Working as a night-shift security guard and just sleeping all night is honestly the best job that I've ever had. I yawn, stretch and then take a look at my phone to see what time it is. 4:02 AM. I've still got some time left until my shift ends.
I go for a walk through the restaurant to get my tingling feet sorted. The restaurant is pretty successful, but they've had problems with thieves breaking in and stealing the wagyu beef. The more creative the owner got with hiding it the more creative the thieves got with finding it.
I hear a noise from the storeroom to my left. I turn my head and look there. The door is wide open and there's a costumed maniac rummaging through the freezer. He or she is wearing a literal freddy fazbear suit. We just stare at each other, unsure of what to do.
They are the one to break the stalemate. They reach behind their back and pull out a shotgun. "Please don-" A booming sound erupts. I look down and see my guts falling out of me onto the floor. I look ba-.
—
I stare at the giant white haired snake eyed lady. She stares back at me. I then shit myself and start crying.
—
Let's get the bad news out of the way first.
I've been reborn in warhammer 40k.
The good news is that I'm a navigator, so I'll be enjoying a life of decadent luxury until I turn into a goat/snake before dying and enjoying an eternity of suffering in the warp. Another silver lining is that the year is 38012, so I hopefully have less chances of dying horridly without the tyranids fucking about.
My new official name is Krouss of house Hircus. I'm currently being held in the furry arms of my father, Tamuriel.
My father has the head of a goat, furry arms and a furry chest. Otherwise he's a normal human, except for the hooved feet I guess. The fur honestly doesn't feel that bad, it's actually very soft and comfy. He apparently really hates wearing shirts because of the fur, thankfully he still wears pants. "Aghaghaghhhhaaa."
Tamuriel laughs, his voice surprisingly human despite the shape of his head. "Dear, our son just made another sound!"
My mother, Elena, just smiles at the two of us. She's got snake eyes and small patches of scales on her body. She looks remarkably human for a navigator.
I don't know what family my mother is from, but it's pretty clear that she's the one with the more stable genes in their marriage. I hope I inherit them.
—
I stare at my baby sister. She stares back at me. She then shits herself and starts crying. At least she's got my mother's eyes.
Mother coos at her. "Oh dear, isn't our darling Joline the cutest?"
—
I've reached ten years old, which means that it's time for me to start learning navigator space hell warp-fuckery magic.
My father, mother and I are in a large, well-lit empty room. There's a bound and blindfolded prisoner on a chair in the middle of the room.
Tamuriel pats my shoulder. "Don't worry son, all you need to do is look really hard at him with your third eye. Tell me how you see him while you do that, allright?"
I give him a nervous nod. "Allright."
Up until now I've been wearing something to cover and blind my third eye 24/7. Looking right into a hellscape is supposedly not good for a kid's mental health. Elena pats my other shoulder. "Don't worry son, most of it is instinctual and comes naturally."
I nod and remove the circlet covering my third eye. I calm down once I don't spontaneously turn into a plaguebearer. I look at the prisoner and give his soul a deep look.
He was born on this space station. He is a child born from a liaison between the head chef and a maid. He was named Jirco by his mother. He was trained to be a domestic servant for the family from a young age. He liked cooking. He started learning how to cook better food. He was swapped to the kitchens once his skill improved. He did not get promoted any further in the kitchens in his first year there. He slept with his supervisor, hoping to get a promotion. He did not get promoted any further in the kitchens in his second year there. He trained to become a better cook. He did not get promoted any further in the kitchens in his third year there. He slept with the new head chef. He did not get promoted any further in the kitchens in his fourth year there. He killed, cooked and served his supervisor as a dish to the head chef. He was imprisoned for the murder. He gets raped i- That's enough.
I blink. I look at my mother. "How much time has passed?"
Elena pats my head. "None. It felt like a lot of time had passed, didn't it?"
I nod. Tamuriel chuckles. "I will remove his blindfold now, don't do anything to him this time. Just look at what happens to him when he looks into your third eye."
Tamuriel walks over to the man, pulling off the man's blindfold once he is close to him. The man's eyes are closed. My father violently slams his fist into one of the man's fingers, making him open his eyes and scream.
His soul begins to crack the moment that he inadvertently glances at my third eye. The glance acted like a hammer, violently cracking his soul. Despite making sure not to look at my third eye anymore, the man's soul continues to slowly crack further. It takes two seconds since he glanced at my third eye for his soul to shatter.
The man's corpse sits on the chair, eyes bulging out and mouth frothing. My mother chuckles and ruffles my hair. "From now you will have to keep your third eye uncovered until your twentieth birthday, we'll teach you how to navigate ships using our personal ones until then. Don't worry, the servants in our quarters are all offspring from your fathers harem, they will not die from simply looking at your eye."
I nod absentmindedly. I just shattered a dude's soul.
—
I'm getting married to my sister tomorrow. The age gap between the two of us is about two years, so she's eleven and I'm thirteen right now. Atleast we're free to consummate the marriage at our own pace, so I'm not a fucking certified pedo just yet…
We're having dinner right now. My father is chowing down what looks like spinach while my mother is chowing down on boiled eggs. They are both jubilant and radiate that joy that parents do when their kids get married. My sister and I are both eating steak and eggs.
My sister turns to me and gives me a smile. "You now have to give me cuddles whenever I ask. Also, all the toys are mine now, a-"
I flick her forehead through her white hair and sigh. "You're saying that as if you're not the one hoarding all the toys."
She rubs her forehead and cries out. "MOOOOOM, Krouss is being mean again!"
Our mother just smiles at the two of us. "Ah, I remember when your father and I got married, it was the best day of our entire life."
