[Simulation initializing.]
[Current identity option:…..]
[Companions currently held: Cypher (Standard), Wolf Nolan (Standard).]
[Please choose an identity and your companions.]
[No selection made within the allotted time. Assignment will be random.]
[No identity chosen. A companion has been selected for this descent.]
[Restarting simulation.]
[You are entering the Warhammer universe. Arrival time and location are randomly assigned.]
[Time: 999.M41.]
[Location: the Cadian Gate.]
[You land hard on broken ground, black stone scattered among the ordinary rock like something had bled into the earth and cooled there.]
[Your eyes open to grey light and colder air than you expected. The ground under your gauntlets is packed dust and grit, and somewhere past the black stone, wind moves over rock with a low, steady sound.]
[You are still in your vibranium power armor, pale gold catching what little light there is. In one hand you grip the Blood Scythe, its blade wreathed in green light. In the other, Forgebreaker, lightning threading slow along the head.]
[Before you can turn to take the ground in properly, a voice reaches you. Mechanical. Familiar.]
["Human Primarch. Long time no see."]
[You are already moving. The armor answers before you finish deciding, and the Ten Rings leave your side in a shimmering purple arc, a low hum climbing as they close on the sound.]
[A stasis field opens in overlapping layers and the rings stop dead in the air, humming against nothing.]
[Trazyn steps out from the shadow of the black stone, the Empathic Obliterator loose in one metal hand, unhurried in the way only something with no need to breathe can be.]
["Last time, to get away, you wrecked most of my collection and left me the mess to clean up. So tell me, Primarch. How do you intend to settle that?"]
[Something like green light flickers, faint, in the hollows where his eyes should be.]
[Your hand tightens on the Blood Scythe and Forgebreaker before you have decided to let it. Inside your skull helm, the Mind Stone flares once, bright, gathering toward a beam that could end this before it starts.]
[Instead, you reach up and pull the helm free, baring your face to Trazyn and the thin, cold air. You breathe it in slowly, jaw tight, and speak.]
["Trazyn. If you haven't already taken me apart, that means what I cost you matters less than the deal on the table. Does it still stand?"]
[Trazyn tilts his skull, something close to admiration crossing whatever counts as his expression.]
["Cunning. Treacherous. I wanted to add you to the collection properly. Take my time with you. But..."]
["I will ask once more, Primarch. Does our agreement hold? Do you understand how long I have searched? You never surfaced anywhere in the Imperium."]
[You hear the frustration under the mechanical voice, plain as anything.]
[Your mouth twitches, something close to a wince.]
[You never meant to honor the deal in the first place. Leading the Legion fleet on long patrols through the Imperium's outer systems kept you out of Trazyn's reach far longer than either of you expected. But now circumstance has cornered you into a choice you didn't plan for, and somewhere in the last minute, the trade itself has started to interest you.]
[You settle the helm back over your head.]
[You drive the Blood Scythe's haft into the ground, raise a vibranium palm, and touch the Mind Stone set into your helm.]
[A strange energy gathers there, nothing like psionics, and glows faint in the air between you. Trazyn goes still, something catching in whatever serves him for breath.]
["What is that? The galaxy holds something like this?"]
[he murmurs, mostly to himself.]
["One of the Infinity Stones. A fragment of the laws of another universe entirely. I hold two of six. Gathered together, they are beyond anything you have seen."]
[You let the words land slow, deliberate.]
["So tell me, Trazyn. If our arrangement continues, can you actually pay what a thing like this is worth?"]
[Your voice drops low, coaxing.]
["Name it. Anything in my collection, no limit on the count. Damn it, you really did find my weak spot. Be grateful you just proved something, or I would have packed your skull full of Mindshackle Scarabs and been done with you."]
[Trazyn slams the scepter's foot against the stone, low and dangerous.]
["Primarch. I will say this plainly. I am no more than an Overlord who collects what interests him, but I remain Necron all the same. I will spend everything I have on any method that might return the Necrons to flesh and soul."]
["So do not lie to me again."]
[A pause.]
["Unless you would rather be hunted by the Silent King's legions instead. They do not negotiate the way I do."]
[You go quiet for a moment, turning it over, then give a small shake of your helm.]
[You cross the ground between you and close your vibranium hand around Trazyn's metal one.]
[It takes time, but the terms are settled.]
[Trazyn agrees to join you himself, as an outside advisor. In exchange, you take on the weight of finding some way, any way, to give the Necrons back their bodies.]
[And wherever you go from here, whatever forces belong to Trazyn come with you as an asset, not only the ones already traded away as prisoners.]
[You stand beside him now, on the same stretch of broken ground.]
["While we're at it, Trazyn. Where exactly is this? Have you seen anyone who looks like me?"]
[Trazyn turns his skull toward you with the particular tilt of something deciding you are an idiot.]
["A Primarch, descending onto a world he knows nothing about. No wonder you caused me so much trouble on my graveyard world before."]
["You don't know? This is Cadia."]
["Chaos Warmaster Abaddon, currently well into his Thirteenth Black Crusade, has your Imperium completely surrounded."]