were developing...
“...I wanted to see if this would trigger whatever my teacher’s purpose was, in leaving that webway gate unsealed. Upon her special authority as a Farseer.
“And here you are. O Inquisitor Toth! -- treasured opponent of Farseer Taldeer. Who has somehow learned to navigate our webway, and operate our gates!” And now she was beaming so hard, she was radiating satisfaction just like a cat perched up above a stove! “You can take your turn explaining that, at any time you’re ready, according to our deal.”
“Preposterous! You would have us... you would have
me believe, you sacrificed the lives of your people, for this? ...for
me?!”“Not for you. Not at all. And not to see if whatever she had Foreseen would happen. I didn’t know what would happen, remember, or if it would happen at all at this time. I’m deeply curious what the meaning of this will be. But I assure you: I didn’t sacrifice my people’s lives for
you.” -- delivered with a glare as hard and sharp as warp-bone. “...I might do so later,” she admitted, looking away. “I don’t know. It depends.”
“And so I am back to why you sacrificed your people’s lives. No answer you gave makes sense, so far.”
“Of course not,” she said... and distantly smiled. “I’ve told you the truth -- but you cannot believe it.”
“I believe it,” Pauel said. “And
my belief counts, here. Not his.”
“Your belief counts, my ally. But... maybe also his.
“Maybe that’s what my teacher foresaw. I’ll tell you something else I didn’t foresee: our leader saving you, Commander Pauel. Any of you, at all. That never even occurred to me. I still remember my blank surprise, the moment he suggested it.” She shook her head, amazed. “I... supposed that he would destroy you all, or seal you away forever, or for an eon. Or something. I hadn’t really thought about it. Only assumed. I assumed what I already thought, and felt, to be true. And I was wrong,” she told Pauel. “And I am glad I was wrong, and that I agreed to help him try. And also I am sorry for being wrong. I will admit, I didn’t want you saved, at all. Not specifically you, I didn’t personally know you, but generally none of you. All of you could rot forever, or out of existence all together, as far as I ever cared.
“But
he cared. More than I could care.
“And that,” she told Toth, who was busily flicking glances back and forth between them, as if he had forgotten what Pauel had been, “is why I and my people risked our lives today, for your fellow humans. I’ve learned to care more than I did, once. At least, I’ve learned I
should care more, although I’m not very good at it yet. My people are learning that, too. Slowly enough, but surely.
“And -- that might -- that
might just be --
“-- why my teacher saw to leave a door unsealed. For you. To meet
your monsters.”
They walked toward the forward ramp of the fortress, which they would now abandon, its purpose served.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t even know if I would survive today.
“I hope we’ll see.”
