The Seven Spheres

The Crucible

The closest of the Spheres to our own reality, the Crucible is so named for being a 'mix' of the different traits of the other spheres, and for being the main source of energy in the cycle of souls. The Crucible is made up of hundreds of galaxies, stars and planets, and a great many alien and familiar species call it home. (In dnd terms, this is the Material Plane. In real world terms, this is the real world.)

The Cage

Made up of the four philosophical elements, and the points where two or more combine, the Cage gets its name for the belief that it was placed around the Crucible by the gods to prevent mortals from entering the Outer Spheres. If this is the case, it has profoundly failed, as mortal life has spread across both the Cage itself, and the Spheres that lie beyond it. The Cage is regarded as being extremely hostile to life, with mortals only capable of surviving in regions containign some level of the mixtures of the elements (with pockets of air being unsurprisingly essential). However, the Cage also hosts a wide variety of natives, such as Elementals and stranger creatures who have adapted to its harsh environments.

The Sanguine Sphere

The Sanguine Sphere is a place of instinct and emotion, ruled by the innate desires of mortalkind. Often called the sphere of the body, the is named for its outer edge (if an infinite sphere could physically have one), which is known as the Sea of Blood, or the Acheron. Nothing dies permanently in most of the Sphere, meaning it is perpetually locked in an endless war fought practically merely for the sake of fighting. A variety of creatures call the Sanguine Sphere home, such as the infamous Devils, ancient Asuras, and the powerful Valkyries.

The Astral Sphere

Said to be the Sphere of the mind, the Astral Sphere is the home and birthplace of the majority of gods, and is defined by the great silver void known as the Argent Sea which makes up the majority of its structure. The Astral Sphere is believed to be a reflection of mortal consciuousness, and as such is especially mutable for strong minds. Although less war-torn than the Sanguine Sphere, the Astral Sphere is still a dangerous place, being home to the unpredictable fey, living thoughts known as the Vesh Hikal, and many planar migrants, such as the Cthil and the Sahnou elves.

The Empyreal Sphere

Home to the underworlds of Mortalkind, the Empyreal Sphere is believed to hang on the edge of the Terminus, and is perhaps the least-travelled of the Spheres. It is an empty black void, punctuated only by the occasional underworld and titanic petrified corpse. It is home to the Demons of the Nadir, alongside the Archons, said to be the last witnesses of the universe's creators. Alongside this, the Empyreal Sphere is home to the Necropolis, the point of judgement for mortal souls, and as such contains many of that realm's guardians, the Usubians.

The Terminus

The Terminus is the end of all souls, sometimes called Creation's Maw, and the mother of oblivion. The Terminus is like a vast black hole, and represents the end point of the planar tide known as the River Styx. Once a soul has experienced their true death in their afterlife, they are drawn here, where there energy is broken down into its base components and then drawn back into the Terminus' opposite, the Foundry. Very few creatures dwell within the Terminus, as it is the anathema to life itself. However, a few Usubians safeguard the Sphere, and the eldest of the Qlippoths dwell within, seemingly unaffected by pure death that surrounds them.

The Foundry

The source of energy flowing back into the Crucible, the Foundry is, ironically, just as dangerous as the Terminus to most forms of life. It is surrounded by a great sea of plant life enervated purely by its power, but entering it results in immediate healing, then cancerous growth, then swift death as a being is quite literally healed to death. Despite this, a few souls survive on this plane, with the Etaidra guarding its outer edge and the death-souled Yal Hevra dwelling in its blinding depths.

Her patience was rewarded a few minutes later when the door nearest the thrall opened with a creak. A little more light crept in, and with it the hunched forms of two more Nosferatu. Getting a better look at them, Evarcha saw their long, spiralling tongues and winglike ears. Erebina’s lot, then. Butterfly vampires, as some liked to call them. Sure enough, fluttering over the thralls came a swarm of the red insects, wings beating in a silent cacophony. A few settled on Evarcha, and she tried unsuccessfully to shake them off.

“I’m almost disappointed, hunter. I was promised better than this. Waiting for you to get drunk and then sending a few peons to bring you in was terribly simple.” 

The voice coming from the corridor was imperial, curt and patronising. In short, nothing special for a vampire, and especially not an Erebine.

“And I’m disappointed that your ‘peons’ could keep from panting on guard duty. You do know you have to feed them?”

“Then we can all be disappointed.” The vampire said as she walked in. She looked fairly typical for an Erebine, her skin was unnaturally smooth, and in the light seemed almost ebon white. Her hair was elaborate and impractical, complementing a wide dress already soiled by a thin trickle of blood. Most unsettling, however, were her eyes, which were flat and opaque, made from the same material as her skin. They stared hollowly at her. As with most Erebine Vampires, Evarcha’s host didn’t move her face as she talked, her voice simply projecting out from her body.

“I, however, will at least have the solace of being alive at sunrise.” The vampire finished.

“We’ll see.”

A cobweb drifted between the two of them. Evarcha stared up at the impassive face of the vampire before her. Nothing too impressive. Probably would’ve been an easy kill, were it not for her current predicament. She had gotten quite drunk, admittedly. But she hadn’t been hunting for whoever-the-hell this was. 

“Would you believe me if I said this was all a big misunderstanding?”

“Not particularly. And even if it was, we all have our roles to fill. Despite your best efforts, your kinds’ is quite clear.” The vampire stepped closer, her lips parting slightly.

“So that's it? Drink my blood, throw the rest to you lapdogs here and then move onto the next poor sod to pass by your- where are we, precisely?”

“My home. You haven’t been here long, have you? My bloodline has claimed these lands for centuries.”

“As I was trying to say, I was just passing through.”

“How unlucky for you. You seemed quite well equipped, however.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t on a hunt. Just not for you, I’m afraid. By the way, what is your name? If you’re going to tear my throat out you could at least do me the kindness of telling me who will have felled me.”

“Amelyn Castarich VeLeshte Erebina. First of my name.”

“Named for your progenitor. How incestuously charming.”

“I had most of those names before I ascended, thank you.”

“A real self-made monster then. Wonderful.”

Evarcha watched as one of the butterflies drifted past, fluttering into one corner before trapping itself in a cobweb. Evarcha’s eyes widened, then she forced herself to relax.

“Something the matter?”

“Oh, just my life flashing before my eyes.”

The vampire turned her head, mouth widening into the sort of grin that can only be achieved by something not wholly used to using its face.

“It must be very exciting.”

Was that- curiosity? 

“Still sore about losing my quarry, honestly.” If she could keep talking, she might have a chance here.

Amelyn stepped closer, seemingly starting to enjoy herself. Vampires tend to when they think they’re in the upper hand. She leaned in close, heavy perfume almost masking the scent of decay.

“And what, pray tell, was your quarry?”

Evarcha looked back to the corner with the cobweb. The butterfly was gone. Good.

“An astral predator. Its feeding habits made it difficult to track, but I believed its venom could have served as a powerful tool if I’d gotten to it in time.”

“The sort of thing that might have saved you from me?” 

Amelyn was closer now, close enough for Evarcha to see the tiny ridges and scales across her skin that were unsurprisingly reminiscent of the wings of the butterflies that followed her. Her grin had widened well past her lips, revealing a dark redness beneath.

“Perhaps.”

“I doubt it. Your incompetence would be almost endearing. But your vagueness is tiring. What precisely were you hunting?”

Evarcha shot another glance at the corner. The web had definitely expanded.

“It was an arthropod, like an insect. Native to a demi-realm of the Astral Sea, it was a sort of super-predator of mortals. It rarely fed on them directly, instead devouring those who predated mortals themselves. Creatures like you, actually.”

“Ah. What a sad attempt at intimidation. You are starting to bore me, hunter. A pity for you.”

Evarcha looked to the wall one last time. The web now covered most of the corner. The Nosferatu that stood there, once bound by its mistress’s orders, was now gaining a fine layer of web over it as well.

Suddenly, Amelyn grabbed her shoulder, talons extending from her fingertips. 

“I do hope you’ve gotten most of the beer out of your system,” she said, her grin widening as her false face peeled back, “it just ruins your taste otherwise.” 

With a wet tear Amelyn revealed her true face, a fanged maw covered in congealed gore. Her eyes glimmered now as well, pupils dilating as she took in her prey properly. In the corner, the Nosferatu let out a strangled hiss. Its mistress seemed not to notice.

“Wait- I can tell you a little more- This creature- it fed on vampires just after they themselves had- “ 

Evarcha let out a breath as Amelyn’s fangs pierced her throat. You never screamed when a vampire bit you. Your throat tried, then the coagulants and anaesthetics in their venom kicked in. She’d built up a bit of a tolerance, but honestly that just made the bite hurt more.

The Nosferatu who’d accompanied Amelyn looked on hungrily for a moment, then turned its head. Evarcha tried to see where it gazed, being foiled by Amelyn, who tipped the chair over as she lapped at Evarcha’s throat. She let out a grunt as the wood snapped under her. Evarcha tried to wriggle out from the suddenly-slacker ropes, but the vampire’s talons sliced into her shoulder. Evarcha let out a hiss.

“I tried to- warn you- actually. Too late now- thank you.”

The vampire paused.

“Thank you?”

Behind them the Nosferatu hissed and leapt towards the wall. A black blur caught it mid-air and dragged it into the cobweb, which now covered it and the adjoining one. The first thrall had disappeared completely.

“What is this?” Amelyn hissed, blood dripping from her distended maw.

“My- quarry.” Evarcha said, kicking at the distracted vampire as she half slid, half pushed herself out of the wreckage of the chair. She clutched her bleeding throat. “I warned you..”

From the web, a leg extended. Long and many-jointed, as thick as a human head and covered in long barbs and bristles. Another followed. Then another and another, pushing and scrabbling against the wall in a grotesque parody of a-

“Spider.” The vampire breathed.

“Culicivora Astralensis. A second-hand bloodsucker.” Evarcha murmured. 

The hunter, the vampire and the ‘spider’ stood for a moment. Then Amelyn charged the beast, it raised its front legs in readiness, and Evarcha dived for the door.

Amelyn charged into the beast as it hauled itself from the web, dozens of legs tearing its fat abdomen and dripping, many-fanged maw from whatever extraplanar space it waited in and into reality. She grabbed one of its legs and ripped it clean off, but as she did so another clouted her across the gore-covered head. She hissed, glistening wings extending from her back and hips as her clothing and skin unfolded into their true, horrific form.

Evarcha stumbled out of the room, clutching her neck. Nearby she saw her gear lying neatly on a low table. Amelyn had taken the trouble of sorting it. Finding a cauterising rune, she scrabbled for it and spoke the minor incantation. She was no mage, but this sort of thing came with the trade. She pressed the rune to her neck and gritted her teeth as pain flared across it. It wasn’t a good fix, but it would do. 

Behind her, she heard Amelyn shriek in triumph, then horror, then silence. She grabbed her hammer and stumbled back to the room she’d been held in.

It was filled with cobwebs when she arrived, a few butterflies struggling weakly in their silken bonds. In the centre of the room was the body of Amelyn, stained by black ichor and clutched between the fangs of the not-spider that filled half the room. A thousand beady eyes fixed on Evarcha. She gripped her hammer a little tighter. 

Descending through the tangled wires, past chainmail-like assemblages of dishes and aerials, and one will find a figure, suspended by wires above the shattered remnants of an office, the wooden furniture and floor half shattered and scorched by alchemical fire. The desk remains intact, however, and upon it sits a simple radio, the design varying between viewers. Of course, the figure above is of far greater note, and takes the form of an emaciated human torso with its arms stretched out and wrapped in copper wires, whilst more wires emerge from and replace its dangling entrails. Its hair too has been overtaken by wires, leaving the organic remains patchy and malformed. If the figure were to turn its head, the viewer would spot that its eyes have been replaced by glass dials, and its shattered jaw supplemented by a gory microphone. This form is all that remains of Zavatchiel, the Watcher in the Wires.

