Augumentation, weapons, team.

Marginal, techno-eretic and the shame of Mars was found in the company of retrogrades and blind men, debunked by a certain inquisitor in a work clothes suit with the sleeves rolled up and an insignia carelessly dangling from a necklace. I admired the torn metal hole in the wall with damaged edges, enjoyed the refined speech with elegant allegories about "the mind of a servitor after a lobotomy" and other funny comparisons. Then, after clearing my throat, I voiced my desire to give me this particular Reducer to talk to.

- Did you do something else? - The colleague glanced suspiciously at Magos, to which the cog shook his manipulators.

- No, I have business to talk about, - I voiced.

- Take it, colleague," the techno-inquisitor waved his hand, turning to the trio. - Honored Magos, for the thousandth time I say...

- Seventy-six," one of the magos clarified, causing his colleague to blush to purple.

So I grabbed Vallios the Reducer by the arm most appropriate to his arm, in the place most appropriate to his elbow, and dragged him away. Before it started.

Magos dragged along uncomplainingly, squeaking his technolinguals slightly under his absent nose, so when I emerged from the technical vaults, I settled with him in the gazebo and offered to join the Demonfighter Inquisitor's team without a backhanded gesture.

-Storm Claws, you and the Inquisitor," Magos began to speculate, "It's the most popular weapon you have in Malleus," he explained under a questioning glance. - Armor, given the claws, with a built-in bolter... Or a meltagun? Plasma is definitely not a good idea, you'll be working in immaterial...

- So," I interjected in this "flow of planning," "do you agree?

- I agree," the Reductor said as if nothing had happened. - Only, Inquisitor, the ship must have a place for the workshop, - he raised his finger on the manipulator, decorated with a palm. - And show me what you've got. The machinery is almost certainly in terrible condition...

- Wait a minute, Vallios, let's decide what needs to be done, from your point of view," I said. - And what I find acceptable and necessary.

We ended up spending four hours in the marble gazebo in the park. We even quarreled a couple of times, but I recognized Magos's rightness in many ways. For instance, I need proper armor. A wrist weapon powered by a backpack, given the storm claws. I had a servo skull that was lying idle in my bag, which gave my interlocutor an agonizing techno squeak. And in general, it turned out that you need your own ship, not a regiment, but a certain number of soldiers needed again. It's just not rational to race a mile-long fool with a detachment of two, and at best with a dozen men of the Inquisitor's crew.

In general, decided, came to me, Magos took the claws, admired the bolt gun, but said he would make "better for your needs, Inquisitor Terentius, and leave this, it may come in handy without armor. In the end, somewhat crushed by the activity of the new employee, I sat in my apartment and decided to finally think.

For starters, I had a subconscious belief in the unreality and deliriousness of everything around me from the moment I was in warp. I had to live as in reality, and a "playful" attitude to it could get me into a lot of trouble. For example, my "immortality and independence from the flesh" is not guaranteed.

And even if I am delirious, being subject to clear laws, this delirium will give me a lot of "pleasant" minutes if I start to be tortured and tortured, for example.

Further, I somehow too calmly and smoothly moved into the state of "I will be the Inquisitor. In fact, there's probably some residual guilt of the Teryokha here. I mean, having read a lot of information and stuff, I realize that this is one of the most fortunate places to live in the Imperium. Not in the sense of being fed and safe, but in the sense of being interesting and able to do something meaningful. I had a certain ambition, focused primarily on myself. Well, it would be nice to be able to tell myself in ten (or a hundred years) that I was good.

But the decision I made BEFORE receiving the information, and at the entrance to the fortress, I could well begin to be rounded up with pears of suffering, hoops and other charming devices. It did cross my mind, but I... made sure that "everything would be all right". It's worth noting, somewhat unreasonably, at the time of such a verdict. Surprisingly, so far so good, but you have to be more focused and reasonable, that's a fact.

And the next day, surprisingly enough, it all came to a head. The Inquisition fortress was ready to provide me with materials and equipment, but the ship was to be requested either "with delivery", in a month at the earliest. Or I could go to the bases of the Imperial Navy and shake my insignia, pointing a finger in the style of "I want it!

On reflection, the Inquisitor's ship was more sensible, so, after sending my request and criteria, I received a certain servant's assurance on my tablet that in two tithes I would have what I needed in orbit.

Next, there was the matter of "guardsmen. After almost a week of digging through the tablet and the library, as well as kicking astropaths (the psykers who were responsible for ninety percent of the Imperium's interstellar communications), I found something that suited me just fine. Namely, the remainder of a regiment from the planet Ophidia, a planet in relative proximity to the Eye of Terror, moreover, not so long ago (about three hundred years) freed from under the power of the chaos gods.

The 13th Ophidian at this point consisted of less than four hundred guardsmen, a colonel, and a commissioner. Orcs and not the most successful management had tried, and as part of the general doctrine, the regiment was to be disbanded and joined piece by piece to more complete ones.

To me, however, people who were born and lived withstanding quite tangible emanations of immaterial are quite suitable. So a request, certified by insignia, followed to the Departmentamento Munitorum that these particular Guardsmen are the ones I "need. I'll pick them up on the way, as well as a number of gears for Reducer, who begrudgingly squeaked that he needed several of his former employees from the mining colony of Mechanics because "Omnissia, in his goodness, endowed them with intelligence, which most of his fellows are woefully lacking."

