Black Crusade: Inside the Silent Mountain

The Silent Mountain was a slanted frozen peak that jutted out of the snow-covered ground, looming large against the horizon. It lay beneath the night sky, still and silent, living up to its name - at least in part.

It was no mountain, though, but a massive ship; a destroyer crashed nose-first into the unforgiving earth, and coated in layers upon layers of snow and ice until all signs of its actual nature were hidden from sight and memory. It had lain forgotten for decades, a cold, silent tomb - and a prison, at least until two weeks ago, for a single survivor.

Fariad sometimes found himself wondering how he'd gotten through those many years trapped within the hydroponics bay of the Kebechet with his sanity intact - or if he had actually lost his mind somewhere along the way, and just hadn't noticed. It was hard to tell, especially with the company he now found himself keeping. He still wasn't entirely sure what to make of them all, but they had released him from his prison, and as crazy as they all seemed, at least they currently had a common goal. Restore his ship if possible, acquire another if not, and somehow get off this cursed planet.

After that, Fariad wasn't sure what he would do. From all he'd heard over the past two weeks, everything he'd known from before the crash was no longer true or even relevant. He wasn't sure what, if anything, to believe of what he'd been told, but if even a fraction of it was true... he no longer had anywhere left to return to.

But that was a problem for the future. For now, Fariad focused on the present; on clearing the corridors of the Kebechet of debris and rubble, restoring power to what systems were still functional, and reaching other sections of the crashed ship that he hadn't been able to get to on his own.

They had recently 'acquired' several servitors from a Mechanicus freighter that now sat in one of the Kebechet's lopsided hangar bays, and some of those servitors had been set to the task of clearing blockages from the corridors and cataloguing any equipment or gear they recovered. Fariad was currently making his way through the slanted hallways from one group of servitors to the next, checking on their progress and seeing what other sections of the ship they'd managed to open up. Behind him paced Khalid, Fariad's constant, silent companion; once his battle-brother and squadmate, now little more than a faintly-whispering ghost in a shell of crimson and white armour.

Nate liked the tunnels that catacombed The Silent Mountain. They reminded him of home, So dark and secure. But it was different in The Mountain. Everywhere there were signs of destruction, something that caused the 14 year old boy to feel right at home.

There was the draw back that much of The Silent Mountain was still buried beneath metallic rubble. Nate mused however, that this made for good practice, as he worked away manipulating the metals in the rubble before him to clear a blockage and reinforce this particular passage. He head learned quickly that just because a path was cleared did not mean it was safe...

"All done! Good and clear for Master!" Nate proclaimed, before running off ahead yet again, eager to explore the dank dark passage before it was lit up by the others. He could not see in the Dark, But something about it just made him feel safer.

That and he wanted to find the Chamber first. He would show Tobias that his new life of freedom was good, and earn the loyalty of the Astropath. Doing so would also show his Devotion to Amon, who in turn would aid Nate in becoming even stronger.

"Come now, Can't Be far ahead Master!" Nate yelled from the shadows.

Fariad had paused to check on a pair of servitors that were cataloguing the contents of a recently revealed side room when the yell echoed faintly down the corridor outside. Fariad took a moment to make a little note in the book chained at his hip, then left the room and set off in the wake of the echo, with Khalid trailing dutifully behind him.

As he walked, his way was lit by a glow-globe hooked up to his armour and powered by his backpack. The light wasn't particularly bright, but with his Astartes-enhanced eyes, it was enough to allow him to see relatively clearly. And even as the light fell across them, Fariad did his best to ignore the long-dead and dessicated corpses of the ship's original crew lying scattered about. As long as he ignored them, he didn't have to think about the fifteen thousand people who had died in the crash - some of whom Fariad had known for years beforehand.

He reached the blockage that Nate had just finished clearing, the still-cooling metal making faint ticking noises. He paused for a moment to examine Nate's handiwork. The youth's power was impressive - and concerning, as was the depths of his ignorance. Still, Nate had taken well enough to the few things Fariad had managed to teach him so far, and Fariad was determined to continue educating the youth to the best of his ability.

After passing through the cleared blockage, it didn't take Fariad long to catch up with Nate, his arrival preceded by the light from his glow-globe and the sound of heavy armoured footsteps against the metal floor. "Nate," Fariad greeted him briefly, his deep voice filtered through the speakers of his helmet. "Good work with clearing that last blockage. Your finer control of the metal looks to be improving."

