The Incubi scouted the area but, after finding nothing unusual, moved on.
Sa'kan remained hidden behind cover, not daring to make a single move.
He quickly realized how tight the defenses were. Even with the aid of his forbidden relics, slipping through the lines wouldn't be easy.
The Salamander stayed perfectly still, patient enough to wait for a true gap in the defenses.
An entire night passed.
The construction site grew noisy again as more slaves were brought in to work.
They were tasked with the fourth phase of the Soul Paradise project: building soul-pools and extreme torture chambers.
Suddenly, a piercing scream rang out.
"You damned fool! Didn't you see the slaves' working hours already exceeded the limit?!"
A Trueborn overseer of the Dark Eldar lashed out furiously, thrashing a half-blood foreman with a thorned whip.
"If the slaves are worn out and the schedule delayed, we'll all face severe punishment!"
The Archon was strict beyond measure—every deadline and every loss had been carefully calculated.
Any injuries or deaths among the slaves risked disrupting the project, and that meant losses to the Archon's wealth.
And that spelled disaster for everyone involved.
Thus, the Dark Eldar dared not work the slaves past their limits. At most, each shift could last ten hours before they were rotated out for rest.
The half-blood foreman trembled, stammering:
"Goddess Isha, I didn't mean to… it was the timer that malfunctioned…"
"That's no excuse for failure!"
The Trueborn snapped the whip harder, though he avoided crippling blows. Killing or maiming a contracted foreman would still slow progress.
In the end, even they were considered property of the Archon, and he had no right to destroy them.
"What do we do now?"
The half-blood foreman, battered and bloody, tried to find a solution. He couldn't afford to lose everything.
"What else?!"
The Trueborn growled:
"Rotate the slaves out now. File a full report and await further orders."
The Redemption Kabal placed far more emphasis on contracts and rules than most Kabals. Everyone obeyed them to the letter—if not, the Incubi Enforcers would come.
And their instruments of pain were infamous: light punishments ended with being stitched back together by the Haemonculi; heavy punishments meant death—or worse, your soul gifted to the Thirsting Lady.
So no one dared rebel. On the contrary, they upheld the rules, knowing it was safer—and rewarded.
The Archon was generous to those who served and obeyed.
Right then, a Lhamean appeared and announced the Archon's new decree:
Because of the satisfactory progress in construction, all overseers were to be rewarded with soul-drugs.
The Dark Eldar managers rejoiced, grateful for such generosity.
They had chosen the right master.
Both the Trueborn overseer and the half-blood foreman happily received their rewards: each one was given a supply of Tier-4 soul elixirs.
Their unease melted away. Perhaps their punishment would not be severe after all.
Following the orders of the half-blood, the slaves rotated out to the gathering grounds, where they were fed.
"By the Emperor, today's meal has such a huge cut of meat!"
The human slave, Tonken, shoved coarse bread into his mouth—inside was rich, real meat.
His eyes welled up as he ate.
"If I had known life in xenos territory would be like this, I never should've hidden my wife and daughter…"
His family had once been hive workers, toiling in an assembly plant.
Nineteen-hour shifts, toxic air, starvation rations made from corpse starch.
Many died of exhaustion or hunger.
And still the quotas grew heavier every day, demanded by the Tithe.
Before they could collapse entirely, Dark Eldar raiders struck.
The slavers hunted them down.
Tonken had managed to hide his wife and child, sparing them from capture.
But after being taken himself to the Redemption satellite zone, the unexpected happened—he wasn't tortured.
He was… better off.
Here, slaves lived under a ten-hour shift system, with food and shelter guaranteed—and sometimes even extra rations.
This was paradise compared to the Imperium.
The xenos overseers were even kinder than his old hive supervisors. At least here, they didn't kill indiscriminately. Wounded slaves were treated quickly—for fear of losing productive workers.
Tonken prayed daily to the God-Emperor for such grace—and sometimes, in private, even to the xenos Archon.
He regretted hiding his family. They were likely still starving in the hive.
If only they'd been captured too, maybe they'd be safe here with him…
He had simply been lucky.
Had the Savior not seized this satellite zone, he would have faced endless torment instead.
…
"By the Emperor… have I gone mad?"
From his cover, Salamander Sa'kan stared in disbelief.
Sa'kan drew his melta weapon, ready to burn down their tormentors and free his kin.
But within the forge-hall—
"Brothers, faster!"
"When this job's done, we'll show the others what we've achieved!"
A company of Salamanders were hard at work, each at a great forge, hammering with fiery zeal.
They were… crafting weapons for the coliseum.
The Salamanders were among the finest weapon-smiths in the entire galaxy.
Zzzzt—
The steel gate melted instantly under the melta breacher.
Sa'kan burst in, rolled hard, and leveled his weapon—ready to cut down any enemies inside.
But his visor displayed zero xenos signatures.
He froze on the spot.
The Salamanders inside had hammers raised mid-swing, staring wide-eyed at their battle-brother who had just stormed in.
Both sides blinked in surprise.
"Sa'kan?"
One of them recognized him immediately.
"How did you find this place? We were just thinking of coming to look for you!"
Sa'kan removed his helmet, staring at them with disbelief.
"Sons of Vulkan, my flame-brothers… why are you serving the xenos?!"
He could not believe it. That Salamanders would betray the Imperium—their faith.
"We took a contract," one of them admitted, scratching his head.