By the time I arrived at the Fortress of Imperatoris Iram, the Emperor's Wrath, the Reductor had "unworthily, but as timely as possible" fashioned my armor. To my howls of "uncomfortable" and his "flesh is flawed!" came out a rather curious garment. Covered with aquilas (as it turned out, the current language of the Imperium believed it was an eagle, not a banner, the emblem of the Imperium), skulls. At least in metallic gray, which couldn't help but rejoice, since a number of the colorings suggested by Reductor could have been used as camouflage. In warp.

And in the technical points everything was more than pleasant, as far as I was concerned. A two-meter tall armor with a life-support system, complete with fibers, which forced me to go for my first (and with a mate give up a bunch of the rest) augmentation. The thing is, not being a psyker, I couldn't control it, like most non-Astartes power armor wearers, with psionics. Accordingly, I simply had no control tools for the same muscles, sensorics (and even the servocoil, modified by the Reductor into a reconnaissance-spy modification). As a result, I had a socket built into the back of my skull to connect the armor's functionality. It was a bit frightening, but the data I had studied showed that such an operation in the Imperium was widespread among the "entitled" people, mugs and snouts, if not common ("there is no room for augmentations on any trash" was the underlying theme of many of the sources studied).

In general, I was somewhat confused by one unpleasant moment for me personally, related to further possible augmentation. Namely, practically all "power men" in the galaxy, regardless of species affiliation, dispersed themselves with manifestations of warp. While the fibers and brainiac drive solved the "physics" moments, it was a bust with the consciousness. The pariahs, the "antipsykers" who successfully participated in battles also lacked warp support, but they also deprived their opponents of it, often kicking those who could have fought back, but... were lost and continued to think in familiar high-speed categories. That is, found himself fragmented into unviable pieces, while he habitually and imposingly thought about how he would dismember the wretched little man.

I, on the other hand, having no "soulless field", was simply a retard, in the cognitive sense, compared to most combat units. And I'd be sliced into little strips by a physics demon while my sluggish brain realized, "What the hell is going on here?"

There were no other options than the brain's "coprocessor," which turned me into a cyber-biological thinking form, not just a cyborg. However, I was in no hurry to shove a calculator into my skull. The point is that the very form of my existence in warp was anomalous, never described, and in general, according to everything I had read, impossible even in theory.

Accordingly, I had vague hopes that somehow "miraculously" I would acquire the necessary cognitive speed. It was pretty stupid, I admitted, but putting a piece of metal in place of half of my brain was kind of hard for me. Maybe until the first time I got kicked by the local, when, if I survived, I'd run to augment, but I couldn't do that yet.

As for the armor, aside from the fibers, the armor, and the recirculating life support system, it worked out like this. First, the helmet was not removable, but went into the top of the shoulderpack. Second, I had as many as three storm claws, and the "radicality" of the Reducer helped a lot. Being present in the process of developing the armor, I asked quite logical questions, as far as I was concerned:

- "Magos, as far as I understand, the combat part of this weapon is the 'distorting' or 'force' fields," I began, looking at the diagrams hanging on the wall of the workshop.

- "That's right, Inquisitor," the Reductor replied, poking at the technological contraption with his many mechanodendrites (as the mechanics called their manipulators).

- And why, I beg your pardon, warp, do you have to make long, sharp, interfering claws that are permanently fixed? - I asked logically.

- A projection of the cutting part..." the mechanic hissed thoughtfully.

- And what, these twenty centimeters are necessary? - I was curious, just in case. - And, for example, since we're basically attaching part of the armor to the armor, why not make these guides retractable, if necessary. On top of the gauntlet? - I voiced my wish, because it's scary to take off the claws, but walking around with them, even deactivated, is uncomfortable and ridiculous, as far as I'm concerned.

- Wait a minute," the Reducer thought, interrupting the rummaging altogether. - I'll have to see what I can do," he announced, raising his voice. - He announced, raising four arm-shaped and six tentacle-shaped mechanodendrites.

We did. Half-meter-high steel blades, weighing a dozen or so kilograms, were of no use, but rather hindered (unless, of course, they were made of an extremely high-strength alloy and on Astartes, which is fierce, but even on it you need them only when the field generator is dead). So, just as the armor gloves were equipped with "absorbing" guides in the form of four-sided spikes three centimeters long, so was my "unarmored" glove (which turned out to be made in the form of a sort of openwork knuckles), not greatly interfering in the disabled state of the hand, so that I began to wear it constantly. And the "winds of immaterial" were just as successful in washing the "sliding" lightning claws, so they did not lose their anti-scientific properties.

And, of course, a bunch of sensory and protective-type machinery, derived through the occipital connection directly into the mind. For this reason there was another dialogue with the Reducer, on the subject of "why do I need an overview in a helmet, when small loopholes are enough, and they, in good conscience, are hardly needed". The dialogue led to the fact that the smooth and rounded visor was dissected by a thin slit, closed by some wizard's transparent material, almost precious crystal.

In general, I was a bit of a retard, but my fighting ability was excellent, even with the Grey Knights I sparred to a draw from time to time (four times out of a couple hundred, but still) due to my powerful mind and unexpected moves.