Chapter 4: The Cold Trader
The Sanctum. To a mercenary, it is a haven; to a scavenger, it is a fortress; to an operative, it is home.
In the logic of the "Scavenge-Strike-Extract" System, the Sanctum is the heart of the operation. It is where one recovers from the madness of the warp and the world, stockpiles war-spoils, and upgrades the "Machine Spirits" of the forge to craft higher-tier wargear. In the 41st Millennium, a fully upgraded Sanctum could eventually produce legendary relics: Power Armor, Power Swords, and even Bolt-weapons.
But for now, Kian Voss's Sanctum was little more than a derelict vault in the guts of the Underhive.
The space was vast—five hundred square meters of cold, black plasteel and reinforced ceramite. The air was stagnant, heavy with the scent of oxidation and ancient dust. The only light came from flickering "Bubble-Lamps"—low-output Imperial glow-globes that bathed the room in a sickly emerald hue. There was no running water, no steady power grid. It was a tomb, but it was his tomb.
Safe behind a massive, multi-bolted blast door, Kian finally let his exhaustion take him. He dropped his gear and collapsed onto a cot stuffed with synthetic grox-wool. He slept the sleep of the dead.
When he finally woke, his back felt like it had been trampled by an Ogryn.
"Throne... I need a real mattress," he groaned, clutching his aching spine.
He stood up and walked to a plastic drum in the corner to relieve himself. "And a proper 'Throne.' If I keep living like this, the whole Sanctum is going to smell like a Plague Marine's armpit."
After a breakfast of dry corpse-starch crackers and recycled water, he gathered his loot. He carried one of the PDF autoguns over to a heavy metal workbench under one of the green bubble-lamps.
This workbench was a System-certified "Machinist's Station (Level 1)." Here, he could modify gear and fabricate basic components.
Kian clamped the rifle into a vice. He picked up a heavy-duty steel file and began to work. He wasn't repairing the gun—he was "sanitizing" it. Selling a weapon with the Imperial Aquila and a PDF serial number still etched into the receiver was a death sentence. The Arbites didn't care about the Underhive, but they did care about the theft of Imperial Tithe property.
To sell this at full price to a "Cold Trader," it had to be a "Black Gun"—unmarked and untraceable.
[CRAFTING INITIALIZED]
Input: [PDF-Pattern Autogun] x1, [Steel File] x1.
Process: Removing Imperial Iconography / Sanitizing Serial Numbers.
Time Remaining: 10:00.
Skree-skree-skree.
The screech of metal on metal echoed through the vault. Imperial plasteel was notoriously stubborn. Even for a few simple marks, it took ten minutes of grueling manual labor.
"I need to upgrade this station to Level 2," Kian muttered, wiping sweat from his brow as the file snapped in half just as he finished. "Manual labor is for servitors."
With the "Black Gun" wrapped in a ragged cloth and slung over his shoulder, Kian checked his sidearm—a low-caliber stub-pistol tucked into his waistband—and headed for the door. The heavy blast door was secured with a mechanical rotary lock. Only he knew the sequence.
Outside the Sanctum lay the "Gut-Pipe"—a lightless tunnel of rusted iron. Turning left led to the surface vents; turning right led deeper into the Hive, toward the settlements of the "Low-born."
The Hive was a vertical nightmare. The High Lords lived in the spires, touching the clouds. The middle-tiers housed the "decent" citizens—merchants, soldiers, and factory overseers. The Underhive, however, was the realm of the dregs: criminals, mutants, cultists, and those who had simply fallen through the cracks of the Emperor's light.
After a thirty-minute trek through the gloom, Kian reached a sprawling industrial cavern. The air here was thick with the stinging stench of chemicals. This was a Chem-Vat Sector, where Hive-gangs used slave labor to synthesize fertilizers from the Hive's waste to pay their tithes.
Two gangers in scavenged flak-vests, wielding rusted scrap-shotguns, stepped into his path.
"Halt, Scav-rat! State your business!"
Kian didn't flinch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Lho-sticks. He handed one to each guard. Their expressions softened instantly as they tucked the precious tobacco behind their ears.
Kian lit one for himself with a battered brass lighter. "I'm here to see Nephal. I've got high-grade hardware for his collection."
He shifted the weight of the cloth-wrapped rifle on his shoulder. At the mention of Nephal's name, the gangers stepped aside.
"Get in there. Don't start any trouble, or we'll turn you into vat-sludge."
Kian ignored them and entered the market—a chaotic sprawl of stalls built into the ribs of the Hive. It was a graveyard of tech: broken cogitators, rusted gears, and chemical canisters.
Nephal was a man who looked like he had been dried out in a desert. Skinny, sallow, and perpetually shadowed, he sat behind a counter reinforced with bulletproof glass. He offered a thin, predatory smile as Kian approached.
"My favorite scavenger. Buying or selling?"
Kian unwrapped the "Black Gun" and laid it on the counter. "Selling first. Then, a long shopping list."
Nephal's eyes sharpened. He picked up the rifle, his long, spindly fingers stripping it down to its base components in seconds. He peered down the barrel, checking the rifling.
"PDF-issue. Mark IV. Eight-tenths fresh. Marks are filed... cleanly enough," Nephal croaked. "I'll give you 2,700 Agri-Credits."
Kian slammed a full 30-round magazine of hard-core slugs onto the table.
"Include the mag. And I'm spending the credits right here in your shop. Make it 3,400."
Nephal considered the magazine, his tongue darting out to lick his dry lips. "3,200. And not a credit less, or you can go sell it to the mutants in the sump."
Kian nodded. "Done."
Nephal gestured for a lackey to take the weapon away. "So, what does a rising star of the Underhive need today?"
Kian pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment. "I need:
One high-output Promethium Cell.
Sixty meters of insulated copper wiring.
One industrial-grade electric motor.
An angle grinder with diamond-tipped discs.
Ten glow-globes.
Fifty sets of plasteel bolts and nuts.
Four meters of reinforced steel piping.
A standard-pattern Tool Crate.
And four logic-switches."
He was building. If he wanted to survive the next "raid" onto the surface, his Sanctum needed to become a true forge. He needed power. He needed heat. And most importantly, he needed to stop using a manual file like a caveman.