The Inquisitor strolled, followed by the Arbites woman.

Surpassing several mechanicus priests plugged into a vast matrix, chanting a never-ending litany, they walked. The buzzing sound of the binary chant was incessant. The noise was just like bursts of static white noise, but for the Tech-Priests, it had meaning. It was their very own language, the Lingua-Technis, the sacred code language of the Machine God, or so they say.

In the eyes of Inquisitor Rotan, they did not look better than the drones of a bee colony or a hive city. Tiny cogs and little parts without consciousness that worked for something higher than their individuality. It was inspiring, but it also filled Rotan with fear of losing himself.

“Bunch of weirdos…”

The smell of incense filled the air, and sacred oil was burned to appease the spirit machines of the forge world.

The Inquisitor looked at the hundreds of humans there; most were naked, yet all that remained of them were parts of their brains as well as other organs like the heart, lungs, etc.

They called this the ascension, freeing themselves from the decadence of the flesh, getting closer to the Omnissiah’s mechanical perfection.

The old Inquisitor kept walking, and soon reached a rusty door, that looked like it had not been opened in several years. A few Skitarii soldiers were guarding the entrance, yet they moved to let him pass once he showed them the Inquisitorial Rosette.

Their names were as weird as those of every other Mechanicus soldier. One was called, R6-135 and the other one, Tyr-VII.

He looked at both of them and remembered the last time he came the second guard was called Tyr-VI. It seemed that the name of whoever was here was hereditary.

He ignored them and disregarded their name fashion as another weird tradition from the Cult Mechanicus.

The old and rusty door was a noticeable disruption in the order the Mechanicus followed, and was even painful to look at.

The contrast that such a damaged door caused was more noticeable once one looked at the weapons of the Skitarii or the well-tuned machines and tubes outside. Those same tubes allowed the minds of the several acolytes to connect one another and calculate everything the Forge World was producing with exquisite precision.

He got in front of the door and started pressing a few codes. The door unlocked itself after a few seconds, and he knocked it. After a long wait, the rusty door cracked and opened, letting him see a messy and cramped room that had dozens, if not hundreds of inventions.

“Hello, old friend! It’s good to see that you are right where I left you.”

The red mechanical eyes of the Tech-Priest looked with cold emotion at the Inquisitor and turned away, not showing anger for the imprisonment he had been suffering for decades.

“I had more time to investigate the wonders of the Omnissiah, Inquisitor. Thank you for such an opportunity you bring me.”

The old Inquisitor put a half-mocking smile and entered without receiving any invitation with the Arbites woman followed him closeby.

The smell was much different. It also had incense, but there was something else mixed with it, something sweet, yet wrong. That put the female fighter in a defensive stance, ready to jump at any sign of danger.

“I have a request for you, Tech-Priest Rael Zenith, do you want to hear it?”

The Tech-Priest moved through the raws of defective robot parts, limbs, Cogitator chips, and mechadendrites, the servo arms that Tech-Priests usually implanted on their backs.

“Do I have a choice?” His response was as slow as his steps and carried a tint of hate.

“Of course, of course. You can also stay here a few more decades until your broken heart finally rots and leaves a metal husk behind.” The Inquisitor responded and kept walking behind the Tech-Priest.

The further they moved into the room, the weirder things turned out to be. Some pieces of metal had dark reflections, like humanoid shadows in them. Others had eyes or weird symbols like twisted runes had been carved.

But the worst of all was at the end of the room. A broken body was attached to a machine, with tubes, vials, and cables entering the chest, severed arms, and half torso from a female. She only had one-third of her body left, and all one could see was covered in chaotic runes.

The sight of the woman was gory beyond reason. The flesh was dried, and the machines were barely keeping her alive, yet she seemed to be suffering, as warp energies tainted parts of her flesh.

“Oh, she’s still alive. I thought she would have died by now. If not for the Mechanicus protection, you would have been burned long ago, you know?” A tense silence followed, and the Arbites woman took her power maul and tried to strike the Tech-Priest.

“Huaaaaghh!!”

* Baaang!!

