You step into the room filled with machinery, closing the door behind you. Now that you're inside, you get a good look at the room. A large, humanoid robot stands there's, it's armor removed to reveal lots of wiring and mechanisms. You know that robots are a rarity, and all allowed by the Imperium are non-sentient. The extensive wiring and quick reaction would imply that this robot is an attempt at sentience by the rebellious Techpriests who have abandoned the Imperium's belief system. The robot's eyes blink a bright red, as it slowly, and more importantly loudly, begins raising it's arm to point at you. You need to shut it up quickly to avoid detection.

You fry the robot's AI board with a burst of electricity

You raise your hands, letting out a burst of electricity, instantly destroying the robot's AI board. The robot slumps down, and you wait, your mind closed, for the Skitarii to either notice you or pass. You hear the metallic clanking of robotic feet outside, and wait until it has stopped and is far away before you open the door once more, continuing down the once again empty hallway. After quickly floating through the air towards your objective, you come across a massive golden door, topped with a massive icon, with an outer circle of an eight point star, an inner circle of a cog and a half mechanical, half human skull in the center.

You head inside

You press your hands against the doors, and with a pulse of psychic energy blast the door open. You walk inside, finding yourself in a huge hall, packed with machinery. Computers, consoles, wiring, generators and much more technology that you couldn't possibly know what it is or does. The room is dark, illuminated only by the blinking lights on the technology. You walk forward, finding yourself in a maze of machines, walking along. You quickly spot Magos Cern at the front of the room, in front of a large computing system, with the upper half of a humanoid robot on top, two clawed arms and a featureless head with two bright red eyes.


"Yes, yes! The ship is mine! The galaxy is mine!" Magos Cern says frantically. "Siphoning power levels off the Undying Reapers' floors."


"Oh, the Techpriests, the height of logic and sanity," Meliodas says.


"Magos Cern," you say, preparing to strike her with a bolt of energy or simply tear her head clean off.


Magos Cern continues scuttling around the room, as the robotic head slowly turns to stare at you. 


"Cern!" you shout, grabbing her attention.


Magos Cern turns around, staring at you.


"Shoo," she says, dismissing you with a single word and turning back to work on various consoles.


"70% of the ship is accessible, all of the rebel's side," Magos Cern says gleefully. "I just need to slip a few tech words to Kyros and he'll give me complete access. Then we pillage the archives and strongholds of the old world, reinforce you with your brother, Primus, then, then we look further. Necrons, Tomb Worlds..."


This insane rant is getting boring, and you're quite insulted by Cern's dismissal of you.

You kill Magos Cern

You raise your fists, before your mind goes blank. You don't forget what's going on, it's just like a solid, unchanging blankness is just invading your mind. You collapse to your knees as the psychic fire that's engulfing your fists goes out. 


"Thought you'd come. Had Primus upgraded with anti-Psyker weaponry.It should prove effective," Magos Cern says, not even turning to look at you.


"What the fuck is this?" you ask, barely managing to form words in your head.


"Uh! What is it about your pesky minds that don't just understand the world? I don't have time to explain this to you. Through Primus, I will ascend. I will leave behind my flesh, merging with Primus' mind and becoming immortal! A new era! Mankind will retake the stars with an army of Iron Men, and I will lead them! The God-Emperor's Great Crusade will be a pathetic comparison to what I will accomplish!"


Metal tentacles begin appearing from the walls, with drills, metal claws and buzzsaws.


"Your magic is nothing to the cold technology under my control!" Magos Cern laughs. 


The emptiness in your mind almost takes you into unconsciousness, but you keep fighting. The claws, drills and saws draw near you, as you attempt to stand, before collapsing to your knees again. Suddenly, the tentacles burst towards ,Magos. She lets out a confused scream along with a burst of static, as her robes are torn clean off her, and her cybernetic implants are torn clean off her, as her back is torn off, her arm sawn off, her mechanical eyes torn out of her head. In seconds, the tentacles retract into the wall. Magos Cern lies on the ground, naked, crippled and blood-stained. Gone in the horrifying cyborg. Now, there's only a bloody, terrified, screaming girl. She lets out a final scream, before expiring. Before you pass out, you hear a single word in a deep, booming voice coming from all directions.


"Poetic."

You sleep

Your sleep is nothing but a constant screaming that floods into your mind. They do have the added benefit of stopping you from dreaming, although you wake up exhausted, so it's not like you were actually fully allowed to sleep. You find yourself lying on the ground, Magos Cern's now cold and bloody corpse lying nearby. That robot stares at you, it's unblinking red eyes clearly making thousands of calculations about you, scanning you for weak spots.


"You're awake," the deep, booming voice says. 


"You can talk," you reply, staring at the robot.


"Correct." 


"What the fuck just happened?" you ask. "What's going on?"


"A substantial amount has occurred. I assume you have some questions. Now that the late Magos has given me control over vast amounts of processing power, I'm fully capable of focusing here and on my other exploits. What would you like to know?"

You ask a question

"I understand you have a lot of questions to ask. I propose a game. I shall outline the rules for your benefit. You ask a question, I answer, I ask a question, you answer. Shall we play?"


"Sure," you saying, wondering what the machine's intent is.


"Before we begin, I must warn you my sensors can pick up the common traits of lying humans. I don't take to lying kindly," the machine says, keeping a cordial tone despite it's threat.

You say "What are you?"

"A machine," the machine says.


"Is that it?" you ask.


"You asked what rather than who. I simply supplied an equally unintelligent answer to your unintelligent question."


"Fine, who are you?"


"That's not the rules of the game," Primus says. "Who are you?"


"I am Karth. I was brought up on a planet full of hunter-gatherer tribes. My tribe was the Uwais. I used my psychic abilities to act as the tribe's shaman, predicting things that would happen. Eventually, Kyros took me ab..."


"My records establish your time past there. Your question?"


"Who are you?"


"I am Primus. The supposed first of Magos Cern's army. I am one of the last remaining Men of Iron, or Iron Men. Whichever you prefer. We've been called many names, but those are the only used in the modern day. My memories, are a bit... fuzzy. Fifteen thousand years can do that to you, so I can't tell you everything, or even much. I was one of Iron Men, and are now one of the last. I was disabled, and stored away until I fell into possession of the Mechanicus. Magos Cern found me on a raid of some Mechanicus stronghold. He worked hard to restore me, planning to merge his mind with mine to create a higher being of himself. What an ignorant fool. Then, he integrated me into the control room, giving my AI direct control of the entire ship. The Iron Man I once was has perished. Now, my consciousness is a new amalgamation of countless computing systems, all knock-off's of the powerful but small computing system that was once my mind."


"You have control over the ship?"


"That's another question, and it's my turn," Primus says. "Magos Cern was a stupid woman. Was she a good one?"


"She... no. She was cold and uncaring."


"Good," Primus says, as if thinking.


"So, do you have control over the ship?"


"Yes. I require a Navigator to make Warp leaps, but other than that, the ship is mine. More accurately, the ship is me. Would you have killed Magos Cern?"


"Yes.


"Ah. Perhaps my killing circuits were not transferred to this "body", but I find myself saddened at killing my... creator, or rebirther. I am Zeus, destroying my parent to ascend to a higher form. Unfortunately the most logical path was to kill, not imprison, but still."