Nate stopped scampering round when Fariad said his name, and turned to the Praise of the one he referred to as Master. "I have had much to practice on." He replied, so unused to positive praise as to be unsure of how to respond.

Despite his confusion, it was clear that his new lifestyle was doing him good. Learning from a benevolent master, being encouraged. Perhaps it was just the new suit of Carapace armor he wore, but already he was begging to stand straighter and more confidently. "Are we close? We've gone up and up and up, We must be close new, Yes?" he said.

"And you will have yet more to practice on, no doubt," Fariad replied as he came to a halt nearby, Khalid a step behind him. "Which is just as well - as they say, practice makes perfect, and you still have much to learn. I trust you have been practising those mantras I taught you earlier."

At the question, Fariad paused for a moment and looked around thoughtfully, trying to get a better feeling for where exactly in the ship they were. "We have made good ground, yes," he started, tilting his head to look back down at Nate, the green of his eye lenses glowing in the dim corridor. "But there is still a fair ways to go yet. We are on the wrong level for the astropathic chambers - we need to reach an elevator first, to get to the upper decks. And our best chance of finding one that hasn't collapsed in the crash is closer to the spine of the ship."

Nate unceremoniously picked his nose as he pondered the Masters Question. "Nope." He eventually replied.
"They are boooring... And I've already memorized them anyway!" he sulked.

"Elevator.. Like in the smaller skyboat?" He looked down into the inviting darkness "Do you think we are close?"

Fariad stifled a sigh. "You may think them boring, but they are necessary. They will help you with focus and discipline, which are both things you will need if you want to retain control over your power, and not have it control you instead," he said sternly. "I have seen what happens when one loses control. The results are... messy, and most often fatal."

He paused briefly at the question, then nodded. "Yes, like in the smaller starship. If we are lucky, we will find an elevator that is still working. I would like to avoid having to actually damage the ship any further. She has been through enough already." He fell silent for a moment before continuing. "As for how close we are..." Fariad shrugged, the movement emphasised by his pauldrons. "We shall find out."

He began walking further down the corridor, keeping his stride slow and measured so that Nate would easily be able to keep up. The dim glow-globe attached to his armour lit the corridor ahead, but only for a few meters - beyond that, it remained dark and silent.

Nate thought it best to take the lecture in his stride, After all this Master let him Learn and Read and other interesting things that helped him gain more power. "Yes, Master" His curt reply.

"This Voidboat is Big! I will take lots of Fixing i thinks. Yess... I wants to fix the Telepathy Room, For Tobias so he will be my friend. He needs to accept his new freedom with us, Then he can work with us and become strong! Then i think we should find the Fleshworkers room.. Mara will like that one, and i can make potions! And the cultists would like to venomsmith! What do you wish to work on Master?"

At Nate's curt reply, Fariad silently hoped that the youth would take his warning to heart, and wasn't just agreeing to appease him. But he said no more on that matter, instead just nodding amiably as he listened to Nate ramble.

Nate's question made him tilt his head thoughtfully as he paced along. "I? Many things. I too would like to reach the Apothecarion - the fleshworker's room, as you called it. I would also like to reach the armoury and machining bays, so we can better equip ourselves and work on repairing our armour." He gestured briefly back towards Khalid, who was still following along behind them.

"My priority at the moment, however, is restoring full power to the ship and reactivating its point defences," Fariad continued. "Once all the ice and snow melts, this ship will become a very visible target. If we can get the defences working, they will help to keep the ship - and ourselves - safer from attackers."

The diminutive figures face lit up "This ship has Weapons!? What kind of defenses has it? Its a big ship, we would need lots of cultists to defend it with..." The gears turned steadily in the small but powerful mind of the young psycher. "We will need to hold out for some time, see if others made the pilgrimage. And Skarsguard is close. We will be at war with them soon..."

Fariad nodded. "Indeed it does. This is a destroyer - a ship of war. It has many weapons, though I suspect the main macro cannons will no longer be operable. Much of the point defences - lascannons, flak cannons, megabolters - should have survived the crash though, or so I hope."

