Nevertheless, remaining unnoticed proved almost more difficult than everything else.
We had to avoid practically every conceivable mishap along the way. Entirely unintentionally, the greenskins' obsession with technology complicated our progress at every turn. Orks would suddenly burst out of corridors, eagerly showing off a newly installed metal arm to their comrades, only to immediately use that same arm to smack them across the head. Entire sections of the fortress exploded without warning, killing nearby Orks and forcing us to search for alternate routes.
And the fortress itself...
Tzeentch and his labyrinth would have been smoking nervously in a corner.
A unified architectural plan?
Three times ha!
Orks simply didn't concern themselves with such trivialities as consistency in construction. Compared to this place, even the Immaterium began to resemble an orderly and comprehensible realm.
"But then again, both fate and the gods seem determined to make us spend eternity dealing with absurd nonsense..." I muttered as we finally reached a relatively deserted section of the fortress-planetoid. "So we'll manage..."
I paused.
"...Probably."
My partner glanced off to the right before pointing at...
"Seriously? A ventilation shaft?" I sighed, rolling my eyes. "We're not actually going to infiltrate the fortress using the oldest, most overused method imaginable..."
I looked at her hopefully. "...We're not, right?"
...
In the end, we crawled through maintenance tunnels and ventilation shafts anyway.
Naturally, they were large enough to accommodate a Space Marine.
Or, in this case...
An Ork.
The greenskins had evidently never considered assigning Gretchin to maintenance work, which meant there had been no reason to reduce the size of the ventilation or service tunnels.
"We could literally walk through here upright," I grumbled while crawling on all fours regardless. "We'd only have to duck our heads a little."
Killing Mockery, incidentally, was crawling ahead of me.
Why?
Because, beforehand, she had patiently explained through gestures that this was the proper way to do it.
Then she pointed upward.
The implication was unmistakable.
Cegorach himself approved.
Among the Harlequins, the Laughing God's authority surpassed even the Emperor's among the most fanatical Imperials. To humanity, the Emperor was the greatest ruler imaginable.
To my fellow Harlequins...
Cegorach was the undisputed master of our profession.
So my partner flatly refused to crawl any other way.
Not that I was exactly unhappy with the view.
The Aeldari woman's holo-suit clung to her figure in all the right places.
Still...
I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd somehow become the protagonist of yet another absurdly illogical spy movie from old Earth.
Despite everything, this route brought us to the fortress's central reactor complex faster than any alternative.
Which was precisely where the Krork had made his home.
Honestly...
Where else would a greenskin choose to live except beside something catastrophically explosive?
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Had this been an ordinary Ork, we'd already have been sprinting away as fast as possible.
The non-degenerated creations of the Old Ones, however, were considerably more reliable where engineering and invention were concerned.
Dropping silently from a maintenance shaft into a colossal laboratory, we immediately spotted the enormous figure standing within.
The creature stood six...
Perhaps even seven meters tall.
Enormous, even by Ork standards.
His armor looked nothing like that worn by modern Orks.
It was too smooth.
Too symmetrical.
Too organic.
In fact, it bore unmistakable similarities to Aeldari armor.
What truly caught my attention, however, was the weapon mounted on his right arm.
It looked uncannily similar to a Harlequin's Kiss.
Even the ever-composed Killing Mockery seemed momentarily stunned by the sight of a living relic from the War in Heaven.
"Why are you standing there like Necrons after realizing the C'tan tricked them?"
Turning away from the enormous six-armed battlesuit he had been assembling, built in the crude style of modern Orks rather than ancient Krorks, the giant finally faced us.
The machine itself stood nearly ten meters tall.
Yet the moment his gaze settled upon us...
Everything else became irrelevant.
His eyes were little more than narrow slits of glowing crimson.
Within them burned a terrifying intelligence.
A twisted brilliance possessed only by the greatest engineers in the galaxy.
My breath caught in my throat.
I had to consciously steady my voice.
"We greet you, Krork." I bowed theatrically. "We do not know your name, so allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Knowing Jester."
I gestured toward my companion.
"This is Killing Mockery. We—"
"Servants of Cegorach."
The Krork interrupted before I could continue, tilting his head slightly.
