Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 606 Interlude Guardian Lucius
-
Supreme Overlord of Commorragh, Archon of Archons, Great Tyrant, or whatever other titles have been bestowed upon him during his legendary rise over thousands of years, Asdubar Vect walks soundlessly within the heart of his towering palace.

Deep in the maze-like corridors made of crystal fractals, there was no one else except him and his doppelganger. Slaves hid trembling at the edge of the gate, waiting for orders or death at any time, or worse, for painful torture.

The High Overlord's sharp, stern gaze swept across the images reflected on the crystal planes, each of which showed him the conditions in different levels and different territories of Commorragh, from the hedonistic banquets of the cabal that obeyed him to the family towers of the Archons who plotted against him, to the portrayal of slums filled with corpses, about to be devoured by the dark formless filth at the bottom (yes, even the Dark Eldar have slums), and so on.

If a certain indifferent Seris librarian were to comment, it would probably be something difficult to understand, like "It's really amazing that after 40,000 years, this dictator still likes to watch a surveillance room full of screens - but this does reflect his desire for control very well, which is understandable."

But in any case, the Supreme Overlord, who was dressed in a black high-collared robe that trailed the ground and wore an obsidian crown that looked like the spires of Comoros piercing the sky, did not glance at the contents of those low-level areas today. Instead, after checking the status of the captured stars as usual and seeing with satisfaction the complete destruction of another hostile family, he turned to an ordinary picture.

If his doppelganger had any curiosity or opinion about this, at least he didn't show it immediately.

The Supreme Archon's eyes were fixed on the scene of highway robbery, which seemed not common but also not uncommon.

Then he frowned mysteriously and walked to the other crystal fractals extending from this picture. In the endless crystal corridors, fractals of various things happening in various places in Comoros kept flashing.

Obviously, while the Supreme Overlord was thinking about who was secretly planning and causing the increasingly obvious great division in Comoros recently, he had not lost his keen intuition about any sudden small events.

He walked past a scene showing his knights fighting the enemy and stubbornly completing the orders of the Supreme Archon despite suffering heavy losses. He nodded and ordered that all this be recorded and any survivors who returned be given a sufficiently generous reward.

"Oh."

After watching so many images for so long, the Supreme Overlord made a sound for the first time.

His footsteps stopped in front of a small crystal fractal fragment plane, which showed a seemingly ordinary view of a flesh and blood trading point and the arena gate in the distance, but there was an inconspicuous alley hidden in the shadows under the picture. The Supreme Overlord stretched out his hand and enlarged that part.

Then he looked at it carefully for a long time, and finally straightened up and stared at the details in the enlarged picture.

As if sensing something, his doppelganger, dressed exactly like him, floated to his side like a real shadow, waiting for his master's orders.

"Go and fetch Mares for me," he said, his cold voice very clear and mellow for a being like him, "and fetch the Archons of the Ninth Raptor and Blade Lotus as well."

"There are things outside this conspiracy that need to be verified and things inside that need to be cleaned up."

His doppelganger bowed.

----------

"No! We don't raise elves on the Iron Blood! Black, white, spotted, or wild ones are not allowed!"

"Then...then you just treat them as domesticated ones?"

"No! I say it again, no spirits are allowed on the Iron Blood! Not even a finger! There is absolutely no room for maneuver in this matter!"

"That……"

"Do you want her or me?!"

"It must be you, Pepe baby! Come! Carry the prisoner away!"

------------

Given that a certain black-and-white plush tyrant was so strongly opposed to leaving this Dark Eldar to recuperate, the whereabouts of the still-unconscious Dark Eldar woman who had been rescued from the claws of "Vannas" by the two ruling primarchs in the chaos (and apparently a bigger mess later so it is still kept secret) became a small question.

After the two Lords of Steel had a friendly but heated argument from breakfast to supper, from "Dark Eldars are not considered human beings, so should the human rights clause or the Pets Act be applied?" to "I gave the order so that if you don't see the killing, it doesn't count as killing, isn't that enough?" and more arguments, they were smoothly kicked off the Destiny Steel to Wandering Port, where they were looking for an unlucky guy to take care of them.