Our father talks while chewing the spinach. "We were both so young back then de-."
My sister jumps from her seat and interrupts them. "How did you meet? You always cha-"
I quickly give my sister a wet willy to distract her. There's some things that don't really add up when it comes to our parents.
House Hircus is on the bottom of the rung when it comes to the social hierarchy of the navis nobilite. Father is only thirty four, and he is already horribly mutated while mother is still free of any large mutations in her early forties, something that could only happen to a navigator from a prestigious house. There's also the fact that I don't know which house she is from, with her changing the subject each time that I ask.
There's almost no way they got married legitimately, since whatever my mother's house is they wouldn't mingle with a low rung house like us. My sister and I are both also remarkably stable by navigator standards. The only mutation that I've got are the two horns slowly growing out of my forehead, while my sister's only got snake eyes.
The most suspicious thing is that we've lived our whole lives in a space station. We do go out with our families personal ships to get trained as navigators, but we're never far away from the space station.
I have a theory on what it is that they are hiding, and Its almost certainly less that they're hiding a secret from us and more that they're keeping a secret until we're old enough not to babble. Or at least I hope so, it'd suck to get turned into a bloodthirsters chewtoy.
My sister gets up and lunges ferociously at me, straddling me once she's pushed me off the chair and onto the ground. "Tickle Fight!"
Our parents don't even bother interrupting our playfight, they're lost in their own little world. In the end I win the tickle fight once I get a hold of the soles of her feet, her greatest weak point.
—
My sister and I's marriage ceremony gives me the last piece of evidence that I need to realise what exactly it is that our parents are hiding. Our parents eloped, ran away and are currently living their life while hiding from either both of their families, or only my mothers family.
There are no navis nobilite, or any other form of similarly ranking imperial noble, guests. The most important guest that we got was an envoy from a nearby space marine chapter who, coincidentally, also ended up giving us the most expensive gift, a pair of archeotech las pistols.
We're currently all in a large hall. There are dining tables set up on one third of the hall, with the final two thirds being a sort of mingling area, with tables set up in the middle for refreshments.
My sister and I are currently getting married at the end of the Hall, on the side of the mingling area. Our parents are right behind us. I'm wearing a somewhat more formal suit and a circlet to cover my third eye. I try to subtly look at my sister, who is fidgeting nervously in her somewhat more formal dress and identical circlet.
Our father puts his hands on each of our shoulders. "I declare you to be husband and wife, now let's go mingle."
He then just goes to the crowd of guests and begins to do just that. I blink. Is that it?
My sister grabs my hand and begins dragging me with her to the space marine before I can fully process everything.
By the time that I come back to my senses we're already right next to the eight foot tall murder giant. She begins to pull on the man's sleeve. "Mister, how do we use the guns you gave us?"
The space marine chuckles. "Like this."
He pulls out his own las pistol, an identical copy of ours, and pulls the trigger, shooting a nearby servitor in the chest. The shot goes clean through, melts right through the first wall it hits and only stops when hitting the second wall, on which it left a large charred mark.
The space marine re-holsters the las pistol. "That was the minimum setting, the maximum is the equivalent of a melta gun. It's got practically unlimited ammo, but you can only fire it so much with higher power before the safety kicks in."
—
It took me a while to realise that there's something different in my brand of warp-fuckery. I didn't realise it at first, since I just assumed that what I did was the standard. Only after my sister started her own training did I realise anything was off.
Her abilities are more… limited, for a lack of a better word. Where I can willingly stop at any point when looking through someone's soul, she can't, she has to look through the whole thing. I have more control over my powers, asking our parents about this reveals that it is something fairly unusual.
I don't think that they're hiding anything in this aspect. When they want to hide something they usually just change the subject since they can't lie for shit.
Now that we're aware of it we're testing it out. All of us are in the same room that my training began in, each of us with their third eye uncovered. I look at the three bound women in front of me.
The first on the list is the woman on the right, whose body and soul I proceed to set on fire with my third eye. Her screams are swiftly muffled by her vocal cords melting. I look at my mother who gives me a nod. "That is the usual, Immolate the Soul will set both the target's soul and body on fire."
The second on the list is the woman in the middle, whose body I set on fire, taking care not to set the soul on fire as well. Her screams take a bit longer, lasting until her soul is gone. I look at my mother. She takes a deep breath. "That is confirmation that there is something unusual with you. Our powers are diverse but limited in scope, something that slows down time cannot be used to speed it up, for example."
My father ruffles my hair. "Do the last test, if you can limit the scope of Immolate the Soul to just her body that would confirm this not being some form of coincidence or fluke."
I nod and turn to the last woman, setting just her body on fire. She lives much longer than the last two, only dying once her blindfold is destroyed and she gazes into my sister's third eye.
My dad sighs. "Since the two of you now already have this secret to keep, I guess your mother and I should tell you our own secrets now."
I look him in the eyes. "That the two of you eloped and are hiding away from your families?"
Mom shakes her head. "I ran away from my family, the house of Coluber, to marry your father. In the process I also stole some of their archeotech relics and their chart."
I stare at mom. "Like, a copy or-"
She shakes her head again. "The original."
My sister and I just stare at them. My father chuckles. "If they still had it they would've been able to scout us out long ago, this location is effectively a blindspot without a proper chart."
I take a deep breath. "And house Hircus is our actual house or just a front?"
Dad ruffles my hair. "It's our actual name. Most of our family dies early from disease. By the time that I married your mother I was already the last living member of our house."
Joline raises her hand. "Are they going to kill us?"
Dad sighs. "If they knew about us, then yes. Your mother is an expert diviner, so we have our ways of knowing whether or not we are compromised. If that ever comes to happen we have countermeasures in place."
