B I L E P L A N T
They stormed in, their pact with the Voice, Nyarlathotep himself, filling them with power. The humans were weak, unable to stop the attack which broke against their feeble defenses like a meteor hitting a small pool. Afterwards they tortured and sacrificed those still alive and began the process of refitting the plant to their own specifications.
Before long the grow vats replaced the chemical refinement pods and the primitive, moralistic technologies of the weaklings we replaced and upgraded until the base became worthy of the Iron Hand.
Shalbolt knelt before the soul mirror, brain linked directly to its image. Two words consumed his mind, "CONQUEST" and "METHOD". The device was designed to allow the priest, through days, sometimes weeks of meditation, to be able to cast his mind into the outer spheres and then see images on the surface of the mirror, effectively a mixture of his own thoughts and the infinite realities to which the temporal systems of the machine had access.
Other times one of the elder gods would speak directly to the priest. Such was the case now. Beads of blood sweat suddenly broke out on his skull to be wiped away by the nearby servitor.
The mirror and priest howled in unison, an echo somehow ringing out in the tiny space that was the divination shrine. The priests implants wriggled and squirmed within his flesh, broke the skin in some places. Then they began to reform themselves. Burrowing through his bones, organs and flesh. Merging with them, transforming his whole being into a bio-automaton, a twisted creature many removes from his former genetically enhanced, cybernetically charged previous self.
As this happened, the voice came.
"You know who I am?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Speak my name."
"Nyarlathotep, the Voice."
"Correct. You are to take this location."
Images flashed across the screen.
"I will shroud it from the humans and aid your possession. It is to be your new base of operations. I have injected a retroviral nanoplague into your body through the soul mirror. It is a great gift I bestow. It will transform you beyond any dream of humanity, you will be a demigod. Go, my son, take the place I have allotted to you as yours."
The mirror fell silent, then cracked, its surface going dark.
Shalbolt shuddered, his whole frame racked with invisible blows as his internal systems rearranged themselves.
The servitor closed again, trying to wipe up some of the blood from the tears in the priest's skin. A cluster of metallic tendrils shot from the shaking form and dragged the servitor into its now expanding mass.
A junior priest approached the divination chamber, three squads of troopers with him. His orders were to kill everything inside the chamber, including the 2nd priest, Shalbolt. The 1st priest, Reinkin, had ordered this and so it was his duty.
He did not know what was happening to the 2nd priest, or that the 1st priest had witnessed the events via a relay inside the servitor's skull, at least until it was ripped to pieces.
Reinkin was fearful and jealous, he knew that Shalbolt had talked to Nyarlathotep himself, and that he would have to kill him in order to retain control of the Iron Hand, Third Division.
Two troopers went to the door and pulled it open, stepping smartly to the sides as the squads opened fire into the chamber.
Nothing was there.
The junior priest tc'd a ceasefire and ordered the 1st squad to enter. As they began moving a huge humanoid figure dropped from the ceiling from where it had been hanging, limbs and joints moving in a way impossible in any human basic or even any creature recorded in the Iron Hand's xenobiological journals.
It reached forward and picked up a single trooper and leisurely bit his head off, commencing to eat the whole of him, including armour and weapons. The other stood mute, immobile.
The junior priest raised his own blaster to fire, only to find that it would not work. The creature continued to eat, although a voice sounded from somewhere on its body.
"Junior priest. Obey. I was Shalbolt. I am now the avatar of Nyarlathotep."
It picked up a second trooper and began to eat.
"Obey or you will be destroyed. The Voice speaks through me. We have a new target for acquisition. But first I am going to Reinkin's chambers, he will pay for his heresy in attempting to kill me so soon after my ascension."
Nyarlathotep performed the human equivalent of sitting back. A job well done. Not only would Sarcen pass through the Iron's Hand territory in thirty years or so, he would arrive to a place ruled by one of the most psychotic and horrific creatures he had ever created.
He smiled to himself.
He had deliberately not looked to Sarcen's future, but would lead him to all the items he would require in order to destroy the third division of the Iron Hand.
Would he succeed?
Again Nyarlathotep resisted the impulse to concentrate on the outcome and see.