"Aeldari." His voice rumbled through the chamber. "It has been a long time since I last saw your kind."
He studied us silently.
"It seems the inevitable conclusion of your degeneration has finally stirred the survivors into action."
A low chuckle escaped him.
"How ironic. The two greatest races after the Old Ones walked precisely the same path. Both became pathetic imitations of themselves. Shadows of their former glory."
"We Harlequins do not suffer from the wounded pride that troubles so many others." I spread my arms with a smile hidden beneath my mask.
"Our play is only beginning and every play requires actors."
"Ha."
The giant snorted.
"I've never been an actor before, little Aeldari."
He folded his massive arms.
"And what role has your god prepared for me?" He narrowed his glowing eyes. "Do you know yourself? Or will those seers of yours simply tell you that, should I dislike the proposal, I can march directly into..." He paused thoughtfully. "...your new pseudo-god in the Immaterium?"
The devotee of Gork and Mork growled as his fist clenched with a metallic crunch.
Psychic energies churned around him in violent waves.
Killing Mockery and I exchanged amused smiles before turning our attention back toward the green giant.
"Your warboss, Urrlak, will fall." I delivered the statement without hesitation. "Your story will end, Krork."
His reaction wasn't disbelief.
It was interest.
Intense interest.
"A worthy enemy appeals to me," the giant rumbled. "But I am Great Atillamekh, destroyer of entire Necron dynasties! My armies drove back the C'tan Nyadra'zatha himself. The one who granted the Necrons access to your Webway."
His fist tightened further, the armor screeching beneath the strain.
"For me to become merely a stepping stone for some creature..." Psychic energy surged violently around him. "Impossible."
His red gaze locked onto mine.
"Speak, Aeldari. Who killed me? Whose death does your race seek through yet another one of its schemes..that you come to his future victim?"
"You misunderstand, Atillamekh." I smiled, once again spreading my arms theatrically. "We ask something exceedingly rare of a Krork…and of his degenerated descendants."
The giant leaned forward.
"You've disguised a single word with remarkable elegance, Aeldari." His voice boomed throughout the laboratory.
"Retreat. I propose waiting."
I met his gaze without flinching.
"So that you may fight a greater battle than the one awaiting you here."
Every muscle in my body remained tense.
Still, I refused to let even the slightest hint of nervousness creep into my voice.
Before Orks...
And especially before a Krork...
Confidence was everything.
"There will be dozens of great battles. Unlike this one. Battles witnessed by billions of descendants and trillions of enemies. Battles in which your name will be celebrated. You could become the one who restores the Orks' former glory."
I stepped forward.
"Not here. Not in this laboratory. Where you will fall to your enemy's subordinate rather than his greatest champion. Not slain gloriously upon the battlefield..." I paused "...but killed through treachery. Forgotten. Erased from history without leaving so much as a trace."
That wasn't entirely true.
But a little exaggeration had never hurt anyone.
Especially when negotiating something this important.
"I can smell the exaggeration, Aeldari." The Krork's voice remained remarkably calm. "Your people have always had that habit."
He remained silent for a moment.
"But I'm equally certain it serves your scheme. Which means you aren't lying completely."
He considered my words.
Then nodded.
"Very well. How long until this worthy enemy arrives?”
“Approximately thirty revolutions of the nearest planet around its star."
I quickly converted the estimate using local astronomical measurements.
Fortunately, Aeldari technology made determining orbital periods utterly trivial.
For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether anyone in my original reality had actually thought through details like that while creating this universe.
Or...
Whether they'd somehow glimpsed it across space and time.
No.
Better not think about questions like that.
That was how people ended up becoming Tzeentchians.
"Then return in ten revolutions." The Krork nodded once.
"I shall prepare a successor. And design several new war machines. Whoever this enemy may be..." A savage grin spread across his face”...he shall receive a proper welcome on my Gorro. Even without me."
With that, the giant calmly turned back to his immense battlesuit and resumed working as though our conversation had merely been another engineering consultation.
Well...
I had faith in the Emperor.
And Horus.
They would manage.
Besides...
Through us, Cegorach would soon have an excellent opportunity to test the Warmaster's abilities firsthand.
Very soon indeed.