Because "since she looks so much like a human, you can't just watch her die." and people praised her as "Lord Ramizarn is too kind to all living beings. Fortunately, Lord Perturabo is in charge of the review." Of course, the pragmatic librarian Seris actually added a sentence "First take out the useful things in her mouth or find out who she is. If there is really a problem, just lock her up or kill her." Few people mentioned it, and this is also the expected positioning of the two Iron Lords by everyone.

The master of pharmacy, who was so busy that he had no time to be hung on the Primarch's flagship, showed enough interest and enthusiasm for the prisoner, and there were indeed patients in the infirmary.

But unfortunately, when the Lord of Steel heard that a Dark Eldar was going to be placed next to his precious gene seed bank, his soul became colder than the frigid void and harder than the Emperor's Shield. Even the Om Messiah believers who had mechanized themselves most thoroughly had to kneel down and chant binary confession scriptures when they saw his heart that was as cold as -273.15℃. So she did not have the "fortune" to lie down in Master Hongsou's pharmacist laboratory to receive better treatment. Instead, she was only allowed to find someone to look after her and let her rely on the Eldar's own strong innate recovery ability to recover on her own.

The guardian of this Dark Eldar woman needs to meet at least the following three requirements: First, she must be loyal and reliable enough, have good character, and be good at taking care of living things, or at least the situation should not get worse the more she takes care of them; second, she must be strong enough to prevent her from escaping or being killed; third, she must be pure in body and mind, and will never cause any emotional disputes with the captives. The third requirement, in particular, was very important, which Perturabo repeatedly emphasized.

Obviously, the first ones to be targeted must be the only two Astartes priest brothers here. However, the Black Templar priest brother Geratos has obviously been dealing with civilians, adventurers and the sly people of the state religion in Wandering Port for too long. Faced with this situation, it is difficult to shirk responsibility, so he went straight to Lord Ramezane and used the trick of a chaste man to force him, claiming that in order to ensure the collapse of his faith and the failure of the debate, he would not take the job, or else he would die.

According to Lord Perturabo, "This is outrageous! Tie up this disgraceful Black Templar priest and send him to their Grand Marshal! He's the Emperor's Champion! Isn't this just crying, making a fuss, and even threatening to commit suicide?!" However, Lord Ramizane mercifully exempted the Geratos brothers from the task, "Hey, it's just a small matter, not a life-threatening one," and turned to the priest brothers Li Kevin.

Reverend brother Li Kevin accepted the reality as calmly as ever, but he said that he was fasting and if he was asked to take care of the female alien, she would have to eat wind and drink dew with him every day, stay up late to recite scriptures, so as to comprehend the enlightenment bestowed by Dorne and the Lord of Steel.

Apparently, the former Imperial Fists priest brother was as good as his word, and on the third day, the unconscious prisoner was urgently transferred away from the Leakevin brothers because of a problem with the "life monitoring alarm that kept blaring."

Originally, the job of "looking after" the Dark Eldar for the Iron Lord was supposed to fall on Sol Tarvitz - don't ask why. The reason is that Lord Ramezane took a list and looked through it for a long time before picking the name, thinking that "if the living creatures are handed over to Tarvitz, who has normal thinking, speaks gently, has decent swordsmanship, and cooks well, they may be less likely to die."

But since Lord Tarvitz had actually been very busy since he returned to work in the "delicious and nutritious" kitchen, the job finally fell from Tarvitz's angry subcontract to the most helpful Space Marine currently in the Wandering Port area.

--------

"No, why me? I have much more important and interesting things to do!"

Lucius grumbled in dissatisfaction, while carefully stuffing a spoonful of nutritious porridge in his hand into the female alien's mouth.