Zavatchiel began first as a mortal artificer born within the Crucible, where he was among the first to adopt the new discovery of a form of magic that permeated the universe and beyond, and which could be used to encode and send messages great distances, which would become known as Ertza, or, more rarely, radio. It is said he formed his own station with this new ertza, and from there spread the technology across his world. However, whilst he laboured at transcribing music and poetry into this new medium, others saw a more potent potential. When war claimed his land and family, the artificer sought aid through use of a long-whispered summoning ritual. Somewhere within the depths of Pandorum’s sixth layer, something heard him. Okoroxes, Archdevil of Sloth and Lord of the Choking Baronies saw potential in the ertza and its creator, and offered him a deal; the artificer would offer his soul (devils were less subtle in those days, it is said), and in exchange Okoroxes would ensure that none of his inventions would ever be turned towards war. Of course, as with all infernal pacts, the devil was in the details, as he-who-would-be-Zavatchiel would soon learn. After the pact, ertza systems began to malfunction, causing horrific miscommunications that left thousands of casualties. Alongside this, combat automata controlled by the magic turned on their masters, slaughtering thousands more. Soon, the war was brought to a horrific and bloody end, and, horrified by what he had done, the artificer fled to his old tower, planning to spend the rest of his life in misery. Unfortunately, it is said, Okoroxes’ bargain did not prevent others from rediscovering his idea, and within a decade the technology had been independently discovered, refined and propagated in a way just distinct enough the bypass the monolithic bureaucracy of infernal copyright, and in so doing circumvent the contract. Within a decade, war claimed the artificer’s world once more, and it is said his body was found suspended from radio wire shortly thereafter.

Reborn an imp within the Okoroxes’ domain, Zavatchiel was ruled by a cold fury that contrasted with the smouldering and slothful attitudes of his peers. He ascended rapidly through the ranks, rivals meeting unfortunate ends and patents finding their way to his name. Despite all this, Zavatchiel’s focus remained purely on Okoroxes. Soon, accidents became so common among the residents of the Smoking Baronies that the entire region became subject to myths of bad luck or sabotage. Through it all, however, there was a clear voice among them. Whispered from the mouths of surgically modified speaker-imps or sung by silver-skinned vox-succubi, dissent spread among the inhabitants of the Sixth, while the great towers and receivers of the now-duke Zavatchiel sprung up seemingly from nowhere. Soon, faced with all-out rebellion within his former heartlands, Okoroxes was deemed incompetent by Asmodeus, and it is said that, when Zavatchiel’s coup truly began, he was accompanied by a legion of the Lord of the Pit’s own Elypnarri war-devils. Shortly thereafter, the Sixth was officially claimed by the Archduke Zavatchiel.

From there Zavatchiel furthered his old research, establishing infernal listening-posts across the planes, tuned into the frequencies of mortal anguish and designed to draw them into contact with Pandorum. Thanks to this, Zavatchiel excised the need for devils to be summoned by mortal spellcasters to form bargains, instead being able to pinpoint mortals ripe with potential for sin and harvesting. From here, Zavatchiel swiftly became the preeminent among the Archdukes, drawing in millions of souls a year, and making conflict with his supposed equals inevitable. When he struck into the layers of Geryona and Icaria at once, it was of little surprise, although the efficacy with which his mechanical devils dispatched the finest warriors of Wrath caused great consternation among Pandorum’s nobility. Soon, many across Hell pledged allegiance to him, spurred on by inspiring broadcasts of death, copper and souls. 

As with all coups in Hell, however, it was not to last. Though his armies were mighty and his power nigh-unconquerable, it did little to save him from the godkilling blades and enslaved titans of the Lord of the Pit. It is said Asmodeus himself actually left the Noctis Pit to pass judgement on Zavatchiel, and that the molten brass of his terrible war-form left great lakes that refuse to cool to this day. When Asmodeus set his thousand eyes upon the Zavatchiel’s palace, a great spire of metal and wire which had withstood a century of infernal siege up to that point, he spoke but a single word before reducing the citadel to a mass of imploded steel and copper. Asmodeus was no fool, however, and recognising the potential of Zavatchiel’s designs, refused to allow them to be lost. Crucifying him within the depths of the newly-formed Wire Star, Asmodeus buried him deep below the centre of the Sixth layer, and set a legion of blinded spider-fiends to string worlds-worth of wire down to his prison so he might serve as a great receiver of mortal suffering, which would then be carried to hundreds of libraries across the seventh circle below him, where it could then be neatly parcelled out and assigned to lesser devils to form pacts. Thus did Asmodeus ensure Zavatchiel’s coup was shattered whilst not depriving himself of the former Archduke’s potential. Within the century, Asmodeus raised another archdevil from the sixth’s depths, the feared Sleeping Mother Belphegor reincarnated to take Zavatchiel’s place. 

Thus did Zavatchiel’s coup pass into history, and from there into myth as Belphegor’s censor-imps scratched his name from their ledgers, leaving only the most zealously-protected of infernal records safe from his second death.

‘Kid’. He’s barely a year younger than me, she thought. Not that you could tell. Caull’s previous masters (Tisea didn’t like to think of her and the others as Caull’s masters, but sometimes she was sure the boy had almost said it out of habit) apparently hadn’t heard much of the revolution known as food. Or they didn’t care. Tisea leaned towards the second option. She was pretty sure she could have picked up the gangly eighteen-year-old with one hand. Like a cat. 

She strode across the deck, reaching the hulking form of the Ragknight. 

“Hey Caull!”

There was a clatter from within the mech, followed by cursing.

“Y- Yes, Tisea?”

“First of all, are you alright in there? Sounded like you took a tumble.”

“Yeah, you just startled me. I’m not used to…”

“Attention? Too bad, I like you too much to just let you sit in there all day.”

“You what? Me? You-”

“Never mind. We’re orbiting Ysbos. Rasmus says there’s an old mercenary outpost there with plenty of scrap left over. Moreover, it might have some information about our friends the Stallions. We’d appreciate the mech support, if you reckon you’re up for it.”

“Sure. What time do we leave?”

“We’re descending now by my reckoning. You be ready in an hour?”

“I could be ready in five minutes.” Caull seemed quite proud of this fact.

“How’ll you get the drip in that quick- I’m coming up there.”

“Wait!”

Cere reached up the ladder placed against the Ragknight’s leg, and hauled herself up its torso, eventually finding a relatively comfortable foothold in its armpit where she could peer down through the neck-hatch into the cockpit. Caull was inside, the shirt Tisea had leant him rolled up so the ichor drips could access the blood in his arms. His expression was one of shock and an unhealthy amount of fear, and the ‘whites’ of his eyes were a shade of dark grey. 

“I can exp- I was just checking the pumps were working!”

“Hey- hey. It's alright. You don’t have to worry- just, you of all people should know that that much ichor in your bloodstream for that long isn’t good for-”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I-”

“You’re alright. I just- I don’t want to lose you so soon after we found you. And- I just don’t get why you’d want to- you said being plugged into the Ragknight felt uncomfortable?”

“It's still more comfortable than-” Caull trailed off, turning away from Tisea.

“Than what?”

“No. No it’s nothing.”

“I don’t think it is. No matter what you think, you at least deserve to be comfortable.”

“How can I be? When I’m like this.” 

Caull flung his hands up as if to gesture, then winced as the ichor drips tore themselves from his arm. The Ragknight shuddered as its arms rose, mirroring its pilot, then arced back to their original position. Tisea had to cling to the rim of the hatch to stay atop the mech. Seeing this, Caull flung himself up, as though reaching to clasp her hand. He stopped himself as she hauled herself up on top of the mech. Suddenly, they were face to face, and Tisea could see black tears hiding in the corner of Caull’s brown-and-grey eyes. His fair was short, having started to grow out since Tisea had pulled him from the Stallion Hound-Frame that had torn through the last of their ship’s defense automata. He pulled away, a hint of blush infiltrating his face. He spoke slowly, as though choosing his words carefully, or as though he was afraid to say them.

“When I’m in a mech I feel…freer. It lets me escape from all this meat.” He swept his hand from head to toe, wincing as ichor and blood dripped like pus from the wounds the drips made in his arms. Tears of ichor pooled in his eyes, and Tisea could see he was barely holding them back.

“Are you alright?” She said, not really needing an answer.

“I…I don’t know.”

“Can I bandage your arms?”

“Is there much of a point if we’re landing in…” They both glanced at the cracked clock that hug from one wall of the hangar.”

“Forty-five minutes.” Tisea finished. “I should at least clean them. You might be more comfortable with bandages though. If you want, we can get Marley or Rasmus to take one of the other Ragknights instead, let you rest for a bit.”

“No. I think actually using the Ragknight would help clear my head. She tends to.”

“She?”

“I-” Caull seemed to be receding into himself, like a tortoise who’d had an arrow land just next to them.

“It’s alright. I don’t mind. I’m pretty sure Marley might as well have taken his mech as his husband.”

That got a weak smile from Caull.

“Are you coming?” He asked.

“Probably. I’m not great at part identification, but Lou said she’s not coming and we need someone who can at least guess at the part values.

“I-I can help identify frames if you want.” Caull said quietly. “They taught us to identify different manufacturers, so we knew where the breakpoints wer- Before they put us in with the Hounds, I mean.”

“If you want to, I’m sure Rasmus would be happy of someone who can tell Teleos and Pallat frames apart.”

Caull lit up.

“Well that’s easy- Teleos frames tend to have horizontal banded segments in the abdomen, whereas Pallat ones use a lamellar covering over a basic gyro-plate. Pallat frames are fine enough, but the lamellar tends to crack under high temperatures and rot in humid conditions, so- sorry, you probably meant that as a joke.” 

“No- no it's alright. It's nice to see you excited about something. Tell you what, you let me clean up those arms, and you tell me about what frame you’d pilot if you had the choice. She reached a hand down into the cockpit, and, after a second Caull took it. “I only ever learned enough to make quick identifications, or whenever I was helping Lou.” Tisea said as they climbed down the ladder. She led Caull up a slightly shaky set of stairs to the galley, and from there to the room that passed as the medical area aboard the cramped ship. Caull sat down on the bench whilst she rifled for a clean rag and the bottle of liquid poultice. 

“Soo…”

“So- oh! If I could pilot any frame…it’d probably be a Teleos Diomedes-II, but with the digitigrade legs, obviously. I probably would ditch the head though, cuz Teleos optics are useless unless you’re fighting someone in a grubber.”

“What helm would you use then?” Tisea moved to sit next to Caull, dabbing at the black-and-red pinpricks where the ichor drips had been. He winced, then thought for a moment.

“Maybe a Halistrom or Falkner one. I like some of Halistroms older offerings, before they focused so hard into just building for speed.”

“Not a Nakago? I thought their optics are supposed to be the best.”

“Oh they absolutely are, but the mono-eyes make me uncomfortable.”

“Didn’t your Hound frame have a mono-eye?” Tisea realised that the question was a bad idea as the words left her lips.

“Yeah.” A beat.

“What weapons would you want to use?”

“Probably a zweihander or other sword. One of the good kaliger ones with the enchanted blades. I like them, they’re mostly defensive but you can still wreck anyone stupid enough to get close. For sidearms, probably a wristblade or swordbreaker on one arm, and a machine gun on the other. I don’t like fighting at range, but it helps keep enemies off-balance if they’re having to shield their eyes and joints. Even bigger mechs have to watch out for a well-timed shot to the heel or hip.”

“Like the Achilles?”

“Exactly!” Caull winced as the Tisea dabbed at one of the more ragged wounds, one that had gotten especially torn when he’d stood up. “That frame just shows that even cataphracts can be felled if they think they’re invulnerable.”

“You ever gonna fell a cataphract?” Tisea asked, half-joking.

“Maybe. There’s one I want especially.” Caull said more seriously.

“I’m sure you could.”

“Maybe if you get me that frame.” Caull said, lightening.

“Don’t worry, I was taking notes.” 

They sat there for a moment, Tisea’s hand still resting slightly on Caull’s arm. Just then, a bearded man dressed in a jumpsuit and breastplate poked around the door. 

“There you two are! We’re about to make planetfall. You be ready to leave in a moment?” Rasmus said.

“You up for it?” Tisea asked, glancing at Caull. He nodded. 

“We’ll be with you in a second.” Tisea said to Rasmus.