He let out a quiet sigh. "And yes, we will need many people to properly operate and defend this ship. Its original crew was over fifteen thousand people - much, much more than the thirty or so we have right now. It will be a long time before we can gather anywhere near that number of followers, even if all the pilgrims make it."

Fariad fell silent for a moment, then nodded. "And you are right about Skarsguard. Faulk will no doubt see this ship as a prize far too tempting to ignore. With or without the point defences, I anticipate much fighting in the near future." He let out a soft chuckle. "Which I am sure Darius will most appreciate."

Nates Smile was anything but comforting. "Goood... I owe the God of Blood some Skulls..."

Fariad frowned at the mention of the god of blood, but the expression remained hidden beneath his helmet. He still wasn't sure what to make of any of these so-called 'gods' that everyone around him seemed to follow, but he knew he personally wanted no part in any of them.

"Just be sure you do not endanger yourself unnecessarily," Fariad replied after a moment of heavy silence. "You have much potential, and I would not want to see it wasted due to carelessness."

"Yes master, It knows there is danger all about. We becomes stronger than the danger, or we die. That is the way, yess. We chooses our dangers, we knows the risks. Its the sneaky things that might kill us, So we are the sneakyest." Nate ranted on, his strange lunacy holding a truth of its own, for those that cared to decipher it from his twisted low Gothic rambling.

Nate continued to scout ahead, using his powers a little more sparingly to clear away ahead, clearly anxious to find what they were looking for, or anything else. The youth's apparently short attention driving him onward.

Fariad listened in to Nate's ranting, silently analysing not just what he was saying but how he was saying it. It was becoming more and more obvious that the youth had a quick and intelligent mind, but its growth had been wilfully stunted by his former master. The deliberately forced ignorance offended Fariad on an almost personal level, and he was determined to educate Nate to the best of both their abilities.

To this end, as Nate ranted Fariad would gently correct his vocabulary or grammar occasionally. Whenever they were halted by rubble that Nate had to clear a way through, Fariad would observe, then offer praise and suggestions on how to improve in equal measure.

The deeper they went into the ship, the more confident Fariad became with their location in it, and the more decisive he was when choosing their route whenever the hallways branched. The number of corpses scattered throughout the corridors was also gradually increasing, making it harder for Fariad to ignore them whenever the dim light of his glow-globe fell across the dessicated remains. Especially when, every now and then, he thought he saw something that he recognised, stirring memories he hadn't touched in years.

His mood became more pensive, as he thought of all that had been lost. Fariad didn't let it distract him too much from supervising Nate however, though his comments to the youth became few and far between.

Eventually they entered a larger corridor, one of the major thoroughfares throughout the ship. Fariad stopped suddenly, Khalid a step behind him, the light from his glow-globe illuminating a rich, intricate mosaic that lined a section of the wall, arching up over the ceiling and down the other side of the corridor. The crash had damaged it, and the floor was scattered with dislodged and broken tiles, but enough of the mosaic still remained to show a scene of the silver towers of Tizca, framing the eclipsed sun symbol of the Thousand Sons legion. Fariad stared at the mosaic for several long moments, then knelt and gently retrieved one of the fallen pieces of tile. He carefully turned it over in his gauntleted fingertips, absently examining it from all angles even as his mind raced with thoughts of home.

"Nate," Fariad rumbled without warning, his gaze still fixed on the tile between his fingers. "Would you like to learn Prosperan?"

The diminutive child turned from investigating an unimpressive side room, his blue haired head appearing from the doorway curiously. "What's a 'Prosper-an?'" he asked.

He was getting to love his new Cult, the freedoms he was granted since The Purple Man helped him overcome his former master. He had freedoms hear he had always yearned for, But above them all was the curiosity he had been forbidden in his past life. Questions were not merely tolerated, They were in fact encouraged, and as he spent more time with his new Kin, Nate slowly began to accept this change and put aside his old obfuscating habits on matters of knowledge.

Fariad looked up from the piece of tile he was holding, though he remained kneeling on the floor. "Prosperan is the native language of my homeworld, Prospero," he replied after a moment. "It is the main language used on this ship, alongside Gothic, so knowing at least the basics of it would assist you in reading the signs and navigating the ship corridors later."

He got back to his feet with a creak and hum of armour, absently tucking the tile into his belt pouch as he rose. "Outside of myself and my remaining brothers, I do not know if there is anyone else left alive who knows it. Nobody else on this planet would though, I am sure."

