Red Letter Day

Fidelius opened his sightless eyes in surprise. He had been getting ready for bed when he felt a stirring in the Immaterium on the planet’s surface below. As an Astropath in service of the Planetary Governor of Orkney IV, his main duties were, of course, the transmission and reception of important messages.

However, an important secondary duty of all Astropaths, especially important on Orkney, was to always be on the lookout, pun intended, for unsanctioned psykers. He had felt something so far below. Someone untrained, and that by definition meant someone unbound. He could feel the psyker’s surprise, shock, and dismay, followed by nothing at all as the ripples of the Immaterium turned quiet and still. Well, as still as they could be expected to be, anyway.

Had someone, some poor child that didn’t know any better, just killed themselves? Of all the things that could have happened, that might have been the best outcome. There were many, many fates far worse than death, and he was aware of many of them. As much as he wished, he couldn’t delete his own memories like records from his cogitator.

His exceptional skill at sensing the ripples of the Immaterium was why he was placed on this detail. Orkney IV was a mystery and always had been. The elderly Astropath he replaced called the planet “bright in the Warp.” She had said that the shadow it cast often reflected back onto reality, but instead of light and darkness, he envisioned the Immaterium as flowing water. So, to him, Orkney IV was a giant boulder flung into a river, causing perturbations in the laminar flow. White water rapids could be dangerous for anyone around them, so he felt his analogy was superior.

He closed his eyes and sat still in the meditative posture he had been taught so long ago. The disturbance occurred… there, and it was simplicity itself to adjust this for the current rotation of the planet before him, so that meant that it happened… around Landing?

He frowned. So, it was likely nothing to worry about. Well, that wasn’t true. It would be a problem if one of the psykers in the cells turned into a daemonhost right in front of the God-Emperor and everyone. The cells had, of course, multiple means to kill the occupants inside, but with the foul touch of the Ruinous Powers, even death might die.

They perennially had issues keeping the sequestered psykers under sedation until the Black Ship made its biannual visit and would usually have to liquidate ten to twenty per cent of them. He very much believed that those poor souls would have thanked them if they knew what they were being saved from, though.

The Senior Astropath opened his cogitator and began tapping keys partly by touch and hearing but mostly using his exceptional sense of the Immaterium to guide his inputs. He’d make a report, and someone down on the planet could make sure all of the unsanctioned psykers were remaining quiescent. The chances of an unsanctioned psyker coming into his or her own powers in Landing was remote but possible, too. One datum would beget another and another, and that was how all unsanctioned psykers were caught in the end, anyway.

Instead of immediately fleeing the area and returning home, I quickly repaired the broken lighting unit and then secured all of my tools. They were the only ones I had, most of which were found here in the fifth level, so they were irreplaceable.

As I rode the disused elevator up to the ground floor, I thought about what happened. I had felt something wrong when my witch-power activated, it was much different from the first time, but the circumstances of how it happened were similar. I had wanted to do something that I didn’t think I had time to do the normal way, and it happened.

The God-Emperor’s blessing was only giving me what amounted to six levels of Warp Resistance skill. I seemed to be in a bit of a gulley in terms of how that blessing worked, and it would have been more effective if I only had one level of the skill it was helping me with. Well, I thought the God-Emperor probably had reasons for why he made it that way, but at the same time, I knew what I was going to be doing in approximately five hours. Praying! I would have to make a thorough test of both this prayer and all of the others I knew. Perhaps they had different effects? Also, how hard did I need to pray to get an effect? Would the God-Emperor answer every time? I was going to find out!

I felt my only hope was to continue to increase my Willpower and Self-Discipline enough that getting sufficient levels of Warp Resistance was possible. That or turn myself in right now, but if the God-Emperor was answering my prayers, then surely he thought I was doing the right thing, right? Well, I was going to take it that way. I glanced up at the ceiling for a moment as if waiting for the God-Emperor to say something. Then, grinning, I said, “Silence is assent! Thank you, God-Emperor, sir!“

Training Warp Resistance seemed very dangerous, though. I mean, it seemed to imply so in the description. I didn’t think that the worst thing that could happen to you was floating up in the air like what happened to me.

As I got home, my Mom yelled, “Piper! Where have you been? I need you to wash and chop all of the vegetables and peel all of the potatoes for dinner.” I glanced up at the sun, gauging the time and figured we must be having stew tonight as it would take hours to simmer properly, which explained why she wanted it done while it was still morning.

Sighing, I asked as I walked into the large kitchen and started washing my hands. Running water sure was nice, “I was out playing! And, well, where is Alicia, then?!”