—--------

Caull winced as he reinserted the ichor drips into his arm. At least the needles were cleaner now, and the seat was more comfortable than the metal sarcophagus of the Hound- he felt his breath quicken as he remembered the suffocating feeling of the heartbeat of the mechs generator dying, of the ichor bleeding from his eyes as he hyperventilated within the iron coffin, his breaths growing faster and faster- and then she had opened it. His breathing slowed. He had been terrified, clawing at her in an ichor-induced, panicked fury. And yet she’d carried him out. Looked after him. Her and her…crew? Family? They’d all been kind, considering he nearly killed two of them, but Tisea had been especially. She wasn’t much older than him, but she’d been so patient and nice and- and he wasn’t going to disappoint her now. He took a deep breath before pulling on the breathing mask and grabbing down the goggles.

“You ready?” The engineer, Lou, called out through the static-riddled coms-mirror of the Ragknight. Caull flicked the ‘standby’ switch. In the Ragknights eye socket, a yellow bulb sputtered on.

“Activating the pumps now. Good luck, kid.” Almost immediately, Caull felt the sharp pinpricks of the needles grazing his eyes as his vision faded, then sharpened again. Now, he was looking out of the slightly-faded eyes of the Ragknight, her head set over the hatch into the cockpit and shrouded in a chainmail neckguard. Below her, Lou gave a thumbs up, and pointed out towards the main hatch, where the bearded man (Rasmus?) and Tisea stood. Next to them was a large steamcart, upon which someone had left a sizable mech-halberd. Runsk make. Not bad, maybe a bit unwieldy, but Caull and the Ragknight could make it work. At this point she was used to these heavier weapons, not like the nimble wristblades of the Hound. She strode across the wood-and-metal deck of the hangar, and bent low to pick up the halberd. It fit well into the Ragknight’s hands, the grips shaped for its blocky digits.

“It’s no zweihander, but do you reckon the reach is alright?” Tisea called up. The Ragknight nodded. She could get used to the halberd quickly enough.

“In that case, let's get going.” Rasmus said, strapping a mask over his beard. The Ragknight wasn’t entirely sure how it was supposed to seal, but once Tisea pulled on hers as well, the man signalled and someone (presumably Lou) activated whatever mechanism opened the hatch. The steamcart trundled out, and the Ragknight followed, slinging the halberd across its shoulders.

The ground where they had landed was a reddish brown, and had been flattened into a broad plain a few hundred metres wide and long, upon which the shells of a few buildings still clung, alongside battered crates and rusted containers. At one point, this might have been a decent spaceport. Beyond the plain the ground was choked in thorns, fleshy blue flowers piercing the yellow haze that emerged where drifting clouds of gas met the seething storms of reddish dust the spluttering steamcart dredged up. From above, the Ragknight could see the ground rise and fall in hills and valleys, and in the distance the bombed-out ruins of what had once been a fairly large settlement. A few birds rose from the bush as they trundled into its embrace, navigating along a scarred road, shrieking all the while.

After about an hour, the road began to widen as the ground rose, and the Ragknight and her companions saw other paths and highways join onto it. Eventually, the dirt gave way to cobbles as they ascended along the edge of the hill to the ruins the Ragknight had seen before. Up close, they were a lot more fortified than she’d thought, battlements jutting out over thick stone walls, and from within the forms of half-melted dragon-guns and cannons could be seen vainly piercing the yellow sky.

As they reached the end of the road, the gatehouse of the fortress rose above them. A tattered and charred banner hung above it, depicting a two-tailed hippogryph rampant. However, a large scorch mark obscured the head, and the creature appeared to be entirely lacking wings, creating the impression of a butchered animal rather than a proud symbol.

In the cart below, Tisea signed something to Rasmus. The Ragknight had yet to entirely pick up the nuances of tioman cant, but considering the sign language’s ubiquity she was working to amend that.

They entered the fortress easily enough. Some kind soul had blasted the portcullis in.

From inside, the fortress had clearly seen better days. It was built around the top of the hill, concentric walls separating courtyards filled with redoubts and gun-turrets. This courtyard, however, had clearly once housed various barracks, feasting-halls and warehouses, most of which were now half crushed by the fallen bodies of mechs or pieces of masonry. Something about the mechs made the Ragknight uneasy. Looking closer, it was probably their heads. The mechs had sharklike helms with grilles covering their eyes, a feature which wasn’t uncommon, especially among suits built for speed. What was bizarre, however, were the lower half of their heads, which had been sculpted like jaws, and were inlaid with large, human-like teeth. 

The Ragknight’s companions clearly didn’t share her unease. Tisea and Rasmus had already clambered off the steamcart, carrying toolboxes, flare guns and boarding axes as they swarmed the huge forms. The Ragknight mostly stood guard, occasionally striding over to slice through a particularly stubborn pauldron or give advice about a manufacture through the stuttering coms-mirrors. It was slow work, picking through the carcasses of the frames for usable parts. They made their way through the fortress, passing rot-filled halls and scorched blacksmiths, and edging their way along crumbling bridges and battlements. Eventually, they found their true prize. In the centre of the innermost courtyard, in the shadow of the gun-riddled keep, slumped a huge lancer frame, its titular weapon still wired into one of its hands. Its plating was smooth and elegant, etched with ornate gold filigree and all painted a bright metallic green which the Ragknight knew all too well. Its chest was pierced by a massive grenade spear, which had detonated its explosive tip directly in the mech’s heart, and yet still clung there, its narrow shaft stark against the buckled plates around it. The Ragknight strode forward, grasping the spear and drawing it free. As she stepped back, Tisea ran forward, sliding into the wound as she searched for details on the pilot, and for parts she could salvage. The Ragknight didn’t fancy her chances, considering the entire cockpit was now a scorched ruin. Nearby, another of the human-teethed mechs sat, a ruined falchion clutched in one hand. It bore the same heraldry as that which the Ragknight had seen over the gates, and the grilled plating on one side of its helm had been torn off, clearly showing the three dark eyes set into their lenses and nerve-cables.

As she pondered this, something caught the Ragknight’s eye. Twin searchlights piercing the gloom. They were drawing rapidly closer, and she tensed. Rasmus saw them too, and went to sign to Tisea, but she was nowhere to be seen. He ran towards the fallen mech and-

BOOM. The dirt around him erupted as an explosion detonated a few metres away. He flew backwards, colliding with the steamcart and slumping into the dirt. The Ragknight moved to help, but before she could, the searchlight’s owner emerged. It was a huge frame, larger even than the lancer, and hunched over. It carried a massive gun-axe in one hand, and a broad-muzzled dragon-gun in the other. Its head resembled a gas mask, and was flanked by two massive lanterns, the source of the searchlight beams. It carried great nets around its waist, filled with scrap metal and the skeletons of mech and pilot alike, and had several massive harpoons strung across its hunched back. The beams fixed on the Ragknight, and she barely had time to raise her halberd before the colossus surged forward with impressive speed, its axe slamming hard into the metal haft of her weapon, which shrieked and sparked under its force. She twisted, dodged to the side and cut across into the mech’s pelvis, but her blade clattered against the nets, which served as surprisingly effective armour. In response, the colossus brought the pommel of its axe down on the Ragknight’s neck, bending metal and sending her spiralling to the dirt. The Colossus turned to face her, firing the broad gun as she narrowly rolled to the side, shrapnel shredding through pistons and tends in her arm, and filling her synapses with a symphony of agony. It pinned her to the ground with a clawed foot the size of her torso, and the Ragknight could feel her hull plates begin to buckle and bend. She desperately fought as the colossus drew a harpoon in each hand, pinning her hands to the ground. The Ragknight writhed, pain flaring in both its arms now as it tried to break free from the barbed pylons. 

—------------

Tisea watched in horror from the blown-out cockpit of the lancer as the colossus slung the harpoons off its armoured back and slowly, precisely stabbed them into the hands of the struggling Ragknight. Her mind and heart raced as tried to think of something intelligent, something that could stop the colossus from eviscerating the Ragknight and Caull within.

She remembered the flare gun strapped to her belt, and did something exceptionally stupid instead.

—------------

As the colossus raised its axe to finish her off, its back erupted in a red blaze as a flare hit it. The colossus turned, unfazed, and began to stalk over to the lancer, where the flare had been shot from. If the Ragknight could have breathed, it would have sighed with relief.

Suddenly, realisation hit her. Tisea! Within the Ragknight, Caull surfaced, tearing off the goggles and blinking as ichor streamed from his face. He reached up for the hatch, and twisted it open, pulling himself out from the pinned Ragknight into the humid air of the fortress. To his left, he saw the Colossus as it strode towards the lancer where Tisea was hidden, and to his right he glimpsed the steamcart where Rasmus lay, and beyond that the fallen mech with the damaged grille. Almost immediately, a plan presented itself. He clattered down the deformed hull of the Ragknight and fell into the dusty ground. He limped past Rasmus who- thankfully- was still breathing, and began to clamber along the torso of the mech. It was smaller than the Ragknight, its plates rusted with age. Above where a human’s heart would have been, someone had scratched the words ‘Vacuous Hand’, alongside a series of tally marks. Still it would do. He tore back the ragged chainmail which covered the neck, and found the entrance hatch. He grasped the handle and tugged at it. It was stuck fast, and Caull desperately heaved at it as the Colossus paused and turned to face the pinned Ragknight. It lumbered back, raised its foot and slammed it into the cockpit. Caull thought he heard a scream over the shriek of crushed metal. The colossus raised its foot, and, finding no blood among the streaming ichor, looked down at the open head-hatch.

Shit.

It turned to face Caull and Vacuous Hand, raising its gun as it did so. Finally, the hatch gave way and Caull slipped inside as the shot rang out just where his head had been moments before. The inside was much tighter than the Ragknight’s cockpit, but thankfully there was no remnant of a previous pilot, save perhaps the smell of old blood and older ichor. He scrabbled for the pilot’s harness, interface tendrils almost greedily forcing their way into his back as needles once more pierced his arms. He reached down for the goggles, and darkness consumed him.

Vacuous Hand stood, dust pouring from crevices in its armour as she looked down. One side of her face sparkled with pain, and her eyes streamed as she got to her feet. A few of her lenses were cracked, but already she felt her eyes adjust to the differences in focus. She had no weapon save her falchion, which was rusted and snapped in half. She tossed it aside and scanned the battlefield. A huge mech ran towards her, but behind it she spied two harpoons pinning a sundered Ragknight to the ground. That’d do. The colossus raised its gun to fire, but Vacuous ducked, tearing past it as she grabbed a harpoon. The colossus spun round as she flung the harpoon, piercing one of its lanterns and sending it rearing back. She saw a halberd lying on the ground, its haft half-bent. Excellent. She ran forward, sliding to pick up the halberd before turning and springing onto the colossus. She swung the halberd’s blade toward the colossus’ head. Shielded as it was by thick neck-plating, it stuck fast, and the colossus raised its own axe before bringing it down on one of her arms. Pain rocketed through Vacuous, and she snarled as her maw sprung open. She withdrew the halberd, pushing off the colossus as it made to strike again, and then drove the tip into its wrist. Its huge axe clattered to the ground, and with her surviving hand she picked it up before slamming it deep into the colossus’ torso. Rage bubbled inside her, for Rasmus, for the Ragknight, and of course for Tisea. She drove a talon into the knee of the colossus, sending it toppling to the ground as her other foot slammed into its head. She tore the axe out, then sliced back into the rift she’d made in the colossus’ hull. Again. Again. Again. Over and over again she tore into the colossus, blood and ichor splattering over her face. Finally, she felt the rage and the ichor overtake her pilot, and she let out a final, guttural, choking scream as she stiffened, then stopped moving entirely, her form motionless over the shattered colossus. The other searchlight blinked off.

—--------

Relief and horror chased themselves through the chambers of Tisea’s heart as she watched the colossus fall. The terror of seeing the Ragknight crushed, the awe of seeing the relic frame move as it did, and the terror of how it tore through the colossus. She’d never seen Caull fight like that. When she’d seen him in the hound he moved like an animal, lithe and calculated, every move necessary and elegant, but marred by a bestial fury. In the Ragknight, he barely moved at all, a clockwork creature devoid of that power she’d seen. But in this suit? It was as though the fury of the hound had bubbled outwards, consuming everything else. Its speed and strength were terrifying, and the way it ignored the loss of an arm and just kept attacking was…transcendent. 