The child eyes lit up with delight, and Nate looked every bit the child he was for the first time since he could remember. "Ooo! Yes please! Nice Master, Teaches us faraway world with exciting new words! If we learnes them all, Will Master tell us stories of the world?"

Nate had always had a thirst for knowledge, but only as he knew it to be a useful tool in the acquisition of power. He had only ever been told stories of what could or would be, usually the grand designs of some deluded Aspirant or another. There was little he had ever known of the existence of outside worlds, Much less those that had actually been and were true realities.

Nate's enthusiasm made Fariad smile briefly, and even though the expression was hidden by his helmet, his voice was warmer when he replied. "Of course," he began with a solemn nod. "You will not even have to wait until you have learned all the words - I shall tell you some stories along the way, using the words I teach you so you can learn them more easily."

He looked back to the mosaic, broken but still beautiful. "I think you would have liked Prospero. Had you been born there, in the days of my Legion, I believe you would have fit in quite well. You most likely would have been chosen and trained and raised to become one of my battle-brothers." He rapped his knuckles against the jade scarab set in his crimson breastplate as he looked back at Nate. "One of the Fifteenth Legion - one of the Thousand Sons."

Nate looked agasp. “Whoah...” he said. “There were a whole Thousand of you?!”

Fariad blinked, then let out a low, rumbling chuckle. “The Thousand Sons is just my legion’s name,” he explained patiently. “At our peak, there were almost ten thousand of us.”

Nate wandered forward in silence for long moments. “That’s so many… How many legions was there? I’ve never seen so many peoplses… not without them fighting each other for power, or water, or blood.” As the implications sunk into the naive yet calculating mind of Nate he mumbled to himself… “The Father must have been legendary…”

“There were twenty legions originally,” Fariad replied. “And my legion was actually one of the smallest. Some of the other legions had a hundred thousand Astartes or more. We worked together to unite humanity across the galaxy, and drive out the aliens that would otherwise try to claim our territory.” When he overheard Nate’s mumble, Fariad paused for a moment, bemused, then continued. “My blood father was a mortal - an ordinary human. My legion father, however - my primarch, Magnus the Red - he was indeed legendary.”

“What happened to them?” the young psycher asked, continuing the conversation as he delved deeper into the darkness of the Silent Mountain.

Fariad was silent for a long moment as he followed after Nate, considering how to reply when he wasn’t even entirely sure of the answer himself. Finally he let out a quiet sigh. “We were betrayed by those we trusted, and scattered,” he began, his tone tinged with melancholy. “I do not know how many of us are left now, if there are any at all.”

“Can you rebuild your ‘legion’?” the boy asked, laboring over the new word. “We rebuilds our cult well so far. What was made can be made again,” he said.

Fariad frowned within his helmet, his head tilting slightly in thought. “I am not sure,” he replied eventually. “It would be a mammoth undertaking, and I do not know the processes of implantation required - how to turn a regular mortal such as yourself into an Astartes like me.” He glanced back over his shoulder at Khalid, still following along behind them. “But if we could find someone with such knowledge… once we reach the Apothecarion, and if this ship’s store of geneseed is still viable…” He trailed off for a few moments, considering the idea. “Then, perhaps… perhaps it would be possible to rebuild something similar.”


Nate's voice echoed back from the darkness “Yess… Then we do that next, Yes? The mountain is vast but it was your home, we will find its secretses together.” Nate walked back into the light of the Astarte’s torch. “Come on! We has to find the Warded chambers first. Tell us the stories while we search?”

Fariad nodded absently, still lost in thought about what it would take to begin rebuilding. “Of course,” he agreed after a moment, and began forward again. “I shall start at the beginning…”’

He began with stories about the genesis of his Legion, its creation by the Emperor of Mankind, its near-doom, and its salvation with the discovery of its Primarch, Magnus the Red. And as he told the stories, Fariad also began teaching Nate the language of his homeworld, weaving the lessons in with the stories.

Together with the teams of cultists supporting them, Fariad and Nate spent the next three days digging through rubble, and navigating blocked path after dead end. Fariad continued his education of the boy, and during the night cycle of the third day, they finally found the Astropath’s quarters.