Mom scoffed at me and said proudly, “She has a date with a gentleman suitor this afternoon, so she can’t be expected to help with dinner.” Oh, gag me with a spoon.

“I hope you don’t expect me to act as a chaperone,” I told Mom churlishly, “I’m much too young! I wouldn’t know what I’m supposed to stop them from doing, as I am just an innocent maiden.” And I had better things to do than to ensure my big sister doesn’t mount her new boyfriend at the earliest opportunity. Or visa-versa.

Mom rolled her eyes, clearly not believing me for a second, but she said, “Your brothers will be escorting her.” I smirked. Oh, then she should be pregnant imminently, as they are both stupid, I thought, but I kept wisely to myself. Besides, Alicia could wrap both our brothers around her little pinky. If she had my special numbers, she would certainly have many more social-based skills besides just Dissembling, Acting and Lying.

Instead, I started chopping the vegetables with the large-bladed chef’s knife, and even my Mom blinked at my speed, saying, “Wow, you’re fast!” I chuckled and tried to chop at my maximum speed and was rewarded as I finished with two numbers going up. I loved that! Numbers should go up faster! And more!

[DEXTERITY has gone up a level.]

[COOKING has gone up a level.]

Nice! I had been wondering when Cooking would go up again, as I had occasionally been helping with dinner like this for some time, although perhaps not as much as I should. I didn’t really want my Mom to get the idea that I liked domestic tasks, so I usually tried to avoid them. Dexterity, though? That was the first time that stat has gone up.

Twirling the knife in my hand, I thought about it. I supposed I hadn’t been doing that many things that could be described as dextrous lately, except for repairing the very small parts inside the lighting modules these past couple of days. As if, on cue, my twirling of the knife slipped, and I cut my finger. This got an exclamation out of my Mom and a swear word or two out of myself, which in turn got me a cuff on the back of my head.

Hey! I’m bleeding to death here, Mom! Have some respect for your dying daughter! Still, I thankfully managed to keep the bleeding away from the carrots. If it weren’t stew, I wouldn’t have bothered and would have just served the bloody carrots to my brothers, but everyone would have eaten them this time.

I made a ‘Tsk’ sound as I looked at my finger, dodging away from any further discipline or sympathy from Mom. I didn’t want her to fuss over me, but I had cut it pretty good. I ran my finger over some running water and wrapped it up in a clean linen bandage, and then continued cutting more vegetables after she left the kitchen.

After I finished, I sat down and thought about ways I could make my numbers go up even more. I had ideas for Cooking, and I already knew continued Running would increase my Strength and Athletics. But what were some of my most useful skills? Fatigue Resistance and Pain Tolerance were probably my most useful skills at this point, but I was already continuing my “training” of the former skill every day. I didn’t have any real way to safely train the latter at this time, though.

Although… I had accidentally shocked myself while repairing some of the lighting modules, and that had hurt, but I hadn’t gotten the impression that it would cause me much damage. That was something to think about, but what else?

I hummed, holding my bandaged finger up to my mouth and nodded. Memorisation. I only had six levels in it, but it was already one of my best skills. It provided benefits that were out of proportion with the current low level, and if I could keep increasing it? Would I eventually “max” the skill out and then have a perfect memory? I shuddered in almost orgiastic delight at the thought of “maxing” a Skill. I had wondered if Skills had maximum numbers, but I had already realised that at least some of them did. Language: High Gothic would reach one hundred per cent fluency at level forty.

Numbers going up were better than boys.

---

My Mom found me in the living room, doing jumping jacks while attempting to do tricks with a yo-yo I had dug out of my old toybox while singing a list of Saints, off-key, “Saint Arabella, The Liberator, nobody knows where she is. Saint Dominica, Arabella’s boss, shot the traitor Vandire and was shot in turn by a traitor on Frideswide’s World.”

“What in the world are you doing?” asked my Mom while putting her hands on her hips.

Her voice surprised me and caused my yo-yo to fly back and hit me in the face. Ow! Surely I should have gotten a level for that? It hurt! I stopped my jumping jacks and said simply, “Training my Dexterity and Memorisation.“

Memorising the names of all of the Imperial Saints was just the sort of task that should make my Memorisation skill skyrocket. It was pointless information that I didn’t really care about, so I had to stretch my mind to do it. I needed to go back to the Schola and read more books about them. It was also almost impossible to memorise them all, given how many people have been canonised over the years. It also occurred to me, given how many of them were canonised posthumously, that our Imperium wasn’t exactly the safest place.