I sigh. "That means that we won't be going out on any ship does it?"
Mom shakes her head. "Once you reach twenty years of age we will send the two of you out with the imperial guard. Don't worry, their ships are heavily escorted and rarely see much combat."
That's about five years down the line, hopefully that's more than enough time for us to not suck.
—
Ever since Joline and I got married six years ago we've been given a shared room. She has dragged me by force with her to stay, play and sleep with her in the room ever since.
The good news is that with premium technology comes premium gaming, so we're playing the equivalent of holographic tabletop AI generated DnD.
I drink from my glass of wine, perks of there being no minimum drinking age. My sister frowns and gives me an upset look. "Are you gay?"
I sputter, spit out the wine and begin coughing. "Wha- What t- the fuck?"
She begins tapping her foot. "Mom told me to ask you. You haven't taken any concubines or done anything with me."
I cough one last time and take a deep breath. "I- You- No, I'm not gay."
She gets more upset. "Does that mean that I'm ugly?"
"No, you-" Fuck it, I give up. I take her hand and start taking her to the bedroom. Once Joline realises our destination she's the one dragging me instead.
—
I look at the piles of luggage being loaded right into the navigator's quarters. "Do we really need all of this?"
My sister snorts. "No duh, we need at least ten thousand sets of clothes each. Do you want to embarrass the family name?"
Mom smiles. "How fast the two of you have grown, I wish that I could be with you to see our grand-children be born."
Joline blushes. "Moooooooom."
I chuckle. "Not so funny when it's the other way around is it?"
Dad ruffles the hair of both my sister and I. "Make sure to take care of your sister Krouss, there's something I need to give you now that you're going away."
I turn to him "What i-" He wordlessly hands me a small steel nub. I hold it between my fingers and give it a close look. It's got a port that looks like it's supposed to interface with our cybernetics on one side, the other side is just a small steel nub.
Dad points at the steel nub. "That's an archeotech relic of our house. It serves as a wireless bridge between you and the ship, allowing you to act as its navigator from anywhere inside it."
I insert it in the port on my back immediately, I don't want to risk losing this thing. My sister and I both give our parents hugs and leave for the navigators quarters to get started on interfacing with the ship.
—
I look at Joline. "Do you wanna do moms or dads communion ritual?" Please choose moms.
She shudders. "Moms, definitely moms. Dads ritual is too splattery for me."
I sigh in relief and take the vox from the maid next to me. "We require ten unmutated virgin girls, ten identical venomous snakes and ten matching antidotes for the communion ritual."
It doesn't take long for what we requested to arrive. Joline and I look at the girls, checking if they have any visible mutations. The ritual works better the less mutated they are.
After making sure that they have no mutations we begin the first stage of the ritual. I take a deep breath. "You will drink our blood, be bitten by the snakes and then you will eat the snakes whilst they are alive. You will then be given the antidote to the snake's venom. You will live the rest of your lives with us afterwards, understood?"
They immediately nod, fear visible on their faces. I give a nod to the maid next to me. The girls are handed a small glass of both my sister and I's blood, drinking it with some hesitation.
Servants guide the snake's bites with experienced hands, making sure that each bite is right on the left nape of the girls.
This part is going to be the most difficult, we can't starve them or give them something to make them hungry enough to eat the snakes, as that can affect the result of the ritual.
Thankfully they all manage to eat the snakes, one of them simply swallowing the whole snake alive. After they're all done eating we can finally begin the first part of the communion ritual.
My sister and I both cut our wrists, letting the blood pool and join on the floor. We begin chanting. "Sanguine nostro coniuncto."
The blood begins ominously glowing green.
"Sanguis noster videt"
The girls begin ominously glowing green.
"Mare nobis divitur"
Joline and I begin ominously glowing green.
"Et tuto navigabimus."
The glowing begins to slowly subside, until it is almost entirely gone. The only thing still glowing are the girls, who are now glowing an extremely light green, almost lightly enough to be missed if you didn't know to look for it.
The next time we do the ritual we only need to do the incantation, the snake eating was thankfully a one time thing.Last edited: Friday at 4:09 PM Like ReplyReport Reactions:Nightmare723764, Chronodevil, MourningSpider and 137 othersSickolifeOct 22, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 2 View contentSickolifeMaking the rounds.Oct 22, 2025Add bookmark#2With the communion ritual completed we can begin plotting course. Joline heads to the navigator's throne and I mentally activate the small nub that I got from my father, I should probably come up with a name for the thing, can't just keep calling it 'the nub'.
Our destination is the hive world Kearus, one of the main sources of manpower for this sector's imperial guard. Kearus trains a much larger pdf than other planets, allowing the imperial guard to simply recruit the best of the planets pdf and skip out on a bunch of the training.
Kearus is too far to get there in a single jump, so I'll need to plot a course towards it while taking into account the need to refuel and restock between each jump.
I put my hand in the pocket of my robes and take out a grey round ball about the size of my fist. This is a copy of our star chart, or rather of the chart that my mother stole from her family. The difference between an original chart and its copy is that the original will update itself while jumping, a copy is static and will not. This is why star charts are so precious, as losing one means having to start mapping star lanes from scratch. They are fairly abundant by navigator standards despite there being no real way to replicate them.
I take my circlet off, uncovering my third eye. The girls we used for the ritual have already left for their quarters, we'll call them if we need to do other rituals, for now their presence is unnecessary.
I give the orb in my hand a deep look. There's multiple viable routes to Kearus, a large majority of them are fairly risky, with warp currents and cosmic horrors above the level that one could call 'reasonably safe'. There's two direct routes, but both of those involve going through daemon infestations, so no thanks.
