Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"We are walking into an abyss. The river of life flickers in and out, leather and hooks bring food, hot blood and tearable raw flesh; other times there are worthless inorganic objects that they cling to All this, until the light disappears, the comforting darkness comes again, and the call to hunt lurks in the shadows, and the descendants of those responsible for the fall of the Eldar are greedily sucking up all the essence of life in the lightless hunger..."

"I must remind you, Konrad Coates, that you are using a strangely complicated grammar to describe invalid details that anyone with sight can easily see at a glance."

Konrad Curze glared down at Morse, his mouth twisted in annoyance, and when his change of expression caused a small clot of dried blood to fall from the folds of his face onto his lips, the Primarch was immediately revealed With an expression on the verge of retching, he took the back of his relatively clean hand and wiped off the dirt in disgust.

"I am communicating with my brothers, human." The Primarch muttered dissatisfiedly, looking at the remains left after a group of flying black-winged creatures fought with another group of strange predators or scavengers, "Don't interrupt. I."

"First of all, I'm not..."

"He is my mentor." Perturabo interrupted Morse, and a strange Eldar language was simulated in the mechanical throat.

Cozz licked his dry lips, shook his head indifferently, and suddenly switched to a human language with a lot of consonants and ambiguous hisses. x ̸͍̘̳͂͊̂̊̀͊̕͘.̷̹̦̆̆c̶͙͈͚̽̄̈̎̒͜ó̶̧̧̝̳̠͇͕̺̲̹̔̈́ ́՝͝m̷̗͓̽̂̌̋̌̌

"We might as well speak some human language," Curze said. "Even if Gomo has thousands of weird Eldar accents, I don't want to hear you invent a new one."

"Where did you learn this human accent?" asked Perturabo.

Curze laughed. "Who knows?"

He kept walking, leading his companions through the twisting maze of tunnels, expertly walking through one corner after another. He shuttled through the spiral tunnels sewn into the eyes of the dead and the remains of the corpses, until the entrance to a palace-like building appeared in front of him. .

"My place," Conrad Coates said briefly, inviting the two inside.

After the troupe's first performance, the Pied Eldar floated back to their spaceship, seemingly deciding to go back and review the successes or omissions in the entire first performance.

And tacitly received the prompts from the actor of "Bloody Hand Kane", provoked the whole dispute, directly destroyed the originally stable social order of several families, and pushed the source of all hidden troubles to the Eldar who directly carried out the massacre. The Eldar of the troupe left quietly after the greeting at the end of the performance, and returned to his small conspiracy group to plan the next bloody thing that would be spilled on the path of his ambition.

Conrad Coates' so-called residence looked tidy on the outside, but it was quite crowded inside. The open space was filled with furniture, gifts and cages that could be seen scattered everywhere, as well as various wooden boards used for building sheds and scattered experimental equipment. Everywhere, every item has been rigorously washed and dried, which is their biggest commonality.

"I live here, you two." Konrad Curze said freely, yawned, and kicked away a statue of a long-legged feathered spider on the ground that was blocking his way. "Take a break, Imperials. I want to Go to the bath and cleanse yourself."

"You are not curious about where we come from, Konrad Curze." Perturabo gently slid his mechanical finger bones over a low table with sealed flasks and empty test tube racks. "You don't Curious about the existence of the empire, you don’t ask about our relationship. You even know my name early, but I know nothing about you.”

He paused.

"Except for the fact that you are particularly good at killing people."

Conrad spread his palms: "Wait until I clean myself, my...brother."

Perturabo shook his head and let him go, waiting for the tall but slightly stooped figure to disappear into the darkness.

The two did not immediately start talking. They each took a short break, spending the mental buffer after the grand banquet in silence, and re-establishing stable interpersonal connections in silence.

It was Perturabo who asked the question first.

"He doesn't trust us. This isn't even his real place," the Iron Doll mused. "There is residual blood stains at the bottom of the test tube. There is no way he wouldn't clean it up."

He sat down on a flat and solid cabinet and turned his gaze to the craftsman who was playing with several gold-inlaid furnishings in the room. His tone added more confusion: "And you haven't said yet, where are you these days?" , Morse. How did you get to know the troupe and the name of Conrad Coates.”

"I heard a giant steel doll complaining in human language." Morse put down the ornament and gently tapped the wall with a thin crack with his knuckles.

"Is this my problem?" Perturabo couldn't help but say, "Morse, I am the only one who is completely ignorant of the whole thing."

"I relied on strength and hints of belief in gods to gain control of a small church. I thought I had made great progress, but whether compared with Konrad Coates or you, I suddenly found that my actions were not Worth mentioning.”

Morse stared at Perturabo's machine-skinned face until the half of Perturabo's face that still had eyes began to look confused.

"You have worries in your heart," Morse said, stopping tapping on the wall. Behind the crack, the light of metal flickered quietly under the light of a candle.

"First of all, I think this is indeed Conrad's residence...at least part of it."

He said calmly that playing the role of thirsty Him seemed to give the craftsmen more peace of mind.

"He has no servants, and this is an independent antechamber that he seldom passes by and is sealed with alloy. I think even a Primarch with a serious preference for cleanliness cannot waste all his time from sunrise to sunset on getting Brush every bottle and jar clean.”

"Secondly, that troupe was the followers of the Laughing God who were sneaking around in Nuceria and throwing heads at Angron in the middle of the night. I was invited to board the ship not long ago."

"Finally, I first learned of the existence of Conrad Coze when..." He was silent for a moment before telling the year. "Many years ago, during Prospero's chaos, I was in a house. I learned about the existence of Curze in the library, but I could only say that I had never heard of him until many people mentioned his name at the banquet.”

"The Primarchs of the Imperium are not meant to grow among xenos," Perturabo whispered.

"I feel the same, my brother." Conrad Curze returned. The layout of the leather used in his new clothes had changed again, which forced Perturabo to awkwardly ignore it and stop thinking about how many leather coats Conrad had sewn while squatting alone in the dark.

He walked to the side of Perturabo's intact half of his face and looked at Perturabo intently until Perturabo turned his neck to reveal the other half of his machine.

The Haemonculus stood up straight and stretched his bones.

"I also often come across a delusion that I don't belong here," he whispered dreamily, "Why do I live in the secluded capital? How did I happen to find this beautiful place where I can drink blood and sleep with a knife on my back?" Where is it?”

He lowered his head, his eyes filled with strange frustration.

"Can I hear the answer, my brother who was never meant to be here, Perturabo?"