Chapter Text
It started with an auspex ping. A flat tone that indicated something closeby in the endless dark. A dull green light flicked on, the cogitator whirred into life.
An asteroid, high in adamantine content. Completely stationary- the sensors returned some initial responses in regards to void anchors. A ring of static pylons, stout and streaked with the grime of the void, but each as tall as a man.
From the far side of its face, the asteroid was featureless, pockmarked by debris but otherwise nothing special. Wear had given way to a shine at certain angles- the adamantine, the only true export Nostramo had been valued for.
Drawing closer, choosing another face, a dark chasm cut into it. An overhang creating a cave-like mouth, the floor worn purposefully flat and smooth for craft to land upon it. Atmosphere generators flanked the entrance like gargoyles. Beyond them, further into the dark, a set of heavy doors with a dark symbol plastered upon them. A bat-winged skull was engraved upon the metal, proving to the ones who had sought this place that it was what they were looking for.
The landing pad was large enough for a single Stormraven, though many other craft hung in the void around it, waiting. Twelve Astartes left the vessel, moving in tight formation to the doors, blue armour throwing up strange reflections on the worn cave walls.
The machine spirit of the door reacted quickly to the commands given to it, showing that maintenance had been performed recently. Indeed, the air that rushed forward was not stale- it was recently refreshed, the lack of security measures speaking to its remote location. The architects did not intend for it to be found. This made the squad act with further caution, especially as there seemed to be no light inside the reliquary.
The noise of armoured boots on metal stairs seemed oddly muffled as they proceeded forward, pauldron to pauldron in a space clearly designed for them. The reliquary was not large, having only a few rooms, which they checked methodically. It was a short corridor consisting of five doors, four set into the walls, facing each other and a fifth at the very end. Bones and skulls were moulded into the walls, a deathly peace to those whose ends were assuredly not gentle.
The first door to the right was an armoury, neatly stored weapons and ammunition. Its twin to the left led to a control centre, where cogitators eagerly returned to function. They displayed power outputs, logs of those who had come before and the maintenance done, systems support and various data controls relating to temperature. The most recent activity was a scant two solar days before they had arrived.
The next two doors lead to the true reliquary. Symbols of ages long since passed, to a former Legion’s glory, one they were unlikely to ever recover. These were catalogued, removed from their cabinets and placed into cargo storage crates hauled from the armoury.
This left the final door. Here too was the Eighth Legion heraldry, the bat-winged skull. It shone brightly under the lumens, refined silver metal against the dull grey of the rest of the door.
AVE DOMINUS NOX
The letters were carved there by a master's hand, repeated again beneath in what could only have been Nostraman runes. This door opened willingly too, as if eager for the astartes to continue, to find what lay inside.
Cold vapour rolled across the floor, dim blue light pouring forth, drowning all need for lumens. It did not come from lumens, but from a coffin. Or at least what appeared to be a coffin, upon closer inspection it was a cryogenic sleeper pod, held inside of a stasis field. The walls hummed with power, and a few screens displayed vital readouts. At the base of the coffin melted candles pooled, scraps of parchment folded and tucked away, a few clean skulls placed like offerings to a heretic’s god, flowers only just beginning to wilt.
In the casket was a bulky outline, recognisable to anyone familiar with the Adeptus Astartes. Hands laid crossed over their chest, almost covering the bat-winged skull there. The figure was unhelmeted, though the death-faced thing had been placed above their head like a guardian. The face of the space marine was clear, even with the frost encrusted glass.
A face changed by augment and scar, with three prominently stretching across. A hooked nose and a thin face, brown skin of an unnatural pallor- as if unused to the sun. The head was slightly tilted to the left, the mouth just barely open, dark eyes barely open- the black eyes beneath making them appear closed. As if there had been someone standing there that the marine had turned to look at before being sealed away.
A cogitator on the wall beeped quietly, as if apologetic for disturbing them. At a nod, an Astartes stepped forward. A new pilgrimage log had been created, and access provided to a single file, named Kulikov.
It contained only a few things of note. A readout of the current vitals of the casket’s occupant, which seemed to be in order. A list of Night Lords who had attended the reliquary and the prizes they had brought. A single vox recording.
At another nod, the Astartes commanded the machine spirit to play it.
The voice echoed around the chamber. Dark, cracked and hoarse. The voice of a monster in the night, yet still somewhat regal. Heavily accented with sibilance, captivating in its ghoulishness.
“If you are standing here, you stand before the last true child of Nostramo. The last loyal Night Lord, the best of us all. Cary Kulikov. If you are a member of my Legion, one of my poisonous sons, know that this is what you were intended to be, know that you never will be. If you are not, and you have somehow stumbled upon this place: I command you to leave. This is the will of the Night Haunter.”
The recorded voice few had heard in a myriad seemed to hang in the air, sticking to the skin. Curze had always had a flair for the dramatic, like many of his brothers.
The intruders took no heed of this warning, instead moving in synchronicity to the sides of the casket, to the machinery keeping the stasis field in place. There was a crackle in the air as with a few taps against the cogitator, the stasis field fell. The vapour moved a little faster, but the figure within the cryogenic casket remained unchanged.
A few more commands and the casket was removed from its moorings, those pipes which fed into the chamber that had frozen in place wrenched away by gauntleted hands. Handles were mag-locked to the side of the casket, as the claw hidden behind it lowered from a vertical position to a horizontal one. Four Astartes took up places at the handles, lifted the casket from the fittings it had sat in for nearly ten thousand years. They marched from the chamber, almost a mockery of a funeral procession. The figure was after all, not dead. Great pains had been taken to keep them alive, more care than any thought still could be had in these times.
They filed out from the chamber and the reliquaries, heretic artefacts in crates carried between the rest. The casket was loaded onto the Stormraven, awkwardly laid down between the seats, only just enough room for it. Closer now, they could see the shadows haunting the cheeks and eyes, a triangle-shaped split in the shell of the left ear. The face was tired, the crease between the eyebrows betraying some great grief. It was not the face of one who would now call themselves Night Lord.
The Stormraven flew to the waiting battle barge, those who had waited around the asteroid following closely, like a protective flock. Then the ships departed, leaving the asteroid unmarked, once again floating- now completely empty, in the soundless void.