There's a few more safe routes, but most of them will take too much time in both realspace and shipspace. There's a single good route that is both safe and pretty quick, so I end up settling for it.
Next on the list is interfacing with the ship and starting the first jump. Thanks to our parents' gift I don't have to plug into the navigator's throne to do so. I close my eyes and focus on the ship.
Whilst interfaced like this the ship's systems will boost my natural capabilities to an astronomical extent, allowing my supernatural senses to permeate throughout the entire ship. The light of the astronomican slowly becomes more and more bright as I continue interfacing with the ship.
The process is swift and painless, which is all thanks to the communion ritual. Without it this process would be the equivalent of sticking my soul into a theoretical warp blender. I calculate the exact angle we need to be in, the total distance between us and our first destination and the amount of time the jump will take. This process would be almost impossible without having the astronomican serving as a constant reference point.
In theory the eye of terror can also be used as a reference point in a pinch, you just need to kill yourself afterwards.
I signal for a maid to prepare a vox caster for me. While she is doing so I double check all of my calculations. When she arrives she holds the vox for me. "Course plotted. You can begin jumping, we will update the data throughout the jump. ETA is one year real time, one month shiptime."
Time flows differently throughout the warp and realspace. You can spend two hundred years in a jump and arrive a second later in real time. You can also spend a second in a jump and arrive a millennium later in realspace. Arriving earlier in realspace time is also possible, but it's an extremely rare occurrence.
Once the ship is in position I give confirmation for the jump to begin. The gellar fields are activated. The ship's warp drive then tears open a rift into unreality, allowing us to casually enter hell. The gellar fields protect us from both daemons and any other cosmic horrors waiting for a mere flicker of the gellar fields.
The entry into the warp is one of the more dangerous parts of warp jumps, the forceful entry feels as if psychic hammers were relentlessly battering the gellar fields. I relax once the ship is fully out of realspace.
Our first stop is a supply station in the Xovrian system, we'll make a pit stop for fuel and supplies before going on over to the next stop. I relay all of the data regarding our course to my sister through the ship's systems.
The only thing left now is making the occasional correction throughout our journey. I open my eyes and see a freshly unplugged and crouching Joline begin to draw ritual glyphs on the floor around the navigator's throne. "What are you doing?"
She continues drawing as she gives me her reply. "Relax, I'm just preparing a divination ritual for when we get to Xovrian."
When it comes to using our powers I am better than Joline. However, when it comes to rituals and warp sorcery my sister is superior to me by far. I mentally redo the calculations for our route and provide corrections to the bridge.
I shake my head. "And why didn't you do the ritual before we did our jump?"
She rises up from her crouch. "Because the ritual is going to take two months to properly set up. The ritual is also more for general divination instead of navigation, so it would have been pointless to use then."
I mentally redo the calculations and confirm that we're on the correct route. "How does it take you two months to draw squiggly lines with chalk all over the floor?"
She points her finger at me. "Because I need a lot of blood from navigator offspring to do the ritual! Why couldn't you be more of a horndog and get yourself a real harem like dad?"
A navigator can only be born between two navigators, our genes are too recessive for anything else to be viable. Children born between a navigator and a baseline human are somewhat normal, with some useful additions.
They are more resilient to the dangers of the warp, making for potentially phenomenal astropaths if lucky, or unlucky enough, to be psykers. What makes them crucial for navigators however is their innate resistance to not dying from our third eye, allowing for both specialized household guards and personal servants.
We can't use our powers with our third eye uncovered, so servants capable of not dying instantly to it are extremely useful both while training our powers and while navigating ships. This sort of half-navigators are also what usually comprises most of a navigator house's guards, as they are extremely compatible strategically with our abilities. Being able to instantly kill all of your enemies while leaving your allies intact in the process is the backbone of our military power.
I mentally redo the calculations, the few necessary corrections are sent to the bridge. I pinch my nose. "This is the thousandth time we've talked about this, incest would destabali-"
She sticks her tongue at me. "Mimimimimi~ I am starting to think that you're just scared of women."
I frown. "I'm not!"
"You are!"
"I'm not!"
"You are!"
I redo the calculations, confirming that we are on course. I sigh. "I'll think about it."
Joline narrows her eyes at me. "That's the fifth time you've used that excuse, you do realise that the sooner you get on with it, the sooner they'll grow up to be useful right? We can't rely on our father's guards anymore. Any of them that die from now on we won't be able to replenish for a good while."
I redo the calculations, giving out a single correction. I sigh. "Fine, We'll see what we can do when we get to Xovrian, there's an admech agriworld in the system we can pull some manpower from."
Joline pumps her fist. "Finally! Just a few more years until I can finally have my own personal servants!"
I redo the calculations, everything's good. I begin walking towards Joline. She quickly realises her mistake. "Erm- I mea- We can finally begin training our own personal guard! None will sta-"
I flick her forehead. "Since you're so eager to grow our military might, why don't you go and start preparing a training program for them with the head of the household guard?"
"Because I need to take over for you in five hours, dumbass."
"Then go get some sleep, since you won't be seeing any for twelve hours afterwards."
—
The time to switch has come. Joline and I both go to the navigator's throne and plug ourselves in, taking the cables hanging from it and plugging them into the ports on the napes of our necks. I slowly hand over control to her, both of us making sure that everything is on course as I slowly do so. Once she is fully guiding the ship I remove the nub from the nape of my neck and hand it over to her. She plugs it in and then we both plug ourselves out of the navigators throne.
I yawn. "I'll go get some sleep, if anything comes up wake me up."