As the mech froze atop the colossus, those emotions calcified into an all-consuming panic. Tisea had seen Caull go feral once before, when Marley had torn through both his hound’s legs. It was already unheard of for a pilot to come back from that once. To do so a second time…Tisea nearly didn’t want to see what remained of Caull.

Still, she hauled herself out of the lancer and picked up her boarding axe. It had remained relatively untouched by the battle, its serrated edge and rear pick gleaming in the red light of the fallen flare. She ran forward, scrambling over the nets of scrap metal, almost avoiding slicing her hands on a mechanised skeleton. Almost. She withdrew her hand, but nonetheless continued her climb up the huge mech. Finally, she scrambled over its scratched torso and reached Caull’s prison. She braced herself against its leg for a moment, catching her breath. Then, she hefted the boarding axe and clambered up to the mech’s head. She swung the axe into its neck, pulled back, and swung again. She felt one of the lock-bolts come away. She cut into it again, muscles aching from the climb and the chopping. Finally, she cut into and through the other bolts and the gravity wrenched the head free from its shoulders, sending it clanging onto the colossus’ body below. She swung one last time, the axe biting through the final lock of the hatch. She tore it open and-

—----------

Caull felt herse- himself. He felt himself slip from the world, the dusty vision of Vacuous Hand fading into blackness. He could feel his body moving, shuddering and retching and hyperventilating as the ichor consumed him. Idly, he realised his body was dying from acute ichor poisoning. He didn’t think he could come back from it this time. Maybe that should have bothered him. He reached out into the ichor. He felt his mech, her true body seize up around her- him? They reached out further, through the droplets and streams of ichor that fell from their severed arm and coagulated in the plates of the colossus they’d killed. They felt the emptiness where its pilot’s mind would have been, like a red stain upon the void. They travelled along its limbs, feeling the years of practiced murder still idly running through them. Then they felt something else, sparkling and burning just above their failing bodies. A miniature sun of adrenaline and fear. Then, they felt a rupture in their body, another wound. They felt the sun descend, felt its heat envelop them and then-

—-----------

Tisea steeled herself as she peered into the cockpit. Still, she almost screamed when she saw the state of Caull. He was covered in ichor, struggling against its control harness as severed drip pipes gushed ichor across him. His eyes were still covered in the goggles, but the mask had fallen away, ichor and vomit spewing from between blackened teeth. She could barely fit into the cockpit, but still she forced herself in, unbuckling straps and tearing out needles. She tore him from the chair, interface cables decoupling from his spine with a wet hiss. He writhed against her, mouth forming into silent, babbling words. She dragged herself out of the mech, slinging Caull over one shoulder as she climbed down. He weighed virtually nothing, but trying to climb with one hand already sliced open and both arms exhausted from hacking at the hatch was difficult, to say the least. Still, she made her way to the ground, and staggered over to the steamcart where Rasmus- shitshitshit. Rasmus lay on the ground next to the steamcart, blood trickling down his face and turning his beard to a matted mess. She bent to check his breathing. He was, slowly and raggedly, but he was breathing. His mask was secure, and- shit. She bent to strap Caull’s back on. Now the head wound. She climbed to the cab of the steamcart, rummaged around and withdrew a few rags. It wasn’t much, but it might at least keep some blood where it was supposed to be. She picked up Caull and brought him into the cab. He had stopped shaking at least, and now seemed to just be plain unconscious. His breathing was slow, far slower than Rasmus’, and irregular, guttural and wet. Still, they were both breathing. She bent to haul Rasmus into the cart, and managed barely a drag. She cursed and apologised under her breath, managing to just about shove him in and then clamber in herself. As she started the boiler she worked to calm her breathing. She wiped her face on the back of her sleeve, removing the worst of the grease, sweat and- blood? She couldn’t say exactly when she’d cut herself there, but she took the few minutes as the boiler heated to do her best to bandage her hand and, apparently, head. They would survive. She had to survive. The engine flared to life, and she fell into the familiar routine of levers and wheels as she turned the unwieldy cart and set it trundling out of the fortress.

—-----------

Caull’s world shifted, the dispassionate blackness of the ichor dripping away into the red-brown pain of almost-unconsciousness. He was suddenly all too aware of his body, the pain as it worked the ichor out of his bloodstream through his wounds, his mouth and his eyes. He couldn’t say how long he remained in that state, an undeath of aching and oozing, but in time his senses found their way into sensations other than pain. He felt a bed beneath him, light striking his closed eyes, and- a hand resting on his own? He forced his eyes open, finding himself on a bed that had been dragged into the medical room of the ship. His hair was longer than it had been, and he had to squint through a few strands. The bench had been pushed to the side, and a chair had been put next to his bed. In it slumped Tisea, the owner of the hand on his own.

“Tisea?” He croaked.

Tisea shot up. 

“Are you alright?” Caull asked, speech dislodging the last clumps of phlegm and ichor which still lurked in his throat. Tisea’s head and hand were bandaged, and the bags under her eyes put the nets the colossus carried to shame.

“Me? Don’t worry about me, how are you- how are you alive?”

“I don’t know. I’m…the ichor..I don’t know. And seriously, you don’t seem too great either. How long have you been here?”

Tisea reddened slightly.

“I…I couldn’t sleep. Not when you were in the state you were.”

“How was I?”

“Not good.”

A beat.

“How’s Rasmus?”

“By his standards? He’s alright. A few fractures and a mild concussion. He’s taking it easy for now, but I’d imagine he’ll be fine enough soon. He’s shrugged off worse.”

“That’s good to hea-” Caull paused as he hacked up the last of the ichor.

“Shitshit- I’ve ruined that sheet I can- I can clean it up.”

“No. You can’t.”

“I shoul-” Tisea shushed him.

“You need to rest.”

“So do you.”

“I can take a bit of exhausti-”

“Can you stay here with me? You can rest then, too.” Caull said quietly.

Tisea seemed a little surprised, and for a moment Caull started to draw back into himself. Then-

“Um- yes. Yes, I think I’d like that.”

She dragged over the rusted ladder and folded it open, bending down to undo her frame’s manacles. She could swear she felt the cold metal shiver in anticipation as she did so. It was a fairly standard frame, standing about four and a half metres tall, and half shrouded in a ragged cape. Its legs were digitigrade, and covered in riveted metal plates that reminded Cere of an armadillo she’d seen once, on a rare occasion where she was working somewhere hot. It was a nice change. The rest of the mech was pretty standard for a cavalier, with several segments around the abdomen and pauldrons which swept high near the head, which appeared something like a grill-covered shark’s maw. The mech’s jaws were lined with teeth too big to be human, and the head ended in an almost axe-like point. At this point, the head was all that was left of the original frame Cere had started work with, and even then she’d inherited it. Not many people gave their suits teeth, strangely enough. The chest was covered in tally marks, a small reminder of what it, and she, were capable of. The most recent one, signifying the hangar’s previous owner, still shone silver, and made for her twentieth kill in this particular frame. In the past, she kept separate tallies for engine and pilot kills. These days, they were mostly one in the same. Stubborn fools.

Climbing up the ladder, she ran through the mission in her head. Move to the peak, check. Eliminate the usual watchman. Check. Wait an entire fucking week for the target to show up on a bloody gilded landship. At last, check. Finally, Cere and Vacuous could do what they were really here for. Namely, killing the Guild-Magnate who’d been supplying the Stallions. Tisea said to make it hurt. That was unusual for her. Ordinarily, the boss was pretty calculating with her targets. Not Varis DeVarney, apparently. Renowned for his departure from the traditional DeVarney export of greypowder firearms, Varis had cornered the local market for urelium-fuelled laser weaponry. He was currently in negotiations with the Green Stallions local nobility for rights to open a mining outpost in the mountains, which meant the fucker had been supplying them with weaponry. Right now he was transporting miners and equipment to establish one near this pass, with the landship being laden with supplies and weaponry.

Not that it mattered much. Greypowder or urelium, he’d die quickly enough. Or, more accurately, slowly. Cere still wasn’t entirely sure what Tisea had against him specifically, but it was hardly her job to decide. Tisea said Varis had to die, and die he would.

The ladder was a bit too short to reach Vacuous Hand’s hatch, and so Cere grunted as she gripped its pauldron and hauled herself onto its back. For how freezing the mountains were, the metal was already remarkably warm. The implants along her spine itched slightly, as they often did as she was preparing to pilot the frame. She reached below the heady chainmail hood which ran from the back of the head-helmet and flipped it over, revealing a metal plate which, after she removed a deadbolt, flipped over to reveal the entry hatch. Cere hauled herself in, avoiding scraping herself on the jagged tear in the hatch rim where a lucky pilot had managed to jam a halberd before she tore its arm off. She landed on the pilot’s seat and brought herself down to a sitting posture. The cockpit was cramped, with wires hanging like entrails across its tiny diameter. A few screens and dials sat, their glass fronts stained with dried blood and ichor. Still, they were legible enough for Cere to only have to squint slightly to make out what they said. Pressure in the limbs was normal, ichor levels about acceptable, and hull integrity largely fine. She hauled the hatch shut, checked the emergency kit under the seat, and then made an ass of herself taking her jacket off in the cramped cockpit. Ordinarily, she wouldn'tve bothered to bring it, but as she said, these mountains were fucking freezing.

She made one final check, and then shifted into a more comfortable position before settling her hands into the trigger gauntlets that let her use the auxiliary weapons, in this case a wristblade and arm-mounted machine gun, and doing up the leather straps that kept her hands safely bound to the chair. Finally, she pulled on the goggles and gas mask that were suspended just above her, and felt the slight prick of the needles in their lenses injecting ichor into her eyes. Immediately, the world went black, and she arched her back slightly as the neural cables rammed themselves into the jacks down her spine. She might have screamed, but by that point her mouth was already hanging slack in its mask.

She opened her eyes and breathed out, but where once she gazed out of her own tired sockets, now she was looking out of the six grilled eyes of Vacuous Hand. She tried to focus, the fiery pain in the back of her head abating to a familiar pins and needles. Bloody hell, out of the suit for a week and she felt like a line soldier doing ichor on a dare. Still, she checked her fingers were all attached and working, and then took her first step forward. It was practically smoother than walking normally, the pistons and mechanical tendons beneath the dented armour compensating perfectly for the hangar floor. Vacuous Hand turned, her eyes falling towards the rack bolted to the wall that served as the armoury. Reaching out in an adamantine-taloned hand, she tore a shotgun from the wall and slung it on her belt, next to the round machine gun ammunition and rondel dagger. Finally, she grabbed the massive zweihander from its place on the wall and slung its huge scabbard across her back, where it nestled next to the exhaust vents, which already glowed with an anticipatory frame. 

With everything ready, Vacuous Hand ducked between the stone ridges in the hangar ceiling. Below her, she felt the rumble of massive treads as the landship entered the pass below. 

Time to hunt.

She dragged the hangar door aside and lept from from the cave down to the slopes below.

The mountain was steep, and Vacuous Hand half sprinted, half slid down the mountainside, the smoke of its exhaust mixing with a trail of greyish snow and grit.

Below her, the landship crawled across the pass, flattening the few trees that fought to grow this high up. It was a massive thing, covered in golden battlements and possessing four treads modelled to look like lion’s paws. It bore several huge cannons that, thankfully for Vacuous, were proudly trained on the valley below. Around it, several smaller tanks and frames maintained a perimeter, but none of them yet noticed the mech skidding down the mountainside towards them. Vacuous took it all in, noting the closest frames, mostly smaller Cuirassiers, and readying her machine gun to fire. The rattle of the gun tore through the mountain air, and more importantly, through the thin armour of the smaller mechs. Immediately, the guns of the smaller tanks swivelled to face her, but by the time they fired she had a dozen metres to her right, and the plume of snow that erupted where the shell fell was well off its mark. By now, several of the larger frames were moving in to intercept, and Vacuous Hand would have grinned, had it had the ability, as it drew the massive broadsword, which now glowed red hot and leapt from the mountainside. She selected her target, a decent sized cavalier wielding a shotgun-shield and falchion. It fired and she swerved slightly middair, the mechshot barely clipping a taloned toe. 