"Once we finish forging this batch of specialty weapons, we'll receive a reward beyond imagining…"
"What temptation could possibly drive you to this?"
Sa'kan's voice trembled with anguish, each word weighed with accusation.
Were it not for their intact purity seals, and their long years of brotherhood, he might have struck them down already.
This, after all, was the flaw the Imperium so often condemned in the Salamanders: their sympathy for the common folk, their defense of the weak, and their refusal to slaughter their own battle-brothers.
Such mercy often made relations with other Chapters… strained.
Sa'kan's disbelief was sharpened by another fact: the Salamanders had virtually no record of treachery. They were among the most loyal of all Chapters.
"Five hundred pure gene-seeds."
One brother produced a special container, inside of which pulsed a preserved progenoid. He handed it to Sa'kan.
"Perfectly compatible with our Chapter's lineage. No corruption. The Imperium has almost none left in such condition. We've seen them—better even than the gene-seeds in our vault."
"…?"
Sa'kan carefully took the container and opened it.
Inside was indeed a flawless progenoid—untainted, priceless. The seed of new life for their Chapter.
The Salamanders had always been among the smallest of the First Founding Legions.
And at Isstvan V, they were nearly wiped out. After Guilliman's Codex Astartes reforms, they could barely form successor Chapters at all.
For millennia they had struggled to rebuild their numbers, and progress was painfully slow.
Their gene-seed stock was fragile.
Worse still, the purity of successor Chapters like the Black Dragons was questioned—mocked even—by Imperial genetors.
Though the Lord Regent had returned and stabilized the gene-seed banks, priority went to the Ultramarines and Chapters vital to the Indomitus Crusade.
The Salamanders received only a pittance.
They cherished every seed—recovering them even at terrible cost from fallen brothers.
It was one of the reasons Sa'kan had risked his life: not just to save his kin, but to recover their gene-seeds if they had perished.
"F–five hundred pure progenoids?"
Sa'kan's breath shook as he spoke.
The Salamanders' entire vault held fewer than a hundred—and none of this purity.
"It's… hard to refuse…"
The thought struck him like a hammer.
And it wasn't heresy without precedent. Many Chapters had dealt with xenos before—even allied with them.
Xenos often traded in gene-seeds, knowing their worth.
But Sa'kan growled, shaking his head violently.
"No! We Salamanders cannot stoop so low! Not at the cost of our kin's lives!"
For the weapons they forged could one day slay humanity.
"They're not for war," one Salamander insisted, pointing to a pile of ornate designs.
"We're only making special gear for the Dark Eldar arenas—props for spectacle. Nothing more. A few years' work, that's all."
Sa'kan fell silent.
He couldn't deny it—this was a tempting deal.
"Sa'kan, you came at the right time."
Another clasped his arm.
"Your skill at the forge surpasses ours. Stay. Help us. Earn more—dozens of progenoids for the Chapter."
The offer stirred him—but he shook his head firmly.
"Have you forgotten our mission? We must still seek the Nine Artefacts of our Gene-Father."
The fact that his brothers still lived was a relief beyond price.
But they were bound by contract now. Dark Eldar Kabals were founded on such bonds. Breaking them was nearly impossible.
And who among them could abandon so rich a reward?
But Sa'kan could still press on alone.
He thought of continuing his quest for the relic Song of Entropy.
"You mean the Song of Entropy?"
One Salamander smiled faintly.
"Our instruments already detected its energy. Ninety-five percent certainty—it lies buried deep within this domain.
But we can't extract it. Not with our tools."
Sa'kan's face hardened.
"The Song of Entropy… fallen into a xenos realm. Recovering it will be near impossible."
Commorragh and its satellite realms constantly absorbed fragments of other dimensions. It was no surprise such a relic might appear here.
But retrieving it under alien watch? Impossible—short of razing the entire stronghold.
"Don't worry. The Archon has already promised to use heavy machinery to help us retrieve it."
"You're mad!" Sa'kan nearly blacked out at the words.
"To reveal such knowledge to xenos—it could mean Vulkan's very return!"
The Salamander raised a signal, confirming no xenos nearby. He activated a shielded field and whispered:
"The Archon serves the Savior. The Primarch himself."
Then he showed Sa'kan the proof: the Savior's private seal, documents, even holo-recordings of their communication.
It was clear. The Savior was using the Archon as a puppet in a larger plan.
The pure progenoids—they were provided by the Primarch himself.
And now the Salamanders were part of it.
Soon after, Sa'kan demanded to see the Archon—and by transmission, the Savior.
And then… he stayed.
His pay: fifty pure progenoids.
Half given, half gifted.
The Savior wanted these masters of the forge bound to him utterly.
And so he seeded their Chapter with his own gene-seeds.
…
Redemption Satellite Zone, Archon's Fortress Spire
Eden ended the transmission.
Moments before, he had played both roles—the Dark Eldar Archon and the Savior Primarch—convincing Sa'kan to remain.
Now he turned back to his work.
But he frowned.
The Redemption satellite zone was running out of space. The docks were too cramped to handle the tide of ships.
He would need to absorb more dimensional real estate to expand ports before the grand opening of his domain to all of Commorragh.
If not solved before construction ended, chaos would follow.
Soon, another report arrived:
The great machines were ready. Excavation of the ruins containing the Song of Entropy would begin tomorrow.
That relic tied to Vulkan… the Savior would see it recovered.
(End of Chapter)
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