Joline opens her eyes and nods. "Will do. By the way, the reason we only have maids as servants is because I asked father to not give us any butlers, take one with you and get to work."
My eyes twitch. "You do realise that Julian was the one cooking your steaks right?"
Her eyes widen as she is enlightened to her error. "You're lying."
I open the door to our bedroom. "Eh, you'll see at dinner tomorrow."
She ends up finding out that indeed, Julian was the best at cooking steaks out of the household servants.
—
"Krouss! Plug in quickly, you don't want to miss this!"
I sigh, go to the navigators throne and plug myself in. As she slowly begins to share her senses with me I realise that I was right, I don't want to miss this.
A bloodletter and a daemonette are currently having a stand off in the cargo holds. Daemonic incursions are not uncommon, but one happening in a safeish route is pretty rare.
The bloodletter swings his sword at the daemonette horizontally, almost cleaving her in half if it was not for her swift retreat. The sword ends up clipping a barrel of prometherum, drenching the floor in the unstable flammable liquid.
The daemonette hisses at the bloodletter, charges towards it and impales its shoulder with it's hand-claw before it can recover from its swing. An absurd amount of blood immediately begins to pour out of the bloodletters open wound. The bloodletter takes one hand off of his sword and grabs the daemonettes hand, forcing her to be in close range of it.
The daemonette realises the predicament that she is in and tries to chop the bloodletters hand with her free arm-claw. Before she can close her claw and escape the bloodletter successfully decapitates the daemonette.
It's at this point that the ship's guards finally arrive and begin to rain down las fire upon the offending daemon. Since the ground is still drenched in prometheum the resulting explosion kills both the daemon, the guard and everyone still in that storage block.
I give her a nod. "Yeah, that was pretty brutal. Didn't expect an incursion to happen this early."
She frowns. "Incursion? Are you retarded? The imperial guard's lord commander and the navy's admiral are having an affair."
—
Both Joline and I are ready and plugged into the ship for the end of the warp jump. The warp drives open a hole to the materium, allowing us to re-enter reality. It is only once the ship has left the warp entirely and the warp-rift closes that we relax.
I pat Joline's shoulder after we both unplug from the throne. "What do you want to do first? We'll probably remain in this system for the next two weeks."
Joline just grabs my hand and drags me to our bedroom. Can't really have any fun when a single moment of distraction could lead to damnation.
The next day we schedule a meeting with the admech magos of the nearby agri-world, requisition a system ship and fly to the admech agri-world of Falgin. When we arrive there we are swiftly led to the magos by an acolyte. Joline spends the whole way looking fascinated at the world around us.
We find the magos overseeing the construction of farming machinery. Our arrival is announced by the acolyte who has led us to him. "The scions of house Hircus have arrived."
The magos waves him away. His mechanical voice sounds out. "What does house Hircus wish to trade for?"
There's generally two ways of trading among high-ranking imperium officials. The imperial throne and favors. Simple things, such as manpower, food and simple supplies are traded using imperial thrones. More valuable resources are traded with favors.
I give him our request. "We wish to resupply on luxury food and manpower. We also wish to remain on the planet for the following days."
We don't have much luxury food onboard, so this is a pretty good opportunity to restock. Getting more armor and weaponry to expand the household guard will only be possible at the fourth system, which will contain a minor forge-world.
Joline jabs me in my ribs. The magos either pretends he saw nothing or does not care, probably the latter. "We will calculate the total costs and inform you tomorrow on the total. Is there anything else?"
Joline, seeing my reluctance, takes the initiative. "We need a breeding stock of two thousand to replenish our household guard."
The magos thankfully does not comment on my twitching eyes. "It will be added to the list. The acolyte who led you here, AGH-712, will serve as your guide for the duration of your stay."
Normally this sort of trade could be handled by an envoy, but we wanted to sightsee.
—
It's the fifth day since we've arrived on the agriworld. Joline and I are currently looking downwards from our balcony at the small hive-city underneath us.
This is the planet's single hive-city, serving mainly as a way to replenish their workforce. I haven't been on an actual planet ever since I was reborn here, whilst my sister has never been on an actual habitable world before.
Joline is leaning down, looking curiously at the streets below, taking everything in. I pat her back. "Seen anything interesting?"
Joline nods. "See that beggar? Whenever he leaves another comes to take his place. When that guy leaves this beggar comes back. What do you think is going on?"
I continue rubbing her back. "They're probably working together to get as many thrones as possible."
Joline takes a step back and leans her back on me. "You know, when we grow old we should probably get ourselves a world like this. Now that we've been here I've started to wonder what a garden world is like."
I hug her. "It would probably make for a pretty good retirement plan for once we get old."
She nuzzles into my back. "Have you finished choosing the breeding stock? Or should your wife go and choose your harem for you?"
I freeze. She does not relent. "Poor widdle Krouss is scwared by widdle women?"
I take a deep breath. "There's nothing to really choose. It's two thousand women, do you- You're just fucking with me aren't you?"
"Tehee"
Since we're not in danger of dying via daemon I don't hesitate to grab her foot and proceed to tickle her mercilessly for the following five minutes.
I am interrupted from my petty revenge by a maid calmly handing me a vox. Joline and I get up, steady our breathing and take the vox. "Krouss of house Hircus here, what is it?"
"We have finished refueling and resupplying earlier than scheduled, your lordship."
That's honestly a little disappointing, I'd hoped to enjoy having a sun above me for a little bit more time. "We will be coming soon. Is there anything else?"
"No, your lordship."
—
Our second stop is the hiveworld of Kinja.
It is the singular habitable planet in the Kinja system, serving as both a stop to replenish some logistical manpower and to refuel.