My turn.

She smashed into the cavalier as it charged towards her, taloned feet gripping its limbs as her broadsword punched through its abdomen. Vacuous barely had time to smell the burning flesh and ichor before another cavalier moved to avenge its comrade. This one wielded a broadsword similar to her own, and had a pair of ornate wings sprouting from its gilded back. As it charged, the wings emitted a flurry of missiles that arced towards her. She kicked hard to the left, dodging most, but a few found their mark. Two ricocheted off her pauldron, but a third slammed into her knee as she braced to cut down the cavalier. She stumbled, and her opponent capitalised, sweeping her zweihander aside as its own blade cut deep into her arm. Vacuous Hand howled as ichor welled from the wounded limb, and she dived forward, extending her wristblade and slamming it hard into the enemy mech’s chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the tanks firing, and turned to face it, the shell impacting hard into the back of the struggling frame she had impaled. It went limp, and she tossed it aside as she dashed for the tank. It readied to fire again, but she slid below the path of the shell and sprung up, her sword biting into the turret as her foot crushed the gun barrel below. She turned in time to see another shell as it slammed hard into her shoulder, rending pistons and mechanical arteries. She snarled, and leapt towards it, her machine gun howling a staccato burst as she impacted the tank. This time, there was no clean sword-strike as she tore open the turret and painted the insides of the tank with gore.

She ducked behind the wreck, considering her options. Thankfully, she was too close to the landship for its guns to be a threat, but already she felt the rumble as the other tanks moved around to finish her off. With one arm shattered but slowly pulling itself together, and a leg that threatened to buckle if it took another hit, killing them wouldn’t be worth it, and moreover, would open her up to strikes from the mechs which were now likely disembarking the battlements on the landship above. But if she didn’t move, the tanks would blow apart the mechanical carcass she was hiding behind. As the first shell dragged up a plume of smoke and snow behind her, Vacuous made her choice.

She dashed for the Landship, her talons biting into the massive treads, and the glowing blade of her zweihander easily finding purchase in the ornate plating above them. She reached out with her other arm and-

Shit.

The arm, slick with ichor and half-broken from the tank shell, slipped. The mech screamed as she plummeted, barely catching itself on the sword again. The Cuirassiers on the battlements were thundering towards where she was hanging, and only the fear of damaging the landship was keeping the tanks from eviscerating her. One of the Cuirassiers leaned over the battlements to shoot at her with a broad-barreled gun, and she snapped.

With her good arm she flung herself forward, jaws grinding open and snapping shut like a beartrap as she tore the head off the Cuirassier, and kicked herself onto the top of the tank as it plummeted to the snowy ground below. She breathed heavily, steam hissing from her ichor-slick jaws. In front of her, the two Cuirassiers were frozen, but as she looked up they regained their composure and opened fire. The impact of their guns felt like rainfall on her hull, but Vacuous knew she’d feel it later. She grabbed one of them, wristblade extending in and out of its gut as she punched its torso in. Then, she flung it forward, smashing it into the other frame. A part of her thought dully, these ones are just soldiers. Varis is the real target. Maybe, but they’re hardly conscripts either. Still, she left the second Cuirassier pinned under its compatriot. She didn’t have the time. Behind her she saw the form of a demi-lancer emerge from the rear of the tank. She certainly didn’t have the time for that. She slung her sword onto her back, and, catching sight of an entrance into the rest of the tank, dashed for it. She felt the impact of the demi-lancer kanding behind her as she ran through the bulkhead. She slammed the door behind her, and took a brief look at her surroundings. This was clearly a hangar bay, its ceiling high and vaulted, and criss-crossed by gantries and cranes. Below, a few technicians drew sidearms and opened fire. She ignored them, only sending a quick burst of machine gun fire to send them scurrying behind the empty racks where mechs could dock.

Suddenly, the door’s hissed open, and Vacuous Hand came face to face with her Demi-Lancer pursuer. It was tall, heavily armoured and, like many Green Stallion frames, modelled vaguely after an armoured human. Its face was sculpted like a death mask, and it carried a shimmering Rail-falconet.

You missed your chance. You can’t fire that in-

She barely had time to duck as a bolt of hyperaccelerated adamantine spiralled past her head and impacted into the ceiling behind.

Shit. This wasn’t one of Varis’ hirelings. This was an honest to god Green Stallion, with overwhelming hubris to boot. It fired again, slicing through a gantry as Vacuous leapt for its jugular. She tore its railgun aside with her foot, and readied her wristblade to slice throu-

Cere felt a coldness in her chest as she looked down witnessing the huge dagger that had pierced her mech’s hull and was now slicing into the side of her stomach, barely missing spilling her guts onto the cockpit floor. She felt faint, but even as her body gave way, she felt a familiar heat in the back of her head as her suit pumped more ichor into her spine. 

Cere and Vacuous Hand screamed in unison, wrenching the blade from their chest and biting down on the throat of the demi-lancer below her. Blinded by fury, they grasped its plated neck and pulled, ripping it clean off in a shower of black gore. Then, pulling out her yet-unused shotgun, she placed its barrel over the centre of the now-paralysed mech’s chest, and pulled the trigger. Cere almost smiled as the rounds tore through armour and pilot alike, rending metal mingling with a gurgling scream. She faded into darkness, and instinct took over.

Vacuous Hand turned, the sudden influx of ichor sharpening its vision as it spied the way further into the landship. The gilded walls were lined with pipes and cables, their gold fading to almost black and white as she focused on navigating the massive war-engine. She could feel the ichor knitting together the wound in her and her pilot’s chest, pulling her arm back into place, but it would be a while before she could function fully. The halls were quiet, with presumably most of the crew manning weapon emplacements or monitoring the treads. But even in her bloodlust-blackened mind, Vacuous thought something was off. This landship was transporting supplies for establishing a mine. There should be foremen, quarters for miners, at the very least some mud on the floors. But there was nothing. 

As she stalked the corridors, she saw a large door labelled ‘Hold’, beside which sat several piles of flowers, and what appeared to be bottles of incense or perfume.  She tore the door open, and was confronted with the answer to her question. The hold contained various crates of equipment, picks, sledgehammers, all sorts. To one side, several grubber frames sat, their forklift-like arms ready for hauling mined urelium. But still, she wondered where the miners themselves were. Then she caught sight of the strange galvanic chambers at one end, their iron caskets shaped eerily like coffins. Beside them, several staves topped with black crystal stood, quietly radiating an aura of cold death. She glanced to the centre of the hold, and found the reason the door had been decked in flowers. In the middle of the floor, a large grate had been placed and, just below it, was a huge pit, filled almost to the brim with corpses in varying states of decay. Each shared a gunshot wound to the back of the head, and while the grate was still as sparkling steel, the floor around it was splattered with blood. The corpses were varied in species, mostly being humans or orcs, and maybe a few dwarves-

No. Those were not dwarven corpses.

Instead of the bile that might have risen in an organic throat, Vacuous Hand felt only a thick black rage. 

Varis would die, and like Tisea wished, it would be slow.

She left that hold silently, pausing only to locate a barrel of oil, which she doused the corpses in before igniting them with a spark from her talons against the blood-splattered floor. The smoke rose thickly from the pit, choking the corridors of the landship as she crept up the staircases into the upper decks.

She passed into an armoury, gazing at the ornate shelves that put her own meagre supply to shame. As she did so, a cavalier entered the armoury, and in panic she swerved to face it. It was around the same size as herself, and painted a dark green, and carried a simple sword and shield, although both were still overgrown with vine-like gold trim. It seemed as surprised as she was, but overcame this as it charged. Vacuous made to draw her zweihander but-

Shit. The armoury was too cramped to draw it easily, much less wield it. The cavalier’s sword, however, had no such problems, she narrowly managed to step backwards to avoid its thrust. The mech’s eyes gleamed a cold blue through the smoke, and it advanced. She drew her shotgun to fire, but it dashed forward and slammed its shield into the barrel, knocking it from her grip. It punched forward with the shield, sending her to the ground as her already-damaged leg gave way. She rolled heavily as the two-metre long blade clanged into the deck where she had just been, and looked around desperately for an advantage. 

There! A falchion had clattered to the ground when she fell backwards. It was a one-hander, but it would do. She darted forward, grabbing the broad blade and bringing it up to parry another blow from the green cavalier. She punched out with her wristblade, but the Cavalier raised its shield, and the blade stuck fast. It twisted the shield and Vacuous felt metallic tendons snap as she tried to wrench the wristblade free. It didn’t budge, and she barely deflected another blow from the cavalier as it struggled to break free from the grapple. Finally, it was forced to drop the shield, with it clattering to the floor suddenly and leaving Vacuous unguarded. It jabbed its sword clean through her other wrist, causing her to drop the falchion, but as it did so she kicked out at its leg and it tumbled onto her. They grappled, the metal of their frames shrieking and sending bright sparks into the smoke around them. She pinned it down, her knee slamming into its arm as it tried to draw a dagger, whilst with her other arm she drew her own rondel. It was a wicked thing, reinforced adamantine terminating in a vicious point, which she drove into its shoulders, its neck, its chest. Over and over again she plunged the dagger into it, tearing through pistons, tendons and armour until finally, the writhing cavalier stopped moving. 

Heavily, Vacuous Hand got to her feet. Ichor dripped from all over her armour-plated body, and the entire world had devolved into black and white, punctuated only by the fading glow of the cavalier’s eyes and the sparks from the fire below. During the grapple she had gained more wounds than she realised, and opened up a few old ones as well. Now, she limped up the stairs before finally coming face to face with a huge set of doors leading to the ‘bridge’ of the landship, where Tisea had said Varis would be sealed. Before it stood his apparent last line of defence, a row of shield-and-spear-bearing infantrymen supported by a few cuirassiers. She made to fire her machine gun

Click.

Wonderful. Even better, her spare ammunition had presumably been dislodged by the cavalier downstairs. Seeing this, the poor infantrymen must have thought they stood a chance.

They didn’t.

…

Vacuous Hand tore into the doors with hands now stained a deep maroon by blood and ichor. Around her, the remains of the infantrymen were scattered across the landing. A few had almost pricked her with their spears, but it meant little. The door, an ornate thing of wood and bronze, fell away, revealing the bridge within. 

It was as gold-trimmed as the rest of the ship, full to the brim with terrified navigators and deck officers, and in the centre, a throne. Within it sat a small man in an ornate uniform, his gold epaulettes camouflaging him with the gaudy chair he sat upon. His balding head was crowned by a laurel wreath, and he carried a rapier at his side. 

Varis. 

He might have been an impressive display of nobility, were it not for the fact that as soon as the door gave way he scrambled from the chair and half stumbled, half ran for a door off to the side. Vacuous tore towards him, but he reached it in time, leaving the mech to tear through the wall into the next room. The jagged metal sliced at her arms, but at this point Vacuous Hand felt nothing. There was only her and her quarry, and it was getting away.

She dragged herself into the next room, a strange cylindrical space with walls lined with banded copper quite unlike the gold of the rest of the landship. One end extended out past the copper walls, and there stood Varis, grasping at a small control panel. 

Suddenly it hit her. Varis wasn’t running away, he was leading her here. A triumphant grin on his small face, the man pulled a switch and lightning arced between the copper wires, tearing into the mech within the coil. Vacuous Hand screamed, and within it, Cere awoke.

She gasped, coughing ichor into her gas mask. She fumbled for the straps that bound her wrists to the chair, undoing them as she watched through her mech’s eyes as Varis approached, carrying a large spear that featured a large grenade just below its tip.

“Can you hear me, dog? You’ve ruined everything I’ve been working for, so I think I’ll take this slow. I used to be a soldier myself, you know. I can make this hurt.”

