[This simulation has ended. Duration: unrecorded.]
[The following items may be retained from this simulation. Please select.]
[I. THE FORGEBREAKER — Thunder Hammer (Primarch-grade)]
[Note: "A legendary warhammer, forged during a crafting contest between Primarch Fulgrim and Primarch Ferrus Manus."]
[Note: "Crafted by Fulgrim himself, the hammer also stands as a symbol of the brotherhood between the Phoenician and the Gorgon."]
[Note: "Its silhouette resembles an enlarged pair of heavy-gauge pliers, but the near-indestructible alloy of its construction compensates entirely for its unconventional shape. Fulgrim's perfectionism in its making produced a weapon whose balance feels natural to its wielder, and Perturabo's subsequent modifications to the counterweight system allow it to discharge concentrated lightning energy on impact."]
[Note: "The Forgebreaker was once a monument to brotherhood. After the death of Ferrus Manus, Fulgrim offered it to Horus. Horus, not yet entirely lost, passed it to Perturabo as a gesture of alliance. By some path that history does not fully record, it eventually came to rest in the archive vaults of the Blood Ravens Chapter."]
[Note: "'...' A headless, enormous figure watches you silently from the depths of the Warp."]
[II. THE LOGOS — Perturabo's Armour (Primarch-grade)]
[Note: "A highly specialized Terminator suit, designed and constructed entirely by Primarch Perturabo for his own use."]
[Note: "The Logos is integrated with an advanced command and control architecture, enabling the wearer to directly manage any combat unit under their authority in real time."]
[Note: "Additional systems include a comprehensive long-range weapons suite exceeding standard Terminator specifications, integrated melta cannons in the vambraces, and a teleportation beacon array built into the suit's core — all designed or modified personally by Perturabo to optimize the wearer's offensive and strategic capabilities."]
[Note: "To operate the Logos at full capacity, the wearer must replicate Perturabo's method of neural integration, implanting connection points directly into the cerebral cortex to interface with the armor's systems."]
[Note: "'Iron Warriors, front line — move the laser cannon forward fifty meters, immediately.' Perturabo, absorbed in a real-time strategic display, issued the command into his vox without looking up."]
[III. SULPHURIC ACID SALIVARY GLANDS — Rogal Dorn's Offering (Primarch-grade)]
[Note: "A sulphuric acid salivary gland, cultivated from Rogal Dorn's own oral tissue. It is implanted adjacent to the existing salivary glands at the lower jaw and synthesizes its product continuously through a straightforward biological process."]
[Note: "The implant has undergone Imperial enhancement and blessing."]
[Note: "Its presence grants immediate immunity to the corrosive effects of sulphuric acid saliva, and the ability to secrete the same in significant quantity on demand. In addition, through a latent connection established by Rogal Dorn's silent blessing upon the gland, the bearer may be able to sense the approximate location of Primarchs within a certain range."]
[Note: "'Whatever comes, I believe my Primarch brothers will find their way back to me...' Rogal Dorn, having taken the blow that cost him his hand, stared at the enemies beyond the wall with an expression of absolute weight."]
[Note: "'The future of the Imperium, and of the galaxy entire, will require all of you to stand together. If it becomes necessary, bring them back. All of them...' The gravely wounded Emperor, in the moment before the Stasis Field took Him, spoke these words to you with what remained of His strength."]
The simulation had ended.
Nolan opened his eyes.
He exhaled slowly, the breath leaving him with the particular quality of someone returning from a long distance rather than simply waking, and turned to look at the seat beside him.
The blue light in David's eyes was coming back on, the illumination building from deep within the sockets and reaching its full brightness in the space of a few seconds.
"My Lord. We have returned successfully."
David turned his metal head slightly toward Nolan across the round table.
"You worked hard." Nolan held his gaze for a moment, then said: "What did you receive? Any reward from the Emperor, or anything of that kind?"
David looked down at its own frame, making a methodical survey of every surface and system it could access from the inside. Then it shook its head.
"Nothing, my Lord. When you chose to die alongside Primarch Perturabo, the stasis field that had enveloped me triggered the return sequence. I came back in synchronisation with you." A pause. "If I had to speculate: the ability to bring a companion into the simulation is itself the reward. The reward structure appears to remain anchored to you. I was the beneficiary of the access, not the generator of the entitlement."
Nolan turned to the simulator page.
The reward selection screen was still open. He read across the three options and selected the third without hesitation.
The change was immediate and internal, a sensation of something settling into place in the tissue along his jaw, and then nothing further. He ran his tongue across the inside of his lower lip experimentally.
Then he puffed out his cheeks and spat.
The stream of clear liquid hit the center of the metal round table and the table's response was prompt: a hiss of vapour rising from the impact point, the acrid smell of a serious chemical reaction, and a crater approximately half a meter across where the PVC coating and the metal beneath it had been dissolved by the time the vapour cleared.
Nolan looked at it.
Then he looked back at the simulator page, which had not closed.
"The page is still open."
He blinked once, slowly.
"David's training credit appears to have been attributed to me. Which means I can select a second time."
He raised one hand, palm up.
The Forgebreaker appeared in it.
The weight was considerable. The balance, as the simulator's notes had promised, was not what the weapon's shape suggested: it settled into his grip with the particular quality of a weapon that had been made by someone who understood what a hammer was supposed to feel like, and then refined by someone who understood the physics of impact at a level that most craftsmen never reached. The lightning capacity was dormant but present, a charge waiting at the core of the hammerhead.
Nolan swung it once, a slow arc, feeling the rotation.
"The credit for commanding the training mission still belongs to me, it seems." He looked at David with an expression that was mostly satisfied and slightly regretful. "It is a pity the Iron General's configuration was not part of the reward. An upgrade to your frame would have been something."
David was quiet for a moment.
"My Lord. This reward is one you genuinely earned. The simulation asked you to face figures of mythic scale, repeatedly, in a body that was not your own, with incomplete information and no reinforcement. That is not a straightforward thing to endure, regardless of what the simulator's immunity provisions guarantee about permanent death."
A pause.
"I am mechanical. The psychological weight of what we walked through in there — the scale of the wars, the weight of the figures involved — is something I processed differently than an organic being would. If it had been anyone other than who I am, the pressure of simply being in proximity to that history would have been enough to cause serious difficulties."
Nolan looked at him for a moment.
Then he set the Forgebreaker down on the table beside the crater his saliva had made in it, and said nothing, and the silence between them was the comfortable kind.