When the bridge contacts the planet they discover something fairly troublesome.
Kinja is currently under rebel control, In order to resupply we need to invade and take control of the planet away from the rebels.
Joline and I have joined the strategy meeting in the bridge, me out of a desire to get some leadership experience and Joline just following me out of curiosity. A large holographic display of the hiveworld is displayed in the middle of the bridge.
The lord commander, a young looking blond man named Pavlo, begins the meeting. "Rebels have taken over the planetary administration, killing all of the nobles. We have a shortage of manpower but plenty of combat vehicles. It is safe to assume that the PDF's stores have been looted."
Joline looks at the holographic display, then points at the governor's palace. The display quickly zooms in to display the palace in detail. She crosses her arms. "Why don't you just take over the palace? There's plenty of supplies stashed there. The governor probably didn't skip on security, so they shouldn't be looted just yet."
The lord commander thinks on the suggestion. "That would not work. Taking over the palace would not give us control of the planet. We need to choose an entrypoint, stage our landing and begin to purge the rebels."
The holographic image switches to an enclosed section of the hive-world with a single entrance point. "We land at the entry-point and secure the enclosure, it will provide a more than suitable staging point for an invasion. The locals can be conscripted and used in place of trained recruits, their deaths will not affect our combat strength negatively."
I raise my hand. "Can the two of us participate in the invasion?"
Pavlo frowns. "Why would you want to put yourself in danger in this manner?"
Joline answers the question. "We want to get some combat experience. Can't really do that when stuck on the ship can we?"
Pavlo closes his eyes, seemingly weighing the pros and cons of acquiescing to our request. Five seconds later he opens his eyes. "You may participate, but I must insist on a heavy guard being assigned to the two of you."
I give him a nod. "That will not be an issue. We have our own custom made power armor, so we will not be in significant danger."
That seems to give Pavlo some relief. The two of us dying wouldn't affect the fleet itself much, since they can borrow a navigator from one of the other ships. But having a reputation as being dangerous for navigators is extremely bad for business.
Pavlo ends the meeting. "We will begin the attack in two days. An alpha strike will be undertaken to take control of the enclosure, the main invasion force will then land safely and proceed to crush the rebel forces. Any questions."
I cough. "May we join the alpha strike?"
I'm pretty sure that Pavlo might get an aneurism by the time that we reach Kearus. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Nightmare723764, Chronodevil, The NEET in the Tower and 104 othersSickolifeOct 22, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 3 View contentSickolifeMaking the rounds.Oct 22, 2025Add bookmark#3"I'm going to chant, then you're going to slit your wrist and pour your blood into my open mouth. Afterwards you repeat my chant while continuing to pour blood in my mouth. When we're done we're both going to see jumbled visions of the past in the left eye, the present in the right eye and the future in our third eye. You got all of that?"
My sister is currently sitting on the navigators throne, surrounded by glyphs and runes written in blood red chalk. Both of us have our third eye uncovered. I nod. "Yeah, you can start."
Making a single mistake from now on would lead to the whole ritual failing. Thankfully misspelling a word probably won't lead to nurglings spawning, I think. Joline takes a deep breath and begins chanting.
"Sanguis mihi visum ultra tempus dat"
"Sinistra oculus mihi praeteritorum secreta ostendit"
The light in her left eye dims.
"Dexter oculus mihi praesentis secreta ostendit"
The light in her right eye dims.
"Tertius oculus mihi secreta futuri ostendit"
Her navigator eye widens, showing a clear picture of the sea of souls.
I slit my wrist, taking care for the resulting blood to pour only into her mouth. I begin chanting.
"Sanguis mihi visum ultra tempus dat"
The pouring blood slows down, as if gravity had lessened.
"Sinistra oculus mihi praeteritorum secreta ostendit"
My left eyes lose vision, becoming blind.
"Dexter oculus mihi praesentis secreta ostendit"
My right eyes lose vision, becoming blind.
"Tertius oculus mihi secreta futuri ostendit"
The man is recruited into the cult of blood. A man is starving, about to die. The planetary governor is killed by the general. He is offered a chance to prove his worth by a hooded figure. He slowly grows strong and mighty. The man becomes a pitfighter. The astropaths are missing. The planetary governor imposes a new tax. A man kills the general. The rebellion begins. The general is killed. Half of the population will be trained for the tithe. The blood cult rejoices. The commander general of the PDF is preparing the armed forces. The governor is killed. A man is recruited into the PDF.
The wife hides in the bunker. Plasma cutters shine against steel. There is plenty of food. The man promises to remove tax. The man is a leader. A plea is being screamed. The man is hailed as a hero. A plan for defense is discussed. Pdf is too scrambled for response. They will have their revenge. Everyone rejoices. They are in the bunker. A man takes power. Valuables are hidden. The vault doors open. The blood cult fades
The tithe will be taken. The blood god will rejoice afresh. Golden coins will gleam. Red blood will flow. The Aquila will be raised. Treasure chests will be opened.
I close my eyes and begin taking deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. Once my breathing is in order I open my eyes. My vision is blurry, the more I try to concentrate on seeing the more pain I feel in the back of my eyes. I close my eyes again.
I take a deep breath. "This isn't going to be permanent, right?"
"No, just give it an hour or two." Is my sister's ragged reply.
—
Putting on power armor is difficult to impossible on your own, thankfully we have servants to help us with that. I raise my arms, allowing the servants to slowly attach the chestpiece. "Any idea what we should do about the blood cult on the planet? Other than informing the lord commander about it."
My sister keeps her arms down, allowing the servants to attach the shoulder pieces. "Find the closest inquisitor and point them at the problem. That's probably what the lord commander is going to do anyway, I doubt he wants to go anywhere near them."