The words caused something to snap within Cere, and she tore her goggles and mask off as she leapt for the catch above her. She twisted it open and dragged herself out just in time, as Varis plunged the spear deep into Vacuous Hand’s chest, a small explosion following as the grenade attached to it went off. Surprised, Varis looked up as Cere struggled free from the chainmail hood of the suit. Ichor bled freely from her eyes, nose and mouth, but right now she couldn’t care less. He had killed hundreds. He was Tisea’s quarry. But more than that, He had destroyed her mech. In a couple of seconds he had done what so many of his forces had tried and failed to do, and he did it with some copper wire and a spear. 

He. Was going. To die.

She fell on him as he drew his rapier, and it pierced clean through her shoulder. She didn’t notice, twisting herself just as the cavalier had done to her wristblade and dragging the sword from his grasp. He was stronger than he looked, and managed to push her off him as she pulled the rapier from her shoulder. Now she felt it. He stumbled back even as she shot forward, adrenaline and ichor keeping her faster than she had any right to be. She jammed the rapier into his gut, and he fell backwards.

“How many?” She choked, spewing ichor onto his jacket.

“What?”

“In-in the hold. How many people?”

“How the hell would I know, hound. They’re just meat.”

“Pity. So are you.”

She stood up, and stomped on his leg. Something snapped. Varis screamed.

“Who are you?”

“A hound. Remember? Now. You tell me what twisted fucking justification you have what what I saw downstairs.”

“As if I need to tell a lowborn bitch like you any-”

Cere broke his other leg.

“I’m sorry- I- Workers or slaves were too expensive to feed. This was the most economica-”

Cere’s boot slammed into his jaw. He fainted.

Cere sighed. 

“Pathetic.”

She pulled the rapier from his gut and drove it through his heart. More than he deserved. She made to walk away, but as she did so she felt the ichor’s influence beginning to wane. The pain in her shoulder flared up, and she stumbled. She glanced at the wound. It was bleeding more than she expected. She crawled to Varis’ jacket, tearing off its sleeve to improvise a binding. It wasn’t much, and she did the same to her gut wound. Thankfully, it wasn’t as deep as she feared, and the ichor had already gone some ways to patching it up. Still, now the ichor was gone she doubted she could walk. She slumped against the wall. She hadn’t really considered her exit strategy. She glanced at Vacuous Hand, and its black eyes stared back from within its head. At least they would die knowing they succeeded. That Varis was dead. That Tisea had got what she wanted. Cere thought she might have liked to see her, at least. To give her Varis’ head, or something. She passed out. 

She awoke to the sound of armoured boots approaching. She cursed, but she wasn’t surprised. The fact it had taken this long for guards to even come check was testament to Varis’ confidence in his victory. They were dressed relatively simple, carrying bolt-action rifles and bearing a dagger at their belts. One went to check on the little turd, while another pressed a rifle to her head. She spat a last globule of ichor and blood onto their boot. As she did so, an explosion rocked the landship. The guard glanced up, before a bullet lanced clean through their skull. The second guard rose, and met an identical fate. Cere slumped backwards as she watched through half-shut eyes a figure pick their way across her mech’s fallen frame, flanked by two heavily-armoured soldiers. It dashed towards her, dropping to a crouch in front of her. She had dark skin and hair, and her usually neat jacket had been thrown off, leaving a shirt flecked with a few drops of the guard’s blood. Her eyes bored into Cere as she cupped her cheek in her hand.

“Tisea?..”

“Yes?” Tisea looked almost scared.

“Did I do good?”

“Yes, yes you did.” 

“Then you owe me a new mech.”

That got a bit of a smile.

“Can you wa-” Tisea broke off as she studied Cere’s wounds. “No. No you can’t.”

Before Cere could protest, she dragged her up and slung an arm across her shoulders. For someone who, as far as Cere could tell, had never so much as thrown a punch, Tisea was remarkably strong. 

“Varis fainted before I could do much. Sorry.” 

Cere wasn’t sure Tisea heard her. Instead, she was looking up at the sky above them. The explosion she had felt had torn apart the roof of the bridge, and above them a skyship hovered, waiting expectantly.

“When’d you decide to bring in a ship?”

“Around the same time you set the landship on fire. I thought extraction might be an issue.”

“I would have been fi-” Cere broke into a fit of coughing, and clutched Tisea’s shoulder like she was drowning and her boss was a piece of driftwood. If Tisea noticed, she didn’t show it.

“I’m sure. You two-” she said, gesturing to the two armoured figures. “Get that mech hoisted onto the ship.” She looked down at Cere. “You're going to be fine.” She seemed to be reassuring herself more than anything else.

The skyship descended and extended down several ropes. Cere weakly protested as she was harnessed into one of them and hoisted aboard. She stumbled over to a bench as what remained of her suit was dragged onto the deck of the ship. She tipped forward as Tisea ran to catch her. 

“What the hell did you do to yourself?”

“Killed everyone. Got stabbed by that shitstain with a spear. Had to kill him with his own rapier. He fainted too quickly.”

“Don’t worry about that now. You did so good for me. How deep are your wounds?”

“Not sure. I’ll probably be fin-”

Cere pitched forward, catching the gaze of Vacuous Hand as Tisea struggled to catch her. She looked at her mech for a moment.

We did good.

Cere smiled as she black out, and dimly thought that perhaps, Vacuous Hand opened its jaw into something like a grin as they passed out.

Consuuli is home to few devils, with most outside of its opulent nobility steering well clear of its cities. For the devils outside the sinking towers, life is relatively simple as, provided the tithes of souls are driven from the muck and into the waiting mouths of Consuuli’s forever-hungry regents, individual devils are left largely to their own devices. For this reason, Consuuli’s mud-flats are far more lawless than the rest of the hells, with some devils even daring to operate outside contract, and even forming apostate kingdoms of their own within the filth. 

Those condemned to Consuuli are those who desired to devour all they could in life. For some, this manifests as food, but equally common are those borne of other addictions, such as narcotics, alcohol and occasionally, money. The latter fact has resulted in a long-standing enmity between Mammon and Manducare, as the former believes said souls are rightfully his. However, what separates the greedy of Vricia from those of the layer above is that where the former sought to hoard their wealth for themselves, those of Consuuli were focused moreso on spending their money on displays of wealth, such as hunting a species to extinction to furnish a manor house in its fur or burn an entire forest for a clearer view of a nearby mountain. Those damned to Consuuli spend millennia deep within its muck, briefly glimpsing the treasures within, but filling their lungs with choking clay if they so much as open their mouths to cry out for it. Eventually, however, they are dragged out of the mire by teams of Gelerankh and Rechenar devils and brought to the ever-sinking spires of the layer’s cities. There, they find themselves upon the plates of Consuuli’s nobility, and it is within the stomachs of the foul princelings of Gluttony that they metamorphose into a variety of higher devils befitting their deeds in life, bursting forth in a shower of golden vomit.

Story Hooks in Consuuli

The glimmering capital of Consuuli is Goltaria, a vast spire surrounded by a thousand-mile expanse of gilded palaces and gardens, all of which are constantly sinking into the thick mud below, and as such require constant upward extensions to keep themselves above the swamp. Its lower layers are strange labyrinths formed from mud-spattered joists and soiled chambers full of treasures plundered from a thousand worlds. As such, it is home to hundreds of thieves and wanderers who seek to steal the forgotten wonders of the half-sunken citadel. In fact, many devils, such as those serving Mammon, stage frequent raids into Goltaria’s lower layers in search of valuable art pieces and similar treasures. While Goltaria is drenched in wealth, much of the area beyond it is not, and billions of lesser devils congregate in the shanty-towns known as the Tablescraps to feast on the refuse of the city. However, the chamberlain-knights of Goltaria are careful to ensure little reaches the undesirables below (at least until it is consumed by the swamp, anyway), and as such the devils that cluster in the Tablescraps are frequently exceptionally malnourished. However, on occasion one of these devils finds their way into the city proper, and, while they gorge themselves on whatever they can find, the memory of the hunger which once consumed them leaves them among the most dangerous of Gluttony’s many nobles.

Within the depths of Consuuli’s swamps lie the Amdusian Glasshouses, which rise in their thousands from the swamp like pustules on infected skin. Constructed following one of Manducare’s more spontaneous edicts, the Glasshouses are massive domes constructed of glass and gold, and which hold a huge variety of plants both mundane and magical, and hailing from thousands of worlds. The project was overseen by the Goetic Duke Amdusias, but after both he and the gardens fell out of favour in Manducare’s court, he came to rule the entire place. Now, many of the gardens have fallen into disrepair, with their contents spilling out into the swamp and being grazed upon by herds of infernal unicorns and other strange beasts. Although seldom frequented by devils not loyal to Amdusias, the Gardens are home to many rare (and often dangerous) plants, making them targets for many adventurers or herbalists seeking rare poisons or their antidotes.

Pandorum is built around an exceptionally strict hierarchy, but even it is not without its loopholes. One such loophole is the House of Swine. Appearing as a series of pyramids littered with refuse and cheap merchandise, the House of Swine is overseen by a strange noble of gluttony known as Ciacco, a strange devil bearing a porcine head and eyes that burn with pinkish lightning, alongside eerily human teeth stretched into a constant, soulless smile. Once, it is said that Ciacco was an angel or deva of charity, but long ago the allure of Consuuli and the games he could stage consumed him, and in turn now his court consumes the suffering of millions. Many come to Ciacco in search of power and wealth, and are met with a series of challenges characterised by their wastefulness, lack of regard for the dignity of their contestants, and the fact that they are all performed before the thousands of devils that make up Ciacco’s court, many of which bear eerily childlike masks splattered with mud. True to his word, those who succeed in Ciacco’s gluttonous games are rewarded, often ascending to reasonable status within his court and beyond, but most meet only death or disfigurement. 

Beyond Consuuli’s cities, the layer is a relatively lawless place. A few devils patrol the clearer channels with blade-tipped galleons bought from the fifth layer, and as the nobles of Goltaria only care about the number of souls they can cram into their ship’s greasy holds, the devils that run them often live exceptionally carefree and hedonistic lives. Many host banquets upon the decks of their ships, and leave in their wake a trail of half-eaten food and cracked dishes. As such, lesser devils and infernal scavengers frequently follow in their wake, picking through the refuse for supplies and, occasionally, the remains of powerful devils thrown off the ships during the revelry.

Another example of Manducare’s lack of care for his domain is the existence of the Geldermud Depths. Appearing at first as a great thorn-covered barrow, Geldermud is in fact a vast network of tunnels belonging to the ancient dragon-god Dranhagar. Although technically permitted to dwell within Consuuli by Asmodean law, Dranhagar has long since expanded his influence beyond this, something Manducare has cared little to prevent. As such, Geldermud now contains tunnels that seem to bend space, emerging throughout the upper layers of Pandorum, and allowing passage for smugglers avoiding detection from the usual gateways between layers, especially between Consuuli and Vricia below it. However, Dranhagar expects a cut of all the goods transported between layers, and as such the dragon has grown bloated and wealthy on a hoard that stretches for miles. Ironically, while Geldermud was established without Manducare’s knowledge, so too have others carved out their own domains within it. Most notable of these are the thousands of parasites that cling to Dranhagar’s underbelly, and which have grown in both size and might from a diet of divine dragon blood. Some of these dragon-worms have become detached during the rare times when Dranhagar takes action, and now have established small hoards of their own throughout Geldermud.

Unlike military frames, which all are powered and controlled via the Hadal Ichor, many civilian mechs (nicknamed Grubbers by unimpressed mercenary pilots) use basic levers, pedals and buttons to operate their frames. Whilst this makes them far slower and clunkier, it does significantly ease repair costs and avoid the usual effect of hadal ichor on the mind. Alongside this, some civilian frames (and increasingly, certain military ones), use a fusion system, allowing the pilot to inject ichor when necessary, but use analogue controls for general labour. Below are detailed a few common civilian mech frames.