Plus, I was sure that God-Emperor probably loved me singing and exalting them; if not, then why did he make them Saints in the first place? We had a deal, me and the God-Emperor. I would sing his praises, and he would keep giving me blessings. At least, I mean, he hadn’t said no yet, so I figured that was binding on his part.

She snorted and said, “Well, how about you go train your running? And take your dad his lunch. He is all the way outside the city, just past the north gates.” Then why didn’t he take lunch with him, I wanted to ask. But instead, I nodded because that would train my Running. It also seemed like Mom was less opposed to me doing these less-than-feminine things, for example, running a league or so to bring your dad lunch. I mean, it wasn’t a big deal; I woke up early and ran at least two leagues every morning.

I ran a little bit more every morning, and I was eventually going to get to the point where I ran around the entire perimeter of the city, although that might take a few years. Eventually, though, this would reach a rate of diminishing returns as I would eventually get such a level in Running that my speed would be a bit supernatural. Or at least, I hoped so! When that happened, I decided I would do sprints inside The Secret Place. Each accommodation level there was supposed to house one million people, so there were corridors that were leagues long, straight into the side of the Mountain.

I had already determined, with my giant brain, that there used to be these moving walkways that transported people in the long corridors, but they were not working, so I could use them for sprints. I yelled, “Oh-kay!” and secured my Dexterity Training Device on the table before running upstairs to my room to change into clothes suitable for running. It was pants, time!

As I changed and buckled on my belt, I blinked at my finger. The wound was completely gone. I put it in my mouth and sucked on it, and I couldn’t detect anything either, not even the coppery taste of a mostly healed cut. Wow! It had only been a couple of hours since I cut my finger. I knew my skill Gamer’s Body said many injuries would be “more rapidly healed”, but who wanted to test that? And there was rapid, and then there was whatever this was! This was so rapid that I would have to be careful, as this was something that could easily be noticed.

Glancing at my sword in its sheathe in my room, I paused before I grabbed it. I was leaving the city, technically, and it was dangerous out there! I put it on my belt and ran out of the house with a rather heavy pail that contained my dad’s lunch.

“Maximum speed… start!” I yelled as I started sprinting down the street, heading north and gathering a number of stares from people as I went.

---

I found Dad a little way outside of the city, where he was overseeing the training of his new Regiment. Although he had a core of competent Sergeants, he had told us all that almost the entire Regiment was comprised of brand new recruits, and he had been training, or rather retraining them for months.

Fighting with lasguns and grenades was a lot different than spears and bows; even I knew that.

One of Dad’s subordinate officers, with a group of rankers, stopped my sprint with a held-out hand and yelled, “Halt! Who are you then?” I glanced at the man, not recognising him, but he had the look of a man who came up through the ranks, which wasn’t surprising.

I started panting a little bit but still put one of my hands on my hips, challengingly, “Lieutenant! I am Piper Eversly! I’m here to deliver lunch to your commanding officer.”

One of his men frowned, “Don’t think we should let anyone armed near the Lieutenant Colonel, sir. Not regulation.”

That got an astonished look from the older Lieutenant, who said, “Are you daft? That’s his daughter; I think if his daughter wants to kill the Colonel, it isn’t any of our business.”

“I dinnae think you can stop me, anyway! I am unstoppable!” I yelled and darted past this group of men to a number of chuckles. I wasn’t stupid, though. I didn’t think I was stronger than a grown man… yet. However, any one of my dad’s men who had the bright idea to put their hands on his Regimental Commander’s daughter was probably too stupid to live anyway, so I did feel I was unstoppable… at least, by these particular men.

I found Dad, along with his headquarters element, set up next to most of the vehicles. It seemed like the core cadre of his Regiment was drilling the rest in both formations, marksmanship and defensive emplacements, as they had targets set up for practice, and some of the men were digging foxholes.

“Piper! What are you doing out here?” he asked, but walked over and picked me up a bit and spun me around as I liked. I grinned and said, “You must have forgotten your lunch or something because Mom had me run it out to you.” I lifted up the thin tin pail and offered it to him.

He chuckled, “I was going to eat the field rations like the rest of my men, but honestly, now I think that was a bit premature. Our field kitchens and mess cooks are, perhaps, needing a little remedial training of their own.”

“Where’s ye artillery component, Daddy?” I asked, and then continued, “According to Manual of an Infantryman, an Imperial Guard Regiment should have at least one battery of mobile or towed artillery.”

