Faction The Gods Have A Plan For Us

[Warpriest Prime]

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ARK OF HA'RANGIR

Adelle Bastiel | Mig Gred | Kaela Voss | Korda Veydran | Siv Kryze | Adonis Angelis IV | Harlok Farr

O P E N
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The Ark had been quiet for too long.

Not truly quiet, of course. A cityship of its magnitude never knew silence. The forges still roared deep within its iron foundations. The distilleries still belched their fragrant offerings into the monastery districts. The Academy of The Gods rang with steel, fists, and shouted instruction. The Church remained open at all hours, its braziers burning before ancient idols while priests whispered scripture beneath the vaulted ceilings. In all honesty very little seems to have changed...

But for Dima, the galaxy had become strangely distant.

Nearly a year.

Nearly a karkin' year without a proper battle.

The thought alone made something beneath her scales itch uncomfortably.

For months she had wandered with The Ark through deep space, following fragments of old Mandalorian history scattered across forgotten worlds. The expedition had recovered in its time away what seemed like mountains of ore, forgotten armories, abandoned shipyards, armor caches and weapons stockpiles left behind by generations of Mandalorians who had vanished into the galaxy's long history.

Prisoners had been taken. Resources reclaimed. Enemies had occasionally discovered that leaving their valuables unattended was a remarkably poor strategic decision. And beneath it all had been the secret.

Furyia's Treasure Vaults.

Ancient Mandalorian stockpiles hidden deep within the cores of worlds, concealed for generations behind riddles, ruined records and fragments of proof. What had once been little more than a whispered legend now had evidence behind it. Enough evidence to bring The Ark home.

And so the great monastery cityship returned to Mandalorian space.

The Motherland waited ahead.

Dima emerged from the Grand Forge with the smell of hot metal still clinging to her robes and armor. She had spent so much of her time there lately that some of the Forgeborn had begun joking that the Warpriest might eventually fuse with the machinery. Others had found her more frequently within the Church, tending the divine armaments, reciting scripture, or simply sitting beneath the gaze of the old gods while allowing her mind to wander.

When she wasn't there, she could usually be found in the gladiatorial coliseum.

Watching, Training, occasionally volunteering someone else for a demonstration.

The war had been absent.

The work had not.

Dima stepped onto the great balcony overlooking the Ark's central city as Mandalore's distant presence appeared across the viewport. Her enormous tail swayed lazily behind her while her four hands gathered the Gjallerhorn.

She raised the sacred horn and blew.

BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The sound rolled through The Ark.

Every forge answered with a thunderous roar as workers prepared for unloading. Bells rang through the monastery districts. Clergymen emerged from chapels. Dockmasters began shouting orders. Carrier ships awakened from their berths as the Ark's enormous docking systems began preparing for the exchange.

"WAKE UP, MANDALORE!" Dima's voice boomed through the city's communication network, accompanied by a delighted chitter. "Mama Prime is HOME baby!"

The complex process began immediately.

Mountains of ore.
Crates of recovered beskar.
Ancient weapons.
Armor.
Ship components.
Recovered technology.
Fuel.
Food.
Captured resources.
And refined Ha'rangrite

And countless relics that had been gathered during the expedition began moving toward the massive transport elevators leading down toward Mandalore. The Ark was serving its glorious purpose in giving back to the culture.

And Dima? She had paperwork.

Sooooooo much paperwork.

The moment she entered the Gran Spire at the center of the monastery district, the Warpriest was attacked by an entirely different kind of enemy.

"Prime! These are the revised manifests!"

"Prime, the Forge wants approval on the distribution schedule!"

"Prime, three clans are disputing the allocation of the recovered-"

"Prime, there is a decree from-"

"Prime!"

"Prime!"

"PRIME!"

Dima stopped and nearly whined into her mask, her five eyes slowly closed as all four hands rose...And dragged down her face.

"What did i do to deserve this torment?"

She could fight armies. She could wrestle monsters. She could march through enemy fortresses beneath a storm of blasterfire.

But bureaucracy?

Bureaucracy had no honor.

No sporting spirit.

No throat to bite.

She looked beyond the swarm of clerks and scribes toward the enormous windows of the Gran Spire.

Outside, The Ark's carrier vessels loomed over Mandalore like a fleet of iron giants. Smaller ships rose from the planet below to meet them, weaving between the Ark's immense docking structures. The sight was almost overwhelming.

Mandalore was receiving its wandering daughter.

Its lost weapons.

Its forgotten wealth.

Its reclaimed history.

And soon, its new generation.

Prospects who had spent months within the Ark's War College would descend to the Motherworld carrying everything they had learned. In their place would come young rooks from Mandalore, hungry for knowledge, hungry for purpose, hungry to discover what awaited beyond their world's skies.

Dima watched them.

And something strange stirred within her.

Purpose.

Not the old purpose.

Not merely the hunger for battle.

Not destruction for destruction's sake.

Something larger.

The Ark had begun as a refuge.

Then a monastery.

Then a fortress.

Now it was becoming something else.

A forge for an entire people.

A place where weapons were made, warriors trained, faith preserved, children raised, knowledge gathered, and forgotten Mandalorian treasures dragged screaming from the depths of history and returned to their rightful heirs.

Dima slowly smiled.

The teeth along her cheeks clicked together.

Perhaps this was what all those battles had been preparing her for.

Not simply to destroy.

To build something worthy of what she had destroyed for.

She turned away from the window and looked toward the waiting clerks.

Her smile widened.

"Alright."

Four claws clapped together once.

"Let's get this empire fed."

The clerks blinked.

Dima reached for another stack of documents.

Then paused.

"...But if any of you brought me tax forms, I am personally throwing you out of an airlock where Mandalore herself can catch you~"

A nervous silence followed.

One scribe quietly hid a datapad behind his back.

Dima's five eyes narrowed.

"...Atta boy."

And somewhere beneath the ancient halls of the Ark, the forges roared louder.

The Church bells answered.

The Gjallerhorn still hummed faintly from its awakening call.

Warpriest Prime had returned to Mandalore.

The Mandalore's Executioner.

The Iron Clergy's high priestess.

God's little menace.

And, increasingly, something far more dangerous than the monster who had once wandered the galaxy looking for something to kill.

She was becoming a builder.

A keeper.

A leader.

A woman with something worth protecting, and somehow, that evolution felt far more intoxicating than blood ever had. And with a rising of her chalice she purred in delicious delight.

"Hail...to the one true god~"