Chapter 55: The Seal of House Albos Arbor
Kian Voss continued his scavenging frenzy, and as he expected, the isolated upper tier was a treasure trove of "Gold" tier items.
[Item: Recreational Data-Chips] x5
Value: 10,000 Agri-Scrips (2,000 each)
Description: Storage units containing digital interactive entertainment. These chips can be slotted into any cogitator with a port.
System Note: In the Hive, "Happiness" is the most expensive commodity. Such entertainment products are luxury goods, circulated only among the Spire nobility and the wealthy merchants of the Mid-Hive.
Kian stared at the five small chips in his hand, momentarily stunned. He had never imagined the cold, cruel world of the 41st Millennium would have "Video Games."
The chips were encased in vibrant, high-saturation packaging—neon pinks and electric blues that looked completely out of place in the dark, gothic shadows of the strategic warehouse. They looked like they had been phased in from an alternate dimension.
But on second thought, it made sense. The Imperium had mastered void travel; no matter how grim the galaxy was, the elite still needed their "Bread and Circuses" to distract them from the encroaching darkness. If millions of laborers were breaking their backs, someone had to be enjoying the spoils.
Kian tucked the chips away—that was 10,000 scrips right there. He kept searching and found ten more chips. These weren't interactive, though.
"Pict-Scroll Dramas," Kian muttered. "Soap operas of the 41st Millennium."
His curiosity was nearly at its breaking point. What kind of shows did people in Warhammer 40k watch? A Space-Opera version of Romeo and Juliet? Or perhaps The Real Housewives of the Segmentum Obscurus?
Unfortunately, his personal terminal was still encrypted. He'd have to wait to start his binge-watching session.
In the second room, he found a chrono-watch. The dial was frozen, the internal gears likely seized by rust. The System gave it a fluctuating value between 100 and 1,000 scrips—its worth depended entirely on whether he could find a collector of "ancient" mechanical trinkets.
The third room was a dead end. It was sealed with a high-end Gene-Lock. Without the correct biometric signature or a logic-daemon decrypter, he couldn't even scratch the door. He moved to the final hab-unit at the end of the platform.
He pushed the door open and flinched.
Leaning against the back wall was a skeleton. It had been there for decades; the bones were bleached clean, stripped of every scrap of flesh by the dry, recycled air and the passage of time.
The skull had a massive, jagged exit wound at the crown. The skeletal hand was still frozen in a death-grip around an ornate stub-pistol. It was a textbook suicide—the man had put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Kian pried the weapon from the bones. He tried to check the chamber, but the pistol was a solid brick of oxidation. The metal was so far gone that even the high-grade anti-corrosive steel couldn't save the Machine Spirit. It was a paperweight.
Kian frowned. This man had held a position of high social standing. Even as a skeleton, his tattered rags showed traces of gold filigree and silver embroidery. In a world where most wore coarse synthetic work-smocks, this man had spent his final moments in silk.
Kian searched the room and found a leather-bound journal in the corner. As he lifted it, something heavy slid out and hit the floor with a metallic clink.
He picked up the palm-sized object. It was a shield-shaped insignia, crafted from blackened plasteel and inlaid with ivory.
[COGITATOR SCAN INITIALIZED]
[Item: The Seal of the Count of Albos Arbor]
Value: Priceless (Unique Relic)
History: The House of Albos Arbor (The White Tree) spans 300 years of history. It was founded by a decorated Major of the Astra Militarum whose service to the Throne earned him a retirement of legend.
Three centuries ago, the Major's cruiser passed through this system. With the blessing of the Departmento Munitorum, he was allowed to retire to the Spire of Agri-World 496b. Based on his combat record and the medals he carried, he was granted the title of Count under the local feudal meritocracy.
Over three centuries, House Albos Arbor rose to become one of the most influential "Old Blood" families in the Hive. This seal is the primary proof of inheritance for the title and the family's assets.
Kian hadn't even finished reading the prompt when a violent red notification pulsed across his vision.
[DING! UNIQUE RELIC ACQUIRED]
[MAIN QUEST UNLOCKED: THE FATE OF THE WHITE TREE]
Objective: A Count's legacy lies in your hands. Does your ambition stir?
Branch A: Sell the seal to the enemies of House Albos Arbor for a king's ransom in credits.
Branch B: Return the seal to the surviving members of the family to earn their eternal gratitude and a permanent Spire-connection.
Branch C: Use the Seal and your System-forged identity to usurp the title. Become the new Count of Albos Arbor.
Which path will you walk?
"Throne's mercy," Kian whispered, his fingers tracing the carving of the white tree on the crest. "I've triggered the Main Questline."
He looked at the skeleton. This was a Count? Why would a Spire Lord crawl into a dark hole in the Underhive to blow his brains out?
His "Gossip-Radar" was screaming. He opened the leather journal, and the story of the Count's final days unfolded. It was a masterpiece of grimdark tragedy.
The Count's life had been a twin-disaster of business and love.
This massive strategic warehouse had once been the Count's private asset—a source of immense wealth. But through the shadow-politics of the Spire, his rivals had lobbied the Governor to have the sector decommissioned, cutting off the Count's primary income.
As his coffers emptied, the rival families turned to violence. They sent assassins to pick off his kin. One by one, his three sons and two daughters were murdered, their deaths staged as "accidents" or "gang-violence."
Grief-stricken and desperate, the Count began to raise a private militia to strike back. But on the eve of his counter-attack, he discovered the ultimate betrayal.
His wife—the woman he had loved for forty years—had been sleeping with the youngest scion of his rival house. She had fed the enemy every scrap of the Count's tactical data.
Even worse, the "Black Widow" had been poisoning the Count's daily amasec for years. The poison didn't kill him; it caused a slow systemic atrophy of his reproductive organs. The Count discovered that his "manhood" had withered to the size of a peanut. He was sterile, broken, and alone.
He realized he had no heirs, no power, and no future.
So, he decided to flip the table.
He invoked the "Final Legacy" of the First Count—the retired Major. When the Major had left his voidship, he had brought a "souvenir": a Grade-A Neural-Toxin Warhead.
The bomb had been treated as a family heirloom for three hundred years, its Machine Spirit bloated on the incense and prayers of the Whitewood family.
The Count didn't fight a war. He simply detonated the bomb in the heart of the family estate. The toxic fog swept through ten percent of the Upper Spire, liquefying the lungs of every noble, rival, and traitor in its path. An estimated 100 million people died in a single night.
The Spire went quiet. The rivals were dead. The wife was dead. The "Game of Thrones" had been reset by a grieving man with a chemical weapon.
Knowing that the Arbites would subject him to the most horrific tortures imaginable if caught, the Count fled to his abandoned warehouse. He used his remaining explosives to destroy the access stairs, crawled into the highest room, and ended his own line.
Kian closed the book, staring at the bleached skull.
"One hundred million dead because your wife cheated on you," Kian muttered. "That's some legendary-tier petty, my Lord. I respect the hustle."
Kian tucked the journal and the Seal into his pack. He had the keys to a kingdom. He just had to decide what to do with them.
But first, he had to get down from this sixty-meter perch without dying.
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