He blinked down at me, “Just what kind of books do they have in Church? I expected you to be reading all about Saints and the like.” He shook his head, “But to answer your question, we aren’t an Imperial Guard Regiment, and even if we were, I think that is more of a preference that the Astra Militarum puts out than a requirement as tithed Regiments can vary widely in both size and quality.”

Hmm. I supposed that was true. I also was just reminded of what Sister Lucia had said. If Bolters were verboten, then I supposed larger explosives were too. Still, they could have had large crew-served Melta guns or something. Anything more than a bunch of straight infantrymen. Something with more power to keep Dad safer.

He grinned down at me, “While you’re here, do you want to learn how to shoot a lasgun?” Was that even a question?!

He detailed one of his NCOs to take me over to the range, and after a brief explanation of how to operate a lasgun — it was incredibly simple — I got to fire it. The first shot was close to the target, and almost immediately I received a notification.

[Skill Marksmanship – Light gained at LV3.]

** Marksmanship – Light (LV3): Increases your base accuracy and target acquisition speed with man-portable lightspeed weapons by 5+LV*(LV*0.10)% [5.9%].

Woah! Three levels, all at once? I got praised by the Sergeant, although he said, “Not bad for a girl. Go ahead and go through that entire power cell, and I’ll have another for you in a moment.” Then he walked up and down the line and yelled, “A little girl is better at this than you worthless maggots!”

Heh.

Why did I get three levels when I got the skill, though? I thought and then nodded. I already had Marksmanship – Ballistic at level five. There clearly was a fair bit of overlap on the skill, so it made sense I got “credit” from what I already knew.

I aimed down the sights again.

---

I finished my fifteenth power cell and was about to start another one when I got a notice that my “temporary effect” was no longer affecting me. Wait… had I been out here that long? I supposed I had. I had gotten four more levels of Marksmanship – Light, after all.

I sat the lasgun down and glanced around. Well, no time like the present. I chose a slightly different prayer, although it was one along the same vein. Not surprisingly, there were many, many prayers for protection against the Warp.

I also tried to really feel like I meant the prayer, and that wasn’t really difficult because I really did feel like I needed constant protection against the Warp, “Oh, mighty Emperor, guide us true. From the Warp’s malevolent grasp, shield us through. With your unyielding light, our souls protect, and in this dark cosmos, your grace, we’ll reflect.”

[Skill Prayer gained at LV1.]

** Prayer (LV1): Increases effectiveness and chances to be answered while conducting prayers to higher entities. For each level of this skill, increase the effect of an answered prayer by n%. n starts at 1, and every six levels, n increases by one. Generally, only one effect will be increased, be it duration or power. [1%]

[Temporary effect ‘Emperor’s Blessing of Protection Against the Empyrean’ gained. Duration: 06:03:35]

Prayer was a skill?! The numbers will go up for sure! Hahaha! Sister Jorus would start to think I am more pious than her if I could get numbers to go up by praying.

Reading the description of the skill, I frowned. This wasn’t just a simple nonlinear algebra expression like most of the others were. I thought about it. One through five should give me one per cent each, and six through eleven should give me two. So at level twelve, should I get a twenty percent bonus on prayers?

But at level twenty, it would more than double that at close to fifty. This provided very little benefit at first, but it would slowly accelerate over time. My fingers itched to have a piece of paper to try to figure it out. What would the bonus be at level fifty? Uhh… I used my fingers for this one. 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48… Two hundred and forty-two per cent? That’s a lot!

[Skill Calculation gained at LV1.]

** Calculation (LV1): Increases the speed that you perform mental calculations by LV*10+(LV*(LV*0.1)% [10.1%].

I grinned and shivered! Was it this easy?! Why hadn’t I gotten this skill before?! Certainly, none of the math I had done in the past on my own or even in school was that hard. Even this wasn’t, but it was different enough that I had to really think about it. Was that it? Time to do harder math, then!

Well, today had been a red-letter day. It was a shame that my Prayer only seemed to increase the duration of the God-Emperor’s blessing, but it seemed like it was already a pretty strong blessing.

Still… what would happen if I got really high in this skill and then Prayed for someone to get smote? There was no duration there, so it would have to increase the power. Could I accidentally blow myself up? I’m sure the God-Emperor would only send down the appropriate level of smiting, but if I was nearby and the smiting got increased by several hundred per cent? Friendly fire wasn’t! My dad had told me that enough times.

“Hey, Piper… you ready to go home?” Dad asked, and I glanced around.

I nodded, “Yeah! What about all of your troops, though?”

He scowled, “Oh, they’re staying the night. And maybe tomorrow night, too!” But he grinned, “But rank has some privileges, so let’s head back.”