A void shield appeared and repelled her attack. Meanwhile, the Tech-Priest gritted its teeth and tried to launch its mechanical arms at the Inquisitor, but Naya, used her weapon, a power maul, and fended off all the attacks.

She then noticed a few cables feeding a portable generator and took her weapon, shooting at the machine. The shield fell, but it had given enough time for Rael to strike the Inquisitor.

The older man took a step back and allowed Naya to take care of the maddened Tech-Priest while he looked from afar.

“You coward!! Face me off and allow me to kill you finally! We will finally find peace once your corpse is in front of her!” The Tech-Priest shouted at Rotan, while the Inquisitor laughed.

“Hahaha! Naya, please entertain our friend here!” The Arbites frowned even more and kept attacking silently, not caring for the electrical damage some of the mechadendrites transmitted to her arm.

The energy surrounding her baton damaged half the mechadendrites and made the Priest took a few steps back, as he was unable to overpower the much more violent woman.

“Such a bad temper as always. Don’t you want to listen to me, Rael?”

The Tech-Priest stopped and started to grab a few pieces of broken machinery hasty crafter a device that began scattering warp energies in the room.

“I want to see you suffer, Rotan!! For eternity!” The aura of the Tech-Priest turned darker at each passing second as shrieks and howls began to resonate through the room.

Noticing the danger of such artifact, Naya was about to jump, but the Inquisitor stopped her. He then smiled and walked closer to the maddened Priest. "Ahh, Rael, as rotten as always, aren't you?"

The Inquisitor then took a black device from his robes and pressed a button that immediately sends a painful signal to the Priest’s nerves, making him collapse.

It was a modified version of the Excruciator, and Inquisitor Rotan loved to use it.

“AHH!! AGHHH!!!!”

Revolving in the floor, the Tech-Priest couldn’t do much more than scream and retort as the few nerves that were still operational on his body were being burned, causing him agonizing pain.

“Listen, Heretek. The only reason you’re alive is that you are still useful.”

He then stopped and took the beeping device from the floor, inspecting it.

It looked like a crude bomb that Tech-Priest Rael had crafted with spare parts of limbs and patches of his skin. It was filled with heretical and Chaotic symbols. It was absolute Heresy.

“You’re like a stupid kid. You want knowledge, but keep searching it in places that will only lead you and those around you to damnation. I thought you would have learned that lesson already.”

The Inquisitor smiled and looked at what was left of the woman on the wall. He could see how this man was trying to purge the warp energies from her body. He had even cut off the mutated limbs and body parts, replacing them with machines. Less than a third of the woman’s body remained by now. Yet he hadn’t surrendered.

“If only we could trust in your knowledge to help repair the throne…” Inquisitor Rotan sighed and stopped the torture device.

The Tech-Priest felt how the pain ended and gasped for air. He slowly turned, only to see the body of his wife on the wall, barely alive. He could see a tear falling from the left eye.

Naya then turned and looked at the Inquisitor with a stern expression, signaling the device.

“Ah, yes. About this, it was a good try, if not for this little stone I have here.”

The old man smiled and from within his tunic, took a piece of dark stone that slowly started to nullify the warp energies in the device and the room. The artifact then stopped beeping.

“Lucky us, right, Naya?” He smiled as if he was just an old man that had never broken a dish. She rolled her eyes under her mask.

Yes, Inquisitor Rotan felt lucky that he got himself such formidable protection against the foul corrupting powers of Chaos and the Warp.

The Tech-Priest was surprised at first, but once he analyzed the stone in the Inquisitor’s hand, he asked with utmost interest. “Is, is that Noctilith?!” He approached, not caring for the woman and her menacing weapon pointing at him.

“Yes, Black Stone. A piece from the Cadian Pylons at that. Now, put that thing down and let’s talk. I hope we can strike a deal. When we’re done, I can give you this so you can save your wife, what do you say, Rael?” As he asked the Heretek, he knew that even a poisoned apple had its uses. But this apple had to calm down and accept the deal first.

The eyes from the Priest shone with illusory light for a few seconds before calming. He then proceeded with a cold, mechanical voice.

“What do you need from me, Inquisitor?”

Inquisitor Rotan smiled at the man’s choice.