That's fair. I lower my arms, allowing the servants to begin work on the shoulder pieces. "That's probably the smart idea. We could also investigate for ourselves, the cult 'faded', so I doubt the inquisitor is going to find much of anything."
My sister lowers her arms, the servants having finished setting up most of her armor, all that's left is putting on the helmet. "That sounds pretty exciting! We're going to go on an adventure like on those holos. 'Die, filthy rebel! Pow pow'."
I lower my arms and take the helmet held by the maids, securing it on my belt for now. "Kinda but not really? We're probably going to just soul search anyone suspicious until we find a lead, if we find nothing there's not much we can do."
Joline holsters the offered archeotech las pistol and power rapier. "Party pooper. I call dibs on any psykers."
Our third eye allows us to easily detect psykers as their souls act like a gate to the warp, not unlike our third eye. I also holster my own las pistol and power rapier. "And how are you going to train them? Natural selection?"
Joline blows a raspberry at me in response. A maid brings a tall mirror, allowing the two of us to take a good look at ourselves.
Our power armor is colored a stark white with red accents. Despite looking more like a status symbol than a functional suit of armor it is still leagues above regular power armor, as befits of something made for a navigator. I move my hand to the nape of my neck and plug myself into the power armor, allowing it to boost my physical abilities. A quick flicker of the inbuilt refractor shield confirms that everything is working as intended.
—
"We've done a scrying ritual, there's a heretic cult on the planet."
I can't directly tell the man that there's a khorne cult on Kinja, but this is about as close as I can get to informing him without consigning him to the bullet. Navigator houses are among the select few aware of exactly what the 'archenemy' is, so I'm not putting either my sister or I in any danger by telling him this.
The lord commander immediately closes his mouth, processing what I've just told him. He gives a resigned sigh once he is done processing. "I will contact the inquisition, hopefully they're nearby. We will still be staging our attack as scheduled to secure a landing site, but we will have to hold off on doing a proper invasion until they arrive."
—
Joline and I are currently sitting in our twenty man drop pod, waiting to be dropped on the planet below. The remaining eighteen seats are filled with our household guard.
Clad in white power armor, albeit with much less bling than the ones my sister and I are using, and armed with human-sized bolters. These are the elites of our household guard. They serve both as our bodyguards and as a form of status symbol.
Four drop pods of elite guardsmen will drop along with us somewhere nearby. Those guys are using standard issue carapace armor and lasguns, so they're essentially one or two steps away from being red shirts.
The lord commander's voice is heard from the drop pods vox. "Men, you are the first line of defense of the imperium of man! Without you, no world would stay safe from heretics! You are the most vital part of the defense of this world! We will conquer this world for the Emperor!"
I hear Joline snort through our vox-channel. "That speech was kinda ass."
I nod my head. "Yeah."
It does not take long after the speech for the drop pod to be released, beginning our fall towards the planet's surface. Using the link between me and my armor I mentally uncover the port over my third eye and try to figure out our landing spot.
Joline snickers. "Make sure to cover your eye before impact, don't want to kill any of our allies we happen to come across."
I close the port and cover my third eye, having managed to figure out our exact landing spot. "We'll land right into a skyscraper, the drop pod is probably going to blast half-way through it."
Joline and I both pull out our archeotech las-pistols and power rapiers in preparation for our landing. The drop pod begins to violently shake as we go through the skyscraper. As soon as the shaking stops and we've stopped falling through rock-crete floors the drop pod doors open.
We step out of the drop pod and examine our landing site. We're in what looks to have been a dormitory. Blood and gore is strewn about, with heavily injured and frightened hive-worlders everywhere. Pointing my las-pistol at them makes them fuck off.
The architecture of most hive-worlds is almost always similar. Cheap rock-crete is used to raise buildings while sectors are closed off by heavily reinforced steel plating. Our goal is securing this sector, in order to do so we need to first secure its only entrance, afterwards we can either purge or secure it.
I give the few hive dwellers who have frozen in fear a glance. When I was first born in this galaxy I'd angsted a lot over my morals. After burning the souls of innocents and guilty alike just for training I can't bring myself to care anymore about anyone not close to me.
I turn to Joline. "Should we even bother trying to differentiate between locals and rebels? Most of them are probably masquerading as civilians anyway."
Joline shrugs. "Eh, it's probably better to just ignore any civvies. If they turn out to be rebels we can just interrogate them and get some info from em later."
I nod. "Al-" five men dressed in matching flak armor carrying autoguns come into view from a collapsed wall. Joline, the household guard and I all fire warning shots. The rebels turn towards us.
Joline laughs. "Speak of the daemon and he shall appear!"
Joline and I both turn on our refractor shield and uncover our third eye, each of us giving a different one of the rebels a deep look.
Was born to a factory worker, father unknown. Was forcefully taken and raised in local schola. Was trained from a young age in combat. Was trained to ALWAYS follow orders. Was recruited in the pdf immediately after graduation. Served the pdf for ten years. Was given orders by superior to capture a malcontent noble. Fought against pdf to capture noble. Pdf superior gave orders to fight against pdf. Fought against pdf for two days. Combat ended, realises he was a rebel. Goes home. Drop pod lands on building.
I blink. The rebellion used the planetary defense force against the planetary governor? Not much time has passed since the rebellion succeeded either apparently.
Revealing our eyes ended up killing all of the rebels, along with most of the surrounding population. Joline and I both cover our third eye. I turn towards my sister. "My guy was a pdf soldier that got used by his superiors for the rebellion, what did you find?"
