Unworthy

Entimolgis rose from her sleep. Her bones hurt from her long slumber. A part of her recognised the irrationality of the idea as her systems ran through diagnostics. She reached up to massage her temples and her metallic digits clicked against a skull devoid of skin. She stared at the hand, her logic circuits wrestling with the surprise she felt. Had she still had eyelids she would have blinked in confusion. She was not a machine, she was a person. A master of geomancer; the earth itself would yield to her if she should but exert her will. Her skill was what had made her one ofher dynasty’s trusted cryptek, earning her place at her lord’s side. She couldn’t be a machine! Her processors registered this irrationality and terminated the thought.
‘Ah yes,’ she thought to herself. ‘Biotransferrence’. Calm restored she rose from the tomb, pushing past the irregularity in her waking thoughts. The tomb stretched for miles in the physical dimension and even further into those outside of the understanding of mortals. She brought up her chronometer and scowled. Or tried to. The necrodermis that was her physical form refused to yield to such mundane demands of emotion. She had slept for several thousand years and had expected to sleep for many more. Why then was she awake? She checked her command logs, pulling the information from her crypt.
‘I remember now. I adjusted the awakening protocols before enacting them. But why?’
Uncertain she made her way through her dynasty’s dark halls. They were still, the small fluctuations in energy flow little more than low level protocols required to maintain base functionality. Why would she have chosen to wake millenia before her lord? The question gnawed at her as she passed the skeletal figures enshrined within the sconces along her route.
Her sensors detected movement and she spun to see an insectile creature rise above her. Its mandibles clicked and spat as it lunged towards her. Entimolgis held up a hand and the creature froze as it recognised the command protocols she injected into its programming with a thought. She studied the creature, a canoptek wraith, and ran her handalong its carapace. She was reminded of the insects of a world long consumed and destroyed in fire. A world that she had once called home. She had collected them, studied them. The small creatures had fascinated her, more so than her fellow necrontyr. She recalled her study and the hour she had spent examining their behaviour. The memory was painful, it made her skin itch. She went to scratch, momentarily forgetting that she was a machine.
‘I’m not a machine,’ she declared. The canoptek’s sensors flared at her declaration but it remained locked in place by her command. Entimolgis lowered her hand, resting upon her Tremourstave as she regarded the silent tomb around her. The staff that was as much her badge of office as it was her tool of destruction hummed in her grasp, a hint of the seismic energy it could unleash at her whim.
+Follow+ she ordered the wraith and set off once more through the halls. The wraith clicked in acknowledgement of the order and flowed forward on its long body. Time had taken its toil on the halls, with some places suffering cave ins.
‘This was in a few thousand years. What would I have awoken to in millenia?’ Such obstructions were nothing to her and she reduced those that impeded her passage to dust with a tap of her staff. Scarabs scattered past, atomising the debris as they rushed to effect repairs. She regarded them fondly. Such diligent creatures, such like the anaolgoues they had been modeeled after. She regarded a skeletal figure in a nearby tomb and felt disgusted. They had been tricked, turned into little more than stalking corpses enslaved to callous gods who had seen them as nothing more than tools. That had changed, but nothing could restore the souls that had been taken, or restore the minds of those who were little more than drones.
“How ironic, we made our servants resemble the insects of our time. Yet it is we who are little more than drones in the service of a hive,” she remaked to the wraith. The wraith did not respond, if it understood her words, the bitterness in her voice would have eluded it. Entimologist tried to sigh and flet a moment of panic as she realised she no longer breathed. Logic circuits crushed the errant thought before it could cause her further distress. Annoyed, she terminated the protocol, shutting it down so it could no longer influence her thoughts.
Entering the final chamber she regarded the casket in the centre. Scarabs and other canoptek constructs moved in the darkness. This chamber had suffered damage as well, although the sarcoffagus and its inhabitant seemed unharmed.
“And like all drones, we must serve our queen,” she mused as she approached the still figure of her lord. His mechanical frame was enshrouded in a segmented cloak, the symbol of his dynasty prominent upon his chest. She knew what she must do. Awaken her lord. Offer herself to his will. Begin awakening the tomb. She hesitated.
“What then? We begin the same games over and over again? Petty politics and infighting, that was our way long before we were deceived. It will be again.” She turned to the wraith regarding it with pale green eyes. Nearby a Canoptek Spyder descended to the floor of the chamber, collecting another of the necrontyr that had been spilled from its sacoffigus by the collapse. She halted it, summoning it and its cargo to her side. “Look at you. Still functioning, still working. Not like us. We were inferior long before we became this. Why else were we so easily tricked?” She regarded the damaged form within its grasp then turned back to the slumbering noble. “No. He would make us drones, but he is no Queen.” She thrust her tremourstave out and felt the shock along its length as dormant protective systems flared to life around the noble. She upped the power and in a flash reduced the sarcofgi and its inhabitant to dust. The pulse of energy knocked her back and her systems began reporting damage, running diagnostics to identify the severity and effect repairs.
“I am not a machine!” she shouted, halting the protocols. She raised her hand to her head, to rub her temples and remembered that the gesture was pointless. She lowered her hand and heard something clink to the floor beside her. She looked down and spotted a metal finger, broken and mangled on the ground. Glancing at her hand she tsked in annoyance as she realised that it was her own. Her repair protocols would see to that shortly. She paused, realising that she had halted them in her haste. The spyder floated closer to her and she waved it away, shaking her head as she did so. She would deal with her damaged form later. Putting her damage out of her mind she turned to regard the lifeless necrontyr form before her. The necrodermis was little more than a shell she realised.
“We cling to these forms, these mockeries of what we once were,” she announced to the canoptek constructs around her. “But we must evolve, we must change.” A scarab scittered past her and she raised her hand for it to alight upon. “These forms appear on every world. They are persistent, superior to our own delicate shapes.” She let the creature continue on its way and eyed the body before her. “I’ll make us into something far superior!” Within her core, the regulating subsystem tried to re-enact her logic circuits. She terminated it with a thought. A diagnostic message scrawled across her vision cautioning her that repair protocols needed reboot but she ignored it, dismissing it without consideration as she set to work.
+Gather resources+ she ordered the canoptek constructs, dispatching them as she carefully dismembered the mechanical shell of the fallen necrontyr. +Apply modification to all+ -Error – Calculated time for task completion exceeds parameters- came the reply. +Manufacture additional Canoptek constructs needed for task+ She issued, growing irritated at the interruption. She set to work again, modifying the dormant bodies of her dynasty to forms more suitable for their purposes.
-Resources depleted. Expand search area?- She approved the request without thought, moving onto another form. How long had she been working now? She wasn’t sure. She checked her chronometer and was surprised by the error message she received instead of the time. So it had failed as well. How irritating. She should sleep, enable her repair protocols and resume work on completion. She surpressed a groan as she climbed to her feet. Her bones hurt her. She was growing too old for this. She yawned but her mouth was frozen ina skeletal grimace and no air came. Not that she noticed this. She recalled the canoptek swarms. She needed a more efficient way of managing them. She cackled to herself as she realised the solution, they were insects after all. +Establish new protocols: Upon awakening Swarm, Consume, Propagate+ She nodded to herself that would do it. She sent the recall signal and begin setting hive to hibernation. She paused by a step, wincing as her arthritis protested at her movement. She should rest here…just for a little while.
-Signal Detected. Origin-Unknown- -Begin Awakening Protocols- -Error – Architect absent – Entity: Entimolgis Degraded. Repair Impossible- -Recall Orders – Swarm. Consume. Propagate- -Protocols accepted- -Beginning Search…Target located- -Dispatch Swarm-