Birgusen-35

These generally red-painted mechs are notable for their protruding chests and exceptional modularity. They can be found all throughout the cosmos, serving predominantly on ports, where their standard configuration, the 35X, uses massive forklift-like claws for moving crates and containers off of dwarven bulk haulers. However, the Birgusen-35 also sees frequent use as a farming vehicle, with many being outfitted with cushioned claws for moving animals, and harnesses for pulling larger carts. So ubiquitous is the Birgusen-35 that it has become a common motif in propaganda depicting the ‘humble farmer’, and despite its initial release over four decades ago, it remains an exceptionally reliable class of machine, and to this day one of the most successful frames ever produced.

Teleos Ganymede-III

A fairly recent invention, the Ganymede line was developed to serve as shepherds on pastoral worlds on the Vorsainite Fringe. To this end, its frames featured the hybrid ichor system that allowed for safe use whilst escorting the huge Hammerhead Oxen and Frokaheim cattle it was designed to watch, and for quick movement and fast reflexes when dealing with numerous predators that can be found on such worlds. The Ganymede is a fairly large frame, carrying a large scutum shield which can be slung over the back and a huge crook for both fending off titanic attackers such as wyverns or Steppe Rocs and for guiding the frequently unruly beasts the mech deals with. Alongside this, the Ganymede features abnormally long and reinforced legs to deal with its charges butting against it and to allow for it to easily see over them. Finally, it also sports a platform running around its shoulders and behind the head, allowing for shepherds to step out of the mech without properly leaving it on during long days, and allows for a tent or similar to be pitched atop the mech, keeping the pilot safe from the landbound threats too small to target the huge cattle, but of ideal size for eating a human.

St Vilgo Gilgama-B

The St Vilgo Free Company mainly manufactures long-haul transport mechs designed for use on its mountainous homeworld of Hilivad, where conventional vehicles tend to struggle. The Gilgama-B is no exception, but is largely notable for the following it has developed outside of Hilivad. It is on the larger end of St Vilgo’s offerings, appearing as a somewhat lanky but hunchbacked frame with typically tan armour panels round the torso and upper arms and legs, but stripped-back lower legs and arms, which normally are outfitted with extra stabilising pistons. It has a mostly featureless cylindrical head, but many pilots take to painting faces onto these blank canvases, resulting in mechs that frequently bear simple grins or mythological visages. The Gilgama-B’s most notable feature, however, is the huge,boxy backpack that is built into its frame, and which features several ladders and a shuttered door allowing for easy access to its not-insignificant cargo bay. Alongside this, this rear container also sports a tiny kitchen and sleeping cubby for the pilot, giving it a practically unheard-of level of ‘comfort’ and operating time, as thanks to the mechs hybrid ichor/analogue control system, the pilot can safely use it for weeks at a time provided the mech isn't in frequent combat, which most aren't. Alongside its intended use a transport mech, something it excels at, the Gilgama-B is frequently used by mercenary companies as a pack animal, as its stripped-down body allows it to keep up slightly better than most other civilian mechs, and its large container and body allow for the mounting of a surprising number of turrets and even missile pods. Most unusually, however, is the fact that the Gilgama-B has seen surprisingly frequent use as a wandering hermitage among certain religious groups such as the cult of Holinstan the Wanderer and Wonderer. This allows for a double use, as monks of those faiths are able to live as anchorites within the mech whilst also tending the a given monasteries holdings and, in more dangerous areas, serving as an effective defense, as the garland-covered cell-mechs are capable of wielding staffs made from stripped tree trunks to impressive effect. 

Odran’s Tunnelmaker

A product of the dwarven mechwright Odran Hargullasen, the Tunnelmaker is a squat frame notable for its lack of a distinct head, second set of arms, and large backpack module. In the case of the Tunnelmaker, this backpack contains both a large supply of wooden stakes used for supporting freshly-made tunnels, which are put into place by the smaller set of arms and nailed in place through an integrated nailgun, and a deployable shield generator which allows the mech and anyone around it to remain safe in the event of a cave-in. Finally, the mech has numerous nets and racks slung around its legs which can be used for storing tools and supplies for normal miners, and several large lamps which keep tunnels illuminated. Tunnelmakers tend to be armed with large jackhammers and pickaxes, although a few have been equipped with shaped charges and drills. They run on a purely analogue system that has been described as ‘bloody complicated’ by most of its pilots, but which is in fact a simplified version of Hargullasen’s original designs, and which allows for a remarkable degree of control by the standards of a typical grubber frame. The Tunnelmaker is by far Odran Hargullasen’s most successful creation, with both Runsk and Basker attempting to buy the license to it, albeit unsuccessfully, and has likely been responsible for the prevention of numerous cave-ins and the rescue of many trapped within, as its shield can be calibrated to specifically fill a tunnel, completely preventing cave-ins around it thanks to the mech’s unique and exceptionally stable Urelium refraction generator.

B-29 Kilroy

The Kilroy is easily the smallest frame on the list, being barely larger than an exo-suit, and is, perplexingly, one of the most common. Notable for its domed helmet and drooping, beaklike gas mask, the Kilroy is exceptionally modular. It can be found chopping logs in timber yards on Silvas Umbrae, mining Urelium on Pentus and even serving as bouncers in cities like Kelsats. The Kilroy runs what appears to be an ichor control system, although one that functions in a far more stable and safe manner than almost any other, and one that resists all attempts to dissect, as the heart located in the mech’s generator rots almost immediately on exposure to air. Despite this, the Kilroy allows for an incredible degree of dexterity, meaning that it can serve in many roles that even the best mercenary cavaliers would struggle at. In one memorable case, a Kilroy pilot succeeded in playing a mostly correct rendition of Hastur’s Dance on the fortepiano whilst within the frame, a feat so impressive that the phrase ‘a pianist of a pilot’ has since come to describe any pilot with a similarly impressive degree of motor control of their suit. The greatest mystery of all, however, is the Kilroy’s manufacturer, as no records exist of it, and many Kilroy units feature nonsensical or contradicting serial numbers. Indeed, despite the Kilroy’s ubiquity, no-one seems capable of recalling its initial seller, with every Killroy having been sold fourth or fifth hand, according to most of its pilots, a fact that also doesn’t line up with the fact that the Kilroy is a relatively recent frame. Numerous people have tried to trace the parts in the Kilroy, but have found that the ‘default’ kilroy units (which often still vary wildly beyond their heads) are composed of parts reminiscent of scrapped parts from large manufacturers such as Teleos, Basker or Runsk, but never quite identical, producing a strange sense of mechanical uncanny valley. In spite of, or perhaps because of this, the Kilroy is an exceptionally popular mech, being found all the way from Kelsats to Pandorum, and graffiti bearing its likeness has been found equally far and wide, with some supposedly being found in the summer palace of the God-Emperor Solomon himself.

This belief system centred on the idea that the nobility and regency were placed in their positions by divine authority, and that such aristocrats were destined for an afterlife known as the Caladrian Apotheosis, an infinite kingdom where all was organised into a perfectly just hierarchy, which, unsurprisingly, placed the Princeps at the very top. Dei Gratia spread like the wildfire its founder resembled throughout the Principate, swiftly toppling or syncretising the other religions practiced among it, and eventually gaining such noospheric weight that it birthed a divinity of its own, as the recently-deceased Aurelius Kvarenah ascending to godhood, and shepherding in a new age of aristocratic supremacy. 

Of course, while the Princeps’ self-fulfilling divine mandate gave them a great deal of power, they were not unchallenged in their attempted hegemony. First, despite their urgings, the reborn Solomon and his Imperial House never joined the Principate, something that serves as a constant reminder that, for all their divine mandate affords them, the Princeps are still subservient to the Imperator, and could be struck down should they ever truly overstep.

Alongside this, many throughout the Inner Spheres challenged the beliefs and power of Dei Gratia, such as the vaguely-meritocratic Kriegesh, the Thousand Guilds and of course, the billions of peasants and workers who laboured throughout the Crucible and Cage and who, thanks to the efforts of both interplanar forces such as the Azata and mortal philosophers, had begun a series of uprisings throughout Vorsaine and beyond, which led to the establishment of political powers such as the Celmian League and a thousand other newborn revolutions.

Thus, the Princeps needed something to ensure their power remained absolute, as the true military forces of their nations would only lend so many forces, and often were just as susceptible to revolutionary ideals as their serfs (if not moreso, as the Praetorian Uprisings in recent years have demonstrated). For centuries, they were forced to rely on mercenary groups such as the Iron Pact for this, but around the beginning of the Age of Uncertainty, a new force emerged, one that the nobles of the Princeps were poised to take advantage of; the mech suit.

Seeing their first major use during the Droskol War, Vorsainite mechs proved to be an exceptionally effective weapon of war, albeit one hamstrung by its need for specific parts and highly-skilled pilots. However, whilst this limited their military role outside of these infamous clashes, it made them ideal for the Principate, who often had a surplus of expendable children who could be trained and equipped to serve as the Princeps’ hammer, and who could easily afford to maintain even the most esoteric of mech systems. Thus, the Collegium Equitem was born.

Easily the best-equipped mechanised fighting force of its era, the Collegium was approached only by the private armies of a select few companies and guilds, and was made up of numerous semi-independent houses. Greatest among these were the Equites Viridis, better known colloquially as the Green Stallions, an elite group of royal scions supported by a large force of hand-picked Auxilia pilots who fought across the Inner Sphere, putting down revolutions in Tremnia, Exapol and Rhadamanthia. The Stallions’ forces were largely made up of Halistrom Lancers and Cavaliers, although their auxilia frequently contained large numbers of Demi-Lancers and Cuirassiers. Most notable of the Stallions’ suits, however, were those used by its leadership, the Praetors. These were the highest-ranking members of the entire Collegium Equitem, and were influential figures among the Principate itself. First among these was G-01 Constantine, a feared warrior said to have fought in the Droskol wars, and bearer of a rare Cataphract frame. These suits, created by the metallurgists of the Vorsainite Imperial court and enchanted by the hand of Solomon himself, were capable of travelling faster than the speed of sound, wielded weapons that could sunder a landship in seconds, and were wreathed in a protective shield that turned the air around them into a haze of broken earth and flickering lightning. So powerful were these Cataphracts that, during the Barakas Crusade, it took H-01 Faustine and T-01 Belisar, two pilots who later gained infamy for their actions during the war for Kelester II, and who were regarded as the greatest pilots of their day, working in tandem to even penetrate the Cataphract’s shield and incapacitate it, with each carrying a shard of its armour in their own until their eventual deaths.

History

The history of mechs is a complex one, as several attempts were made to create them during both the Daedalian Golden Age, and the Voidbloom, alongside more recently during the Angelic Cull. However, these attempts were hampered by two things. First, the technology required to allow such suits to move fluidly was virtually non-existent, with the closest being the Chalkespartoi which used a piston-driven, ball-jointed skeleton, although even it was prone to frequent failure. The second and perhaps greater problem was the ability to control the suit, as most required bulky internal joysticks and exo-skeletons to properly transfer the pilot’s movement into the suit’s own limbs. For this reason, most proto-mechs were restricted to use as heavy-lifting tools or for combat within the void, where the structural requirements of the suit itself were lessened in exchange for an increased toll on the pilot.

A change came, however, during the closing battles of the fifth Navirian Crusade. Here, the cult of war-engineers known as the Navirarchs discovered deep wells of a strange, black oil within the bowels of several moons and asteroids in the Greater Kelester system. This oil, later christened Hadal Ichor, had several notable properties. First, it was an incredible conductor. Second, it possessed the ability to replicate itself under certain conditions, and third, it was capable of forming a largely stable interface between the mortal mind and mechanical circuitry. This third property was said to have been discovered when a suit-wearing serf slipped into a deep ichor well whilst extracting the strange substance, and emerged as a powerful fusion of man and machine that took a direct hit from a mage-killer rifle before its runaway regeneration finally failed. This development fascinated the Navirarchs, and it was not long before the earliest frames of the Venator line were deployed, swiftly bringing an end to the fighting and bringing such suits to the public eye throughout the territory of both the Navirarchs and their enemies.