Oh, Master Fulgrim and Master Angron! He was definitely not going to take good care of this alien! But, but, but, you know what I mean? If a swordsman as good as him could make such an unbearable mistake as spilling the contents of the spoon when feeding someone with a spoon, or not feeding everything perfectly, so that the mushy porridge stains appeared glaringly where they shouldn't be -

Ugh! This is so unbearably imperfect!
So no matter what the reason was in her mind, the unconscious female Dark Eldar captive was indeed taken care of unexpectedly carefully and neatly by Lucius. The quality of her care was so high that everyone else was shocked. Torgaddon sighed and began to help Tarvitz, who was smiling but not smiling. The latter was very satisfied that he had caught another new laborer to cut and season the meat.

"Go and watch the fire for me! We still have a thousand tables of dishes to prepare today!" said the restaurant chef, waving a huge cooking spoon.

Under such meticulous care, this female alien, who had not only various minor skin injuries, but also a skull injury, a large gash from her back to her waist caused by a sharp weapon, and almost had her kidney taken out, began to recover visibly day by day. However, she had been in a coma, after all, her head injury was one of the two most serious.

Honsou had been here several times before, and even though he could come up with a powerful set of diagnostic and treatment plans for the Primarchs, it was still difficult to make a diagnosis for the Dark Eldar.

"Because first of all, they... or rather, they." The master of medicine retracted his scanning arm and began to remove the scanning anchors he had placed on the female alien. "Except for their appearance, they are very similar to humans, but their insides are completely different from humans. What I mean is that even if the skull and limbs covered with skin look so similar, and even the secondary sexual characteristics and external reproductive organs are very similar, they are still something that is completely 'not human' from the evolutionary path to the physiological and anatomical structure, you understand?"

"You don't have to tell me that, pharmacist." Lucius stood at the head of the bed, hugging his arms. He was so skilled and brave that he didn't wear power armor indoors for comfort. He only wore a short silk robe with a gold-studded leather belt about a palm and a half wide tied around his waist. His sword and saber were hung on the metal rings below the belt. "When I chopped off countless alien heads during the Great Crusade, you were not even born yet."

The master of potions moved suddenly, and an extremely bad premonition surged into his heart. He wanted to stand up immediately and block Lucius's unscrupulous mouth, but the latter had already continued to talk on his own, "... To be honest, I am old enough to be your uncle's uncle's uncle. How could you assume that I, the eternal climber Lucius, would make such a low-level mistake as mistaking an alien for a human?"

The strange ominous feeling disappeared again. Hong Suo frowned and then relaxed. "...Indeed, although it is not a big deal, I really shouldn't have presumptuously assumed that a warrior with enough experience would make such a mistake."

"That's right..." the proud swordsman said contentedly, and at the same time he came closer to look at the dark Eldar woman he had taken care of for a long time, "How long will it take for her to wake up? I'm really suffocating, like a bird tied here by invisible ropes! You don't know how many interesting things I have missed since I started taking care of her and can only patrol in Wandering Port for eight hours a day! Ah! The crime rate has recently increased by 1.3%, which is really heartbreaking! It must be because of the absence of me, the great Lucius! They need me! The people need me! Look at those flowers and greeting cards!"

He waved his hand casually towards the bouquets of flowers and cards of all sizes that were placed randomly but artistically in the room.

"Everyone thought I was sick! They sent me condolences one after another! How lovely! Although they are clumsy, they are full of such bright and fresh emotions. Every card and flower bouquet fills my body with surging and hot energy!"

"Congratulations then..."

Before the Master of Alchemy could speak, the talkative former Swordmaster of the Emperor's Children spoke again, "But, speaking of which, I heard that you were born to Fabius Bile?"

Hong Suo really frowned this time, and his voice became cold and hard.

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"Hey!" Lucius slapped his thigh, "Then why are you so formal? You can just call me, Tarvitz and the other Emperor's Children uncles!"

"..."

After the master potion master left angrily, Lucius returned to the bedroom and continued to mutter to himself as he prepared food and potions for the next meal for the alien lying on the bed.

Just as he muttered, "Why is he so angry?"

Someone on the bed responded weakly in elegant and formal High Gothic.

"Maybe it's because he doesn't want to call you uncle..."

(End of this chapter)