Previous Threads: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=The%202nd%20Primarch%20Quest_Where the scars of New Varro's pass are the deepest and most unhealed, where the descendants of custodians, engineers and technicians have turned the labors of their ancestors into consecrated rite and holy ritual, you, Lieren wander through the frontier left so transformed by the hubris and wars of eras now long passed, meeting with these tribes to offer them sanctuary and prosperity in whatever form they desire, to map the lands that will one day bear the fortress of your gene-altered, warrior sons and to find a means to grant them reprieve of their long thankless tasks that have shielded and safe guarded the rest of New Varro from the Horrors and strangeness of the Desolation Frontier.The Fogbreathers are the first of the tribes you meet, those who keep the polluted and radioactive clouds of poisonous vapors contained within their tribal lands, through means that are still yet unclear to you, having turned the duty through the lenses of belief into the appeasement of a sleeping god of winds, whose breath had rotten. Vigilant, you search their subterranean holdings for signs of Na Gou's presence, knowing well the subtlest signs of the patriarch of all that is foul, and recognizing that these environment suit wearing tribals may have been misled by the spirit of rot as Mari's own caretakers had once been. But, you find no signs, at least upon the habitable levels of the facility they have cut and carved into warrens. Their leader is a sickened, weakened man by the name of He who braves the Fog, who you offer healing but who refuses, seeing you as a herald of a new age which will need a new leader.He agrees, along with his heir apparent, Shadow in the Cloud, to allow their youth to travel Long-Jia's systems, New Varro ranges, but to settle the tribe in the first towns built within their lands to learn how to continue treating their "Slumbering God", whom you suspect to be a malfunctioning air purifier much akin to the Lungs of the Mountain or a degraded terraforming device that was expelling the ruination it had breathed in.Shadow in the Cloud escorts you to the next closet tribe, while your sons begin the initial stage of exploration of the "Cursed Dark" beneath the Fogbreather's dwellings, having experience in such cramped climates from Terra. And have put in a request to transfer over Alf'Harim war merchants if they encounter stiffer resistance than expected.The next tribe, is known as the Storm Courters, whom live between great, twisted towers that pierce the sky that anonymously produces a lightning storm without rain, clouds or winds. Their leader is a bright eyed woman, who reminds you of Akanksha in many ways, who upon hearing your tales of the more peculiar weathers and climates of the worlds you've traveled, asks if they may be granted the right to find the "Most thrilling" and settle families of theirs upon them
>>6474806A request you happily forward to the Imperial Household, while learning all you can about the towers, or "Storm Spines" that they live within, and quickly recognize it as Archeotech that Liberty stays behind to study and learn how to repair while Bright Eyed, Lightning's Flash, follows you, Shadow in the Cloud, Kanzeon and your Astartes to their neighbors of the "Sand Crawlers"Who are cousin to the Fogbreathers and were very happy to welcome you into their cliffside dwellings, standing before a great sea of sand much like the "Sea of Murdering Stars", in that it is made of a particularly coarse and cutting material. But in the first night you spend, you see that something titanic is churning the dunes here, unlike the sea of murdering stars which is carried by wind like the other "Skinner winds" of New Varro. You watch from a distance, and Kanzeon stares with her eyes and "true eyes" in her sensors, and you come to understand the "Angry God" the sand crawlers appease with strange dances and long journeys across its territory is a collection of mechanical burrowers, automated and potentially possessed by rudimentary abominable intelligences. The leader of the Sand Crawlers, is an venerable elder who reminds you of late Wenyan and late Guozhi, you are quite fond of him for this resemblance and learn his private name of "Little Mouse" As you remind him of his brave, but late son who had saved both the Sand Crawlers and Fogbreathers with his last act, but who, as is the tradition of the sand Crawlers, his name has been purposefully sealed and forgotten out of respect for his soul's privacy. The Sand Crawlers ask only that you bring the rain to their dry lands, and have little in the way of avarice or greater ambitionsTaking a little known path around the territory of the "Dune Fathers", you arrive the "Forest that Swallows all hope" Where you meet the "Spook Hunters", a somber tribe of hunters that are cousin to the Storm Courters, who besides their adoration of storms and all dangerous weather also hunt "Thundering Birds" ritualistically and to cull their numbers when they come to their homeland to nest. The Spook Hunters hunt the infamous Shaggy Spooks, and prevent the halest of them from escaping into wider new varro by haunting their boundaries of the forest, patrolling the dried river beds and holding secret tunnels that cut through the "Earthen Womb" the horrors emerge from. Their leader, recalls Aruna in his demeanor and you can tell he to has lost his peers and equals to violence as Aruna had all but Akanksha. And this reminds you dreadfully of the cloned armies of the butcher king and the means which the Bureau upon New Varro produced Shaggy Spooks and other monstrosities. You prepare a task force of Marines to prepare to travel to this Earthen womb to exterminate the source of these monsters. Cont