Joline shrugs. "Same as yours, he got ordered to fight against planetary officials and didn't really question his orders that much until it was already too late."
I begin moving towards the visible set of stairs. Joline moves next to me and the household guard surrounds the two of us, moving to secure areas on entry and guarding against any potential ambush.
When we reach the stairs the guard goes first, scaring away the local population and clearing a path for Joline and I. I see a drop pod go through a nearby building as I am going down the stairs. It continues going through another and only stops at the third impacted building. We continue walking towards the next set of stairs.
Joline points at one of the locals while continuing walking. "DIBS!"
I turn my head towards who she called 'dibs' on. It's a haggard looking teenager with shoulder length black hair. He, or she, looks to be thirteen years old, although you can't tell for sure because of their apparent malnutrition. Their soul draws in the warp, but not to the extent of a true psyker. I shrug. "Sure, but you're the one making sure that they don-."
A man sized piece of rockcrete falls from the cracked ceiling, crushing the teenager into red paste. "-t die."
Joline sighs. "It's probably better to collect them after we finish fighting."
I snort. "Yeah."
We reach the stairs of this floor. The household guard go down first. Joline points her las pistol at the floor. "I've just thought of something, wouldn't it be faster to just blast through the floors and jump down each floor? We're all wearing power armor, so it's not like we'd be in any danger from debris."
I blink. That doesn't seem to be that bad of an idea. I give her a nod. "Yeah, let's go for it."
Joline points her las-pistol directly at the ground. "Not directly underneath us! Idiot."
She points the las pistol at the floor, this time at enough of an angle to leave us out of the blast radius. "My bad~"
She fires the pistol at half power, making a large hole through three floors and killing the unfortunate hive worlders underneath. The household guard jumps through the hole first, securing the immediate area for us before we jump in as well. Before Joline can blast through the floor again a group of sixteen rebels hurriedly comes through some nearby rubble. They raise their hands in surrender the instant they see the group of twenty imperials in power armor.
Joline points her las pistol at them and fires, turning them, two layers of walls and most of the locals in that area into gore. A flying finger hits my helmet. I set my las pistol at half power, aim at the ground and fire, allowing us to drop down two more floors.
We continue in this manner, blowing through the ground, securing the area and occasionally killing any rebels that we come across. It takes us about five minutes to finally reach the proper level we need to be on.
From here we just need to head on directly to the sector's entrance, which considering the maze-like nature of most hiveworlds is easier said than done. Joline turns towards me. "We can't just blast through walls until we get to our destination, our pistols are already on the verge of overheating. Any ideas?"
I take a swipe at a nearby rock crete wall with my power rapier, cutting through it like butter. That might work. "We can cut through the walls instead."
I hear Joline sigh through the vox channel. "Couldn't you have said that before? We could have cut through the floors instead of overheating our pistols."
I shrug. "It didn't come to mind at that time."
I make three more cuts into the wall and take a few steps back, allowing the household guard to kick the cut off section down, revealing a large room filled with rebels. The sound of the falling piece of rock crete makes the ones close to us turn around.
Joline and I immediately activate our refractor shields, allowing us to safely uncover our third eyes. Most of the rebels that turn around end up screaming in pain and dying immediately afterwards, their colleagues then turn around in response and then proceed to die in the same manner. The few remaining stragglers are swiftly shot and eliminated by the household guard. We cover our third eyes.
A drop pod lands in the middle of the now cleared room, opening up and revealing the first of our 'escort'. Joline snorts. "Really? I'd honestly thought you guys were already dead."
The captain of the group shakes her head. "Not yet ma'am. What are your orders?"
Joline points at our household guards captain. "Follow her lead, this gal is your new boss for now."
The captain gives Joline the sign of the aquila. "For the Emperor!"
Joline goes to a wall and cuts another entrance, allowing the household and imperial guard to go in and clear the area. The next wall she cuts reveals a long bridge in open space heading towards the building that our destination is located in.
The household and imperial guard go first. Halfway through las-fire begins to rain upon them from a nearby building. Thanks to their power armor, our household guard is able to reach the other end of the bridge unscathed. The imperial guard reaches the other end with minor to medium injuries, their carapace armor shielding them from the few lucky shots that landed. We wait patiently until the voice of the captain of our household guard is heard through our vox. "All clear"
Most young navigators only have access to one or two powers without counting the lidless stare, Joline and I are somewhat of an exception in that we have access to three. Immolate the soul, Tides of time and space and the course untravelled, the power that we trained in the month before leaving home.
The course untravelled is a navigator power that allows us to choose a potential future and occupy the location of our alternate self in that future. It's technically not teleportation, but practically it serves the same function. The limit is that the future self we choose must be theoretically possible.
Joline and I both use the course untravelled, choosing to inhabit the location of our alternate selves that have safely passed the bridge. Both of us immediately remove our helmets and proceed to vomit. The downside to the course untravelled is that it's extremely disorienting if you're not used to it.
I take the canteen offered by a nearby imperial guard and rinse my mouth, giving it back to him after putting my helmet back on. I turn to Joline, who has just finished securing her helmet. "Let's take a minute to recover, we should probably train that in the future."
She groans. "Yeah, that still doesn't mean that I have to like it."
—
Using only warhammer-lingo hurts my brain xd.
The reason Krauss was hesitant in the earlier chapters wasn't out of appreciation for human lives, that will come up somewhat later into the story.
I'm trying to get the feel of the fighting happening in an extremely crowded hiveworld, hopefully that came across well.
Ain't avoiding civilian casualties when they are packed everywhere like sardines.Last edited: Friday at 5:31 PM Like ReplyReport Reactions:Evymel, The NEET in the Tower, Pyrususer and 90 others