Morts Rêveurs

The belief of millions carried across centuries ripples the Calixian warp. Fears take form in the foaming madness that lies within the Immaterium. The hidden truth of Hive Gloriana is that the warp has long stalked the Crushtop alley depths in the form of murder-spirits that possess ruined servitors, summoned and sustained by the retelling of lowhive myths. The Crushtop district of Hive Gloriana upon Solomon is crisscrossed by narrow chasm-alleys, each a full league deep but of barely a stone’s throw between facing hab structures. Denizens descend by the Choking Stair or the steam-hydraulic tithe platforms, and sunlight is soon lost to a canopy of cable bridges, overhangs, and boardwalks. An everpresent haze sinks from uphive promethium refineries and fyceline alchemical plants to cloud these narrow, crowded thoroughfares. The alley depths clear by night, even though night is barely distinguishable from day. Hereditary lumenbearers retreat to caves carved from the crush and communal rooms that were once generatoria. Doors and shutters close, bolts are thrown, and Aquila charms hung and blessed. The blackness is absolute. Nightwalkers and thieves upon lumenlit boardways and cable-bridges half a league above look down and make the sign of the Aquila as a ward against the depths. In the blackest depths lies the crush fundament, an alley floor made of ruins of the ancient hive pressed flat by the weight of years. There on the boundary, outcasts, Sanctioned Thieves, and hopeless, excess workers of the Waiting Guilds tell their tales. These least-citizens believe in ghosts of the old hive, long-dead servants of daemons defeated by the God- Emperor and driven below. Dreams are a gate: dreamers must be protected by prayers and Aquila charms, lest murderous ghosts rise from the crush and wear their bodies. The lowhivers believe that servitors and the recently dead are those who dream most deeply. Crushtop mortuaries are shrines to the God-Emperor, and any appearance of labour-servitors in the alleys is cause for disturbance and rumour. The eyes of a possessed servitor are glowing pools steaming with warp-light, its churning dreams filled with murderous desire. Makeshift knife gripped in metal fingers, facial actuators clicking and twisting in ways beyond their design, the servitor hunts its lone victims through the night alley depths, feeding upon the terror of their final moments. In the alley depths, many mornings see ritually dismembered bodies discovered at the crush boundary. The low-hivers make the sign of the Aquila and hurry to raise the remains to their shrine-mortuaries. Thus, the warp continues to corrupt labour-servitors one by one whilst the Inquisition searches Hive Gloriana for witch-cults and heretics that don’t exist.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Machines