“I don’t know what it is, but I’ve sure got some ideas. Considerin’ the Fog nozzles, the general size of it, and the keyboard… I wager this is probably the comms array that transmitted and received the aether wave comms we intercepted.”

Clack.

Brrrring. Brrrring. Brrrring.

A tiny bell rang inside the machine, and seemingly without further input it came alive. Its spouts began continuously spraying Fog until a generous screen of the substance had coalesced at the back of the machine, running down like water between the keys and back into the case.

Just over the surface of the Fog screen formed a projection of a portrait, its subject of long hair, opulent dress, and unreasonably fair complexion. It rang some bells, but she felt the need to get a proper close-up look.

“Mind if I uh… Take a closer look?” she murmured, even though she had already stepped right up to the machine and Strolvath had already shuffled over slightly to make space. Despite his hellfire-wreathed state, the tremendous heat he gave off wasn’t at all overwhelming even this up close. In fact the general intensity of his flames had been progressively fading for a little while now, like an actual fire running out of fuel.

The projection sat at a height where even Zel had to look up slightly to make eye contact with its subject, and she very quickly realized why his appearance was familiar. It was the Divine emperor, down to the streaks in his otherwise near-white hair, the high collar, and the exaggerated v-neck.

“Isn’t that the Divine Emperor?” Zel asked.

Strol narrowed his eye and leaned in for a closer look. A second later his eye shot wide open and he dropped to the ground, sneaking away into the hoard-chamber. When she shot him a curious look, he wildly signed something about how the Emperor knew who he was and that it would be a catastrophe if his presence here was revealed. Then, he gestured at the machine.

Zel seemed to have returned her attention to its projection just in time, as the image began to shudder and move in unsettling ways and tinny sound started to issue from the machine. The Emperor was looking off to the side, talking to someone. When he spoke she heard the sing-song tones and strange words of Pateirian, yet she understood the intended message behind his words. His voice carried untold centuries of experience, incredible implied violence behind every syllable, but somehow it rang hollow.

“You did what again? Speak up.”

A vague, muffled voice came from beyond the projection’s scope. It sounded terrified and panicked.

“No, no excuses. Your actions have consequences, no matter how long you’ve spent in my service. Three generations of residency at the chimera farm.”

The screaming and pleading that ensued was only quelled by dull thuds and the Emperor’s all-encompassing boredom as he looked towards something else out of view.

“Possibility of early release in case of Tiger-class metamorphic response,” he said.

It was only then that his attention lazily drifted towards her, his head slightly tilted and his ring-covered hand raised in a bored, yet ostentatious gesture. He was perfect, to an inhuman degree. The Divine Emperor didn’t look like a real person, he looked like an excessively idealized painting brought to life.

Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect clothes and jewelry, all as lifeless as they were imperious. His eyes, too, were dead. No more human than the precious metals whose colours shone within them.

Zelsys gazed upon the Divine Emperor’s visage, and saw nothing behind it. Her mind and instincts alike dredged his face for any trace of emotion, any microexpressions, and found nothing. She was speaking to a mask, a facade that the Emperor put on like any other piece of clothing or jewellery.

An aura of overwhelming charisma and authority radiated from that unnaturally perfect face, but the feeling in her gut told her that it was fake. A reproduction of human emotion, masterfully practiced and mixed up from myriad sources over centuries, but still…

“Fake.”

That was the first word Zelsys spoke to the Divine Emperor. He raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.

“Excuse me? Did the connection cut out? It seemed like you went through the usual period of awestruck observation and then just said ‘fake’,” asked the Divine Emperor in a completely earnest question, as far as Zelsys could tell. There was annoyance behind his words, but it was directed towards the devices facilitating this conversation.

“I did,” Zel chuckled, her mouth curling into an indignant grin whether she liked it or not. “That’s the first thing that came to mind. The bugmen described you as unsettlingly perfect, but I didn’t expect a moving wax statue. And the empty stare, it’s like I’m looking at a doll’s eyes. Is that what it takes to look this young after a couple centuries?”

The Divine Emperor smiled, he even let out a chuckle.

“Are you certain you are in a position to comment on my appearance? I didn’t expect an exterminator to have a sense of humor. Tell me, what did you feel as you gunned down the failures of my army?”

“Recoil. Pity. Satisfaction.”

“Did you not hate them?” asked the man-god with child-like curiosity. “The locust swarm that threatened to swoop over the beautiful farming valley and strip it bare? The unhinged hive queen parasitizing an ancient machine in an attempt to facilitate my traversal across the cursed wall?”

“They were stuck, desperate, and indoctrinated. Regardless of how they wronged me or what promises of cruelty they spat at me, it was you that they hailed as they died. They and any who come after me in the future will die in the dirt, but it will be your head that I will parade on a pike through the burning halls of your capital until the crows eat your eyes.”

From that disdainful tirade, the Emperor entirely ignored the promise of decapitation and desecration. It seemed that Zel’s claimed lack of hatred for his servants took him aback the most.