Thanks to their monopoly on mechs, the Navirarchs enjoyed a meteoric ascent in the region for a number of years, although their Venator frames remained relatively fragile and slow, as their joints couldn’t keep up with the stress the Hadal Ichor placed on them. Alongside this, the ichor required immensely high temperatures to replicate itself, meaning large incubators had to be produced to fuel the Venator frames. Finally, pilots who were frequently exposed to the ichor (which was directly injected into the bloodstream via needle-filled cockpits nicknamed Glass Maidens) experienced rapid tissue degeneration, especially in the circulatory system and brain, resulting in most pilots having a life expectancy of six months before their body or mind gave out.

Around this time, the Navirarchs began their last and most devastating crusade against the ancient empire of Vorsaine. Fearful of the Venators potential, the Vorsainites had begun development of their own suits based on the remnants of the truly ancient Chalkespartoi. Because they lacked the interfacing capabilities of the Hadal Ichor, these new frames (named Ferrospartoi) were less able to use complex melee weapons and tended to lose one-to-one engagements with Venators. However, they were significantly faster in both the open field and on rough terrain which the cog-jointed Venators struggled with, meaning oftentimes the Ferrospartoi would pick off the Venators at range before the terrifying cog-suits could even reach them. Because of this stalemate, the war between the Navirarchs and Vorsaine slowed to a stalemate, with engagements increasingly being decided by slower war-engines such as landships and tanks.

This would change, however, with the emergence of Vulture Guilds. By now, the war had spread across multiple star systems, and the remnants of millions of frames littered hundreds of planets, moons and asteroids. Because of this, it took relatively little time for enterprising pirate and salvager captains to begin scavenging and eventually repairing these suits. It took far longer for them to unite, usually through their shared use of a specific frame modification, but eventually several larger salvage captains joined together to form what would become the Vulture Guilds. These guilds swiftly centralised much of the trade in salvaged Venator and Ferrospartoi frames, and once this occurred it didn’t take long for several engineers to experiment with combining the Hadal Ichor interface systems of the venators with the more versatile skeletons of the Ferrospartoi. From these experiments were born the classes of mech collectively referred to as the Firstborn, and from these numerous other frames were created, and their manufacture standardised. These frames were swiftly dispersed among numerous mercenary groups and nobles displaced from war-torn worlds. In short order mercenary companies tore through the inferior Venators and Ferrospartoi, prompting developments on both sides that eventually led to the Battle of the Gilded Plain, so named for the gold-tinted slag left over when both sides deployed terrifying experimental frames upon one another, literally liquifying their foes. Upon the still-cooling plains the leaders of Vorsaine, the Navirarchs, the Vulture Guilds and the heads of the largest mercenary factions came together to sign the Treaty of the Gilded Plain, bringing an end to the war.

After the war, the Vulture Guilds were largely dissolved, forming instead into several notable manufacturers who persist into the present day. These include such legendary companies as the elegant Halistrom, the Navirarch-backed Teleos, the utilitarian Runsk and Basker, and the lethal precision of Nakago. Many of these sponsored mercenary companies of their own, whilst other sellsuits formed their own in-house manufacturers.

Despite all this, most manufacturers were still held back by the cost required to produce the Hadal Ichor, and as fresh wells dried up across the stars, they were forced to pursue alternate sources. The first development was the neural jack, metal links that were surgically embedded into the skin of pilots, removing the need for direct injection, which both lowered the amount of ichor required to operate a suit and significantly increased the amount of time a pilot could operate the suit, in both the short and long term. The more significant development, however, was the discovery of colossal skeletons within the depths of the ichor wells. These skeletons, many of which bore strange gold symbols reminiscent of those found on cultists of Nyarlathotep, were dredged up and through vile necromancies, were raised to undeath. From here, specialist flesh-shapers were employed by manufacturers to transplant bone marrow from these titans into human stock, producing horrifically malformed creatures that bled ichor. These creatures were sealed away beneath ichor refineries, their skin engraved with eldritch symbols and pockmarked by hundreds of pipes that drew precious ichor into the waiting machines above.

By this point much of what a modern person might call a mech was set in place, with relatively few changes occurring in the years between then and now. Instead, most mech manufacturers began to specialise, and knowledge of mech construction began to spread out, with Runsk moving its headquarters to Kelsats, and numerous empires sponsoring their own efforts in the field of mech construction, with the most successful being the terrifying powerful Vorsainite Cataphracts. Alongside this, many smaller firms began developing mechs for specific purposes, such as the Firestrider and Gibbeteer frames, or ones specialised for other species, such as the numerous Igigi-manufactured frames, or the recent experiments emerging from the sixth layer of Pandorum.

Mechs continued to enjoy a role as specialised heavy infantry and fast attack units for several decades, but following their adoption in the Vorsainite War with the Droskol Empire, a group famed for their use of heavy tanks, it was found that, while mechs excelled in dispatching tanks at close range, the tanks decimated them from further away. Hence, an arms race began as the Vorsainites developed faster and more nimble mechs carrying more and more devastating close-range weapons, and the Droskol developed larger and more heavily armoured tanks, culminating in the Vorsainite Drachasta-I frame and the Droskol Uthoroka Fortress-Tank. These terrifying weapons eventually spread and diversified, forming the modern Lancer class of mechs and the basis of landfleet doctrine respectively.

The Hadal Ichor

Pumped in its purest state from fissures deep within dead worlds or stolen from the veins of half-alive cloned titans, hadal ichor is the both the fuel that keeps mech’s moving, and the material that gives the pilot the ability to move the mech at all. It is injected in small quantities into the spinal cord and bone marrow via neural jacks, allowing the pilot to interface with their mech whilst mitigating the effects the ichor has on the body and mind overall. Despite this, the ichor is still exceptionally potent, with most pilots seeing at most a decade of action before their body begins to waste away or, in more common cases, they succumb to an ichor-induced frenzy that leaves both the pilot and anyone around them dead. Indeed, most pilots are forced into retirement long before then, although a few survive longer, with certain legendary pilots keeping their minds for decades, and a dreaded few succumbing partially to the ichor, becoming bloodthirsty but terrifyingly intelligent foes that stalk battlefields for centuries. The exact makeup of the ichor is unknown, as although many suggest it to be organic, it emits a thaumaturgical signature closer to that of magically-active minerals such as urelium than that of a typical form of life. Furthermore, it seems to possess the ability to, in the case of certain pilots who display an exceptional aptitude, heal the metal plating of a suit and, in similar circumstances, allow the mech to move in ways that should be both physically impossible given the mech’s joint configuration, and at speeds that should cause the mech to fall apart from stress. What is broadly accepted, however, is that these abilities are tied to how deeply the pilot connects to the suit, as entry-level cuirassiers struggle to adjust to their frames and yet emerge physiologically unharmed by their piloting, whilst experienced pilots often come to view their pilots as extensions of themselves, dancing across the battlefield whilst often being barely able to stand for hours upon leaving their suits. This is to say nothing of the shock the ichor can deal the nervous system upon damage to the mech, with some pilots suffering immediate strokes or heart attacks when their frames are felled, whilst others display such an aptitude for the ichor that it seems to flow out from the mech’s ‘wound’ in great tendrils, knitting together twisted metal and restoring sundered limbs.

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Common types

Mechs and their pilots bear a variety of names throughout the planes, such as the Ironclads of Kelsats to the Velites of Rhadamanthia. However, for simplicity, this guide shall use the classifications employed by the majority of mercenaries of the Celmian League, as they are likely to be most familiar to those experienced with such suits. They are classed by size and the weight of their armour primarily, although certain classes of mech tend to favour specific weaponry.

Cuirassier

Cuirassier frames are the smallest of mech frames, being barely larger than the skeleton rigs frequently used in planar industry, and occasionally as heavier infantry. Similarly, most Cuirassiers see use supporting other infantry or larger mechs. They tend to be heavily armoured, and typically stand 2-3 metres tall. They frequently carry large rail-arquebuses, heavy machine guns or heavy staffguns at range. When equipped for melee, they frequently wield massive shields designed to allow infantry to take cover behind them, and carry huge polearms for dealing with larger mechs. Due to their heavy armour, Cuirassiers are often regarded as slow by other pilots, and whilst they are certainly not the fastest, they can still put on surprising bursts of speed, especially in the cases of certain models, such as the infamous Teleos Bucephalus-II, or the infamous mercenary frame Jundun-Eter, a shotgun-wielding frame that laid waste to an entire void-fleet before disappearing through, if rumours are to be believed, a miniaturised portal spell.

Reiter

Where Cuirassiers are by and large slower, more heavily armoured frames, Reiters are skeletal deathtraps clad in minimal armour and equipped with exceptionally powerful thrusters. Most commonly deployed against light(er) tanks or artillery positions, or in scouting and skirmishing roles, Reiters have barely any armour, and typically carry a single large weapon, such as a heavy rail-culverin or a massive tank-glaive. They tend to be quite cheap to manufacture, not counting their engine components, and as such have the highest mortality rate out of any mech class. Despite this, plenty of pilots flock to Reiters, as their incredible speed appeals to many thrill seekers. Reiters vary a fair bit in size, as some are little more than wireframe suits, whilst others sport stilt-like legs that raise their height up to 4 metres.

Cavalier

The most iconic class of mech and the one favoured most by independent mercenaries, Cavaliers keep a healthy balance of speed and armour, and display easily the broadest variety of frames on the market. Most tend to focus on a larger melee weapon such as a tank scimitar or claymore, and carry a ranged weapon in the offhand, such as a rail-falconet or grenade crossbow. Frequently, these weapons are built directly into the frame, allowing for gimmicks that, while impractical in standard-issue frames, are frequently favoured by mercenaries. Famous mercenary frames include the Landsknecht and Muramasa rigs, which sport robust sensor suits and a broad variety of weapon hardpoints that make them exceptionally common bases for mercenary frames. So great is the Landsknecht’s popularity that it has become a byword for mercenary in itself, and troops of them are common through the Crucible and beyond.

Demi-Lancer

A recently developed class of mech, Demi-lancers were designed as more affordable generalist alternatives to the larger and heavier lancers, and frequently see similar roles to their heavier counterparts. They are most commonly armed with heavy rail-culverins or mage-bombards, alongside melee weapons such as anti-tank zweihanders or decapitator scythes. By and large, demi-lancers serve as duellists, taking on similar sized tanks or other mechs, although many, such as the Beowulf frame, have seen extensive use hunting large monsters, such as dragons or giants. Demi-Lancers tend to be heavily armoured around the chest and upper arms, but far more lightly around the legs and forearms, something that cuts a surprising amount of weight from the frame and makes it surprisingly nimble even when compared to some cavaliers. However, it does leave them more vulnerable to disarmament, and even leads to stories of some lucky infantrymen managing to blast a demi-lancer's legs out from under it and hack it apart once it fell. Ironically, many demi-lancers have seen use specifically for defending artillery positions and landships from other mechs, easily cutting apart smaller Reiters and, in a few cases, outmanoeuvring and destroying huge Lancers.

Lancer

The apex of military mechs, Lancers are the largest and most heavily armed of all standard mech frames. They carry exceptionally heavy weaponry such as back-mounted rail-mortars, mage-bombards or sun disks. However, the weapon for which they are named is their most feared, the huge storm lance. This weapon was specifically developed for cracking the thick plating of the Lancer’s principle prey, large tanks and, most infamously, landships. Storm Lances are made up of a thick vulcanite and steel tip at the end of a long, exceptionally durable rod that is wrapped in several coils of mage-gold. This is used to channel a deadly electric charge down the lance that can be blasted from the tip as either a devastating mid-range projectile or, more commonly, directly into the hull of a landship. For this reason, all landships regard lancers as high-priority targets, as most are armoured enough to withstand several shots from even exceptionally large guns, and can accelerate at terrifying speeds thanks to massive back-mounted charge thrusters. If a Lancer can reach the landship without being taken out, it often can completely destroy the vehicle, as it can easily shrug off most of its point defense weapons whilst using its lancer to strike deep into the belly of the war-engines. As such, many landships now include small groups of cavaliers or demi-lancers charged with preventing any lancers from reaching the ship, a job that the more manoeuvrable craft excel at, as while lancers’ charge thrusters allow for incredible acceleration, they turn poorly and even simply causing a lancer to slow down and turn is often enough for several artillery strikes to obliterate it, or for the lancer to call off its charge entirely.