Nate scuttled down the long corridor, his limp slowing him and still causing him pain. Even thru the stitches and bandage the wound still bled slowly, after five days it hadn't completely closed up.  

As the young pyromancer made his way to Captain Fariad, he thought back to his conversation with Mara before leaving the Medical bay some few days ago.

"We wants to make a deal... A Pact." Nate had began. "We has a scheme that helpses us both. We wants your help, wants it but not needs it." he had said defensively.

"Before we came to this place, back with the cult. Old dead master did experiments on us. Sorcery to make us grow up big and strong! But only little bits at a time. And never finished." Nate had pulled out the old and battered data slate he had liberated from his former masters ashes. "We has founds bits of it! But not all, no. Not all hear, parts missing." Nate had waved the battered dataslate for emphasis. "We plans to find it tho -ohh yess! We will go to the library. Or take other ritualistic knowledge. We will find it all, and when we do, we will perform the ritual. Good for little Nate to become big like Darius." in his excitement Nate had stood up too straight to fast, and pulled a few of his at the time fresh stitches.

"The spell takes from some and puts into others." He continued whist his wound was re-mended by the autochurgion "It could helps fix your mind, perhaps. And that of Master Amon, the Purple Man. We wants your help, and your skills, with other things, and this. And we will keep distance. We understand, Mara not friends with us. Just stuck on same teams. But what's she thinks? Hmm?"

That had been some days ago. Nate knew it was a long shot, Mara had changed since the battle. She was more open of her own opinions and tho it made him feel bad on the inside, But Nate now understood his place to her.

Finally the boy reached the recently opened part of the ship Fariad was in, and entered the large Room the Thousand Son was in. "Thyat mastr"

Mara had dismissed the petulant offworlder when he conjured his elaborate scheme. "You're but a child," she said as she took great pains to ensure the auto-chirurgeon did not mend his wounds too quickly. "You are spiteful and reckless. I don't make pacts with you. That implies that you are my equal. No. You need me more than I need you." She shrugged as she applied a small regenerative stimulant to her cranium. "I don't need your help and I don't want to help you, you little burning worm. I'm not your ally and I don't like you at all. Stop whining like a babe and figure things out for yourself."

Mara kicked Nate out of the medical bay aboard the Infernal Cage as soon as his injuries had healed. She had much more that she wished to look into aboard this machine ship without having to look after that little cretin. Once the stowaway psyker, Tobias, ventured aboard for some peace and quiet, she thought it would be interesting to see if the machine men had any other trickery aboard this ship like the behemoth that the Lords had unleashed on the warriors and their guns. Tobias spent a few hours probing the ship and found that there was indeed something else of interest on this vessel. Mara considered what Tobias had discovered and decided to delve into it a bit deeper to see exactly what technology the machine men had created.

With the addition of the large number of followers that the warband had rescued and brought back to the Kebechet, the clearing of the corridors had progressed immensely. The last few days had been very busy for Fariad as he had overseen the recovery efforts, doing what repairs and maintenance he could to newly-accessed ship systems, while organising people to work in some of the recently opened areas. Some other newly reached areas he locked down, accessible only by himself.

The recovery of a few more Rubricae had been an immense relief, and Fariad had spent some time with each of them to re-establish his link with his former battle-brothers, before stationing them to stand guard in various parts of the ship. Khalid he kept with him however, too accustomed to the Rubricae's silent presence at his back to want to change it.

Five days after the fight, Fariad was working on maintaining one of the recently accessed void shield generators, while Khalid stood silent sentinel near the doorway of the generator room. A brief pulse of warning from the Rubricae reached Fariad a few moments before he heard the limping footsteps of his young protégé approaching down the corridor outside.

"Thyat, Nate," Fariad replied absently as the youth entered the room and greeted him, though he did not immediately look up from the void shield generator he was working on. "Your pronunciation is improving. How go the rest of your studies?" He made a final adjustment to the innards of the generator, then stepped back and let out a soft sound of satisfaction as indicator lights on a side panel flickered from yellow to green. Only then did he turn to face Nate. "And how fares your injury? It is healing well, I hope?"

Within the Ring of Steel.

The warriors of the Blood God circled around the three buildings, jeering and hollering at the men and women that seem to work tirelessly on the beams and struts that slowly grew out of the ground. Vallett scowled at the sky above him, the twisting, violet miasma that had replaced the pale blue and white to which he had grown accustomed.

