[dramatic music]
[rapid gunfire]
Cut that one down!
[energy crackling]
Kreld!
Hear the laughter of the gods!
[laughing maniacally]
[tense action music]
[distant gunfire and explosions]
[groaning]
[straining]
[shouts]
Your tricks shall not save you.
[grunts]
[groans]
[heavy footsteps approaching]
This tomb of a world is ours.
Your resurrection machines are ruins.
You end here.
I offer an exchange.
What could a creature like you offer us?
Power, glory, conquest.
The empty promise of a doomed xenos.
[groaning]
Reality.
In an agglomeration of dead ships,
far from here there is an artefact made by our ancient enemies, the Aeldari.
It let them tunnel beneath reality
and create their paths between the stars, their webway.
This artefact would allow you to do the same.
We have never been able to unlock the mysteries of the webway.
If we did...
Armies could be marched across the galaxy at will...
It will be yours if you wish.
We wish only for your annihilation.
Let him speak.
[ominous music]
[heavy footsteps approaching]
[suspenseful music]
[thunder rumbles]
The treasure is here...
In what your kind call the Crucian Depths.
You will go and find if this artefact exists,
and if it does, you will bring it to me.
By your will, my Warmaster.
[Abaddon] And in exchange for this gift, you will have the only mercy you deserve.
[low rumbling]
[engine sounds]
Augurs to maximum.
Find the artefact location and lock teleport coordinates.
Lord, we see...
our eyes see.
The topography matches the data given by the Necron-entity.
[Augur Slave] Teleportation close to the artefact
is not possible.
[Witch Slave rasping]
There are clouds in the sacred waters...
shadows, absences.
The place you seek is a black space,
the hands of the gods cannot place you within,
and once inside, they will not be able to aid you.
[bitter chuckling]
This does not bode well.
What is that?
[Hesiod] Enhance and identify.
[beeping]
[scoffs] Drukhari raiders.
Are their ships active?
[Augur Slave] The xenos craft are inactive.
Life signs and energy signatures read as negative.
The Drukhari have the means to make truth seem false.
Veils of shadow and lies cast over our eyes.
Those ships could be powering up right now,
and we wouldn't know it before they stung.
I've seen it done.
My masters, the Drukhari raiding craft are marked by micro damage
from long term immobility.
[Kreld] Meaning that they have been there for some time.
I don't like it.
Dead ships on the side of a mass of dead ships?
I can think of no better place for them to be.
They are not part of the mass.
They are docked.
Are you afraid now, brother?
Should we turn and run?
I have slain more Drukhari than you have ever glimpsed,
and left their corpses for carrion eaters.
Do you wish to join them?
[Hesiod] Enough!
We are brothers of the Black Legion, oathed to our Warmaster's will.
Nothing else matters.
As you say, brother.
Suspicion has kept us alive many times, but boldness has brought us victory.
The Warmaster has commanded, and if we fail,
then it would be better that we find death.
There is no choice.
We go.
[crackle of energy]
[whirring]
[auspex beeping]
[Hesiod] The artefact lies ahead.
Advance.
[heavy footsteps]
[auspex beeping]
[auspex beeping rapidly]
Targets front!
[shots spanging]
[shouting]
[groans]
Do you wish my mercy?
You will not reach what you seek, lie-slaved warrior.
There is no way out...
[screams]
[auspex beeping]
Keep moving.
The xenos are between us and the artefact.
Their ship has been dead and inactive for an age,
and they're still alive?
[chuckles] These ones are dead now...
[loud ping]
There!
[ominous music]
Vanished.
First Drukari that should be long dead, and then Necron phantoms.
Do you still think all is as it should be?
Stay alert.
[heavy footsteps]
[Kreld grunts]
Where is the power for the lights coming from?
A power reservoir left active?
With enough power to be still running now?
This wreck is millennia old.
A lifetime of war in the Eye of Terror, witnessing the powers of daemons
and the miracles of Dark Gods and this seems a mystery to you?
[loud ping]
[suspenseful music]
[grunts] What is this sorcery?
[gasps]
Kreld, forward.
My pleasure!
[suspenseful music]
[shrieks]
[ominous music]
[heavy footsteps]
[snickers] It is ours...
These are bolter and power weapon kills...
[Kreld] Wait!
[discordant music]
[strobing music]
[click]
You came very close this time.
- [click] - [gun cocks]
When the Necrontyr shed flesh and left death for lesser creatures,
we thought only of freedom from fear,
and making kingdoms that would never die.
We did not think of what else immortality would entail.
We thought in terms of wars, of destruction,
of conquest,
but eternity also requires what you would call entertainment.
[Trazyn] For my part,
I find infinity allows me to observe the myriad ways
in which matter and consciousness manifest.
I collect them: objects, life forms, moments.
This is one of my favourites,
a device that can create roads under the skin of reality.
Worth risking anything for,
but nothing compared to what it has brought me.
This moment is locked in a tesseract labyrinth,
a pocket of space where events play out again and again.
Sometimes you reach this moment first, sometimes others do.
Each instance is different in countless, beautiful details.
[grunts]
[Hesiod] You will free us!
[Trazyn laughs] You can free yourselves.
All you need to do to leave the labyrinth is never enter.
You are given that choice each time.
I am not your jailer, my wonderful relic of mortal pride.
You are your own prisoners.
The look on your faces is my favourite part,
and I have enjoyed it a thousand times already.
[Hesiod] No!
I don't like anything of this.
Then what? Turn back?
No.
Suspicion has kept us alive many times, but boldness has brought us victory.
[crackle of energy]
[Hesiod] The artefact lies ahead.
Advance.
[heavy footsteps marching]
[tense ominous music]
[chuckling]
Perfection.
[tense ominous music continues]
[footsteps]