>>6474807The leader of the Spook Hunter, Forlorn Shade, then tells you of their distant relations deeper in the forest, the "Flesh Breakers"whom are a tribe that is the ancestor of the Storm Courters and Spook Hunters, whom are mutants, you meet them alone, knowing your Astartes experience with true mutants and sensing the discomfort of the other tribals. They are not "Beast men" like the Tiger Folk or Angra, nor are they a larger sub species, like the Vishnu or Ogryn. Nor are they like the Oracle Breed, Lomb or Relieved, adapted to their environment. They are, as Forlorn Shade said, Closest to what they hunt, for they shelter within the heart of the forest sprouted out from a sea of corruptive and mutative substances and feed upon prey that is saturated with it, radioactivity and "Qi" from a wellspring that you recognize all to well.Warpstone. They are of many shapes and forms, but their eyes are clear and human, despite their twisted and "Melted Wax" appearance. And are quite happy to host and meet a Hunter. You offer them the only thing they all dream of, to remove the burden upon their flesh and minds and make them "Human" again, a belief they hold to stubbornly despite your long talk explaing they are human and truly so.Their leader, Alpha, explains to you there are two further tribes, who you meet and make the same offer to. The "Fish Friends", are a more extreme adaptation of the Lomb, and are curious to meet their "Star Cousins" and even more curious to meet the Se'ah'in and make friends with them, they are scaled people who care for the "Thinking Water", that is locked beneath the great lakes they travel across. It is an intelligence that seeks to reunite with its parts, something the Deep Diver thinks would bring about the end of days. And thinking back to your lightning raid on the Bureau headquarters, you are certain the lake had once been the capital of Old Varro, before isolation, brother wars and other disasters wrought ruination upon it.And near the shore, through great plains are the nomadic "Steel Fellers", who hunt the lopping, scythe limbed machines that reminds you uncomfortably of the Abominable intelligence created by the Mathoth, Humanity's lost friend & vanished ally. And your concerns grow when you learn from the Head Steel Feller, Bug Killer, that their tribe is young and formed from the descendants of a band of heros who traveled to slay a "Star Spawn" that fell upon their lands. Which they succeeded in, but not before its own spawn spread out and created their own hives. The sanctuary they ask for is merely to be allowed the right to travel freely. The Tribals of Desolation Frontier are remarkably free of covetousness and excessive desires, that much is apparent. They are a humble, dutiful peopleCont
>>6474808Seven Tribes, Seven Trials.And you know where to find the root cause of each, and while they were all willing to hear you out and trust you, they will not render support in your attempts to neutralize the source of their sacred duties. Without proof it can be done.And which of the duties do you "End" first, Lieren?>The Fog Breather's "Sleeping Wind God">The Storm Courter's "Storm Pantheon">The Sand Crawler's "Dune Father's">The Spook Hunter's "Earthen Womb">The Flesh Breaker's Warp Stone Meteorite and pollution>The fish friend's "Thinking Water" >The Steel Feller's "Metal Fiends">Write in
>>6474809>>The Fog Breather's "Sleeping Wind God"
>>6474809>The fish friend's "Thinking Water"We gotta triage what's going down here, and I think an active, incomplete intelligence that might be connected to the old capitol is probably the most dangerous out of all the options. The Metal Fiends are probably the runner-up, being a new threat capable of spreading, but can be defeated by the Steel Fellers. The Sleeping Wind God would have serious repercussions if it reactivated, but it's ostensibly stable for the moment. The Spook Hunters seem to have the Earthen Womb's danger under control for now, and all the other options don't really pose imminently catastrophic threats.
>>6474809>Thinking water.
>>6474809>The fish friend's "Thinking Water" This thing is probably the biggest threat here followed by the xeno AI and the warp stone.So in addition to archeotech breaking down and savage genetic abominations crawling up out of some bunker, there's also a bunch of Men of Iron and remnant mathoth AIs here. The Bureau really did nothing to justify their existence, huh?
>>6474893>The Bureau really did nothing to justify their existence, huh?...So uh, what if they *were* keeping this shit in check? Through remote archaeotech means or something?
>>6474954I doubt it, one of the sisters should have found evidence of that in their HQ by now surely. It could be they didn't know about any of the threats here aside from the invading alien AI since they were basically evil XCOM, the Steel Fellers could even be descendants of Bureau soldiers sent to deal with them.