His lord, the warrior Darius, had returned from his voyage with a monstrously large vehicle of war. He glared at it from his armoured truck and tried to understand it. Far sturdier than the Rhinos which he'd understood as tanks and possessing far more guns than even he thought was possible on a single vehicle, he desired it more than anything. The pleasure savages reclined on the hull of their vehicle and mocked the blood warriors by blindly obeying Darius. The warlord promised them pillage and plunder. Vallett swore there would be.

*   *   *   *

In the pale light of the overhead glow-globe, Sattar leaned back from the terminal that he and the crimson Astartes had been hunched over for a while now. The steel chair groaned as it encompassed his armoured weight as he turned to survey his surroundings. The office of the former magos was still in disarray from the disaster that had affected this facility so long ago and of which only he and the other Astartes were learning of now. Sattar was surprised to find a place such as this on as barren and desolate a world as this planet. Then again, he did not expect an ancient warship to have been found on this planet, as Darius and the crimson Astartes had claimed.

"Tell me," Sattar began conversationally as his compatriot continued pouring over binaric data logs and translated information stacks, "it has been weeks since I last saw you in the library of Lark. What have you accomplished in that time, crimson brother?" Sattar exaggerated a sense of admonishment and bowed in a mock fashion. "Forgive me, time has stolen my memory and I cannot recall your name. Or your lineage for that matter."

He clapped his hands together in quiet joviality. "We have discerned as much today from these records than we'll discern in another few hours so perhaps we should take a break. Besides, I'm as curious about this place as you are Astartes but you have accomplished much since I last saw you. What do you say to an exchange of ideas?" Sattar offered his hands out to simulate a set of scales, each hand wavering as imaginary weights were added to each scale. "You and I each trade knowledge of value to the other until we've exhausted our curiosity. That should break the tedium. Does that entice you at all, crimson Astartes?"

*   *   *   *

The darkness inside the infirmary bothered Mara. Her eyes seemed to sting at the lack of vision and she couldn't make out anything else in the room aside from the outline of another shape on a bed close by her. The shape was shuffling and twisting and scratching at the bed and it was annoying.

Her body was sore and she could feel her scaly exterior had cracked and scabbed under the heat from the geyser. The under-layer of her protective coat was the only measure of clothing that had survived from the intense burst of force that had struck her. Her belt and equipment seemed to have mostly survived as well but her coat had torn into shreds. Mara tested her wings and they seemed to unfurl and shift without pain. The one good thing that had come of all this.

The writhing and scratching in the bed nearby continued and it was contributing to the aches in her head. "Whoever you are, be silent! You're being insufferable."

Fariad had been busy translating the binaric data logs to something more comprehensible for several hours, though he had long since lost all track of time. He continued working even as his companion leaned back, his gaze shifting between the terminal screen and the ornate data-slate he had discovered and re-purposed for his own use. Even as Sattar began speaking, Fariad's fingers continued tapping away at both terminal and dataslate, though Fariad did tilt his helmeted head slightly towards the other Astartes in silent indication that he was listening. Near the door, another crimson-armoured figure stood mute and motionless, an autocannon cradled in his arms; Khalid had silently stalked back to Fariad's location once Darius had returned from the brief sojourn to the Kebechet.

Once Sattar finished speaking, Fariad did not reply immediately; instead, he took a few more moments to finish the line he'd been translating. Once done, he leaned back in his own chair with a soft sigh, leaving the datapad still propped up beside the terminal screen. "Has it really been weeks?" he mused quietly as he idly rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscles. "Doesn't feel like it at all."

He gave a dismissive little shrug, then turned to face the other Astartes. "This exchange of information does indeed sound enticing - knowledge is power, after all." He paused for a moment, then nodded. "You may call me Fariad. As for my lineage..." Fariad glanced at the white emblem emblazoned on one crimson pauldron. "I would have thought it obvious." He chuckled quietly to himself, then continued on. "Between now and when I saw you last, I have been very busy working on restoring and repairing my ship, or at least as much of it as we can reach so far. It is quite an extensive undertaking."

He shifted a little to settle more comfortably in his chair, drumming his fingertips together as he tilted his head curiously towards Sattar. "And what of you? What have you accomplished since I saw you last?"