My ears perked up as I caught a sound very much like a pained breath esg someone's lips just before they caught themselves. I smiled widely as my steps accelerated, and this awkward silence would end finally, both of my panions were brooding so hard that I was feeliant to interrupt them without reason but thankfully someone was niough to do so in my pbsp;Not that I needed any distra from having no damned idea how to get out of this sub-dimension, all. I wasn't. "Someone is in here, close," I said, jumping over a colpsed statue that had some crushed bones underh it with a rge skull making it evident that the being that was unfortunate enough to die here was an Ork. "Who?" "Not sure," I shrugged, jogging towards the sound as I kept my eyes out for any would-be ambushers even if none of my senses caught anything other than this one person, "I only hear a pained breathing from....there." I poiowards what looked like a pile of bloody cloth and some gore from the dista as I got close the surroundings became clearer. The floor was filled with corpses in several states of messed up from diced to crushed all the way to burned and with a little bit of everything iween. I snatched up a few ks more or less sneakily as I went past them and got the sehat most of them were very damned weird, as in a mix of fungus and normal biology. Tiny tendrils that couldn't be seen with the naked eye crept over the broken stone pavement and rushed at the many fallen remains of what I assumed were orcs, before the other two could even e close enough to see the corpses none of them remained aside from a single on that wasn't quite a corpse yet and he wasn't much of an ork either from the looks of it. He was under one of the bigger and more intact fungal monsters before I gobbled it up and so even as he y there half-sciously from the looks of it, he could still make out that something was happening. "You look like an Eldar," I noted as I kneeled down in front of him so I could look him straight in the eye, "how're you doing?" "Not good," he gurgled with a meaningful gnce down at the Orkish poing into his gut, I looked at him with a bit of awe, one cw was almost as rge as this guy's head and he was still alive with it poking into and out of him. "An Eldar?" "An acute observation, ex-captain." "Do you know your way around this part of the webway?" I asked, letting my palm rest on the powercw as I stared into his vibrant amethyst-colored eyes. "Yes," he wheezed, his head even nodding a bit. "Alrighty," I nodded, "I'll heal you and you will lead us to a that leads to somewhere safe for us, nod if you agree?" He nodded, his half-dead gaze gaining a calg edge as he stared at me. "This will hurt...I think," I said as I ripped the cw out of him, earning myself a primal scream cut off as he locked his jaw. My other palm came to rest above his injury as I first flooded him with bimantic, — Biomancy-tibsp;fuck, whatever— healing and once he was starting to look a bit better II pced my palm on the slowly healing wound and flooded him with tiny tendrils of my eldritch flesh, they quickly ate up all the dead flesh aled in to replicate all his missing bones, ans, muscles and skin based on my Eldar geic tempte. As I retracted my hand the st of my eldritch tendril retracted from him and only a fully healed Eldar staring bnkly at his healed stomach was left. I stepped bace as my cheek came to rest on my upheld right fist, my head tilted as I flickered my eyes all over his form. The Eldar was tall, I could tell that much even if he was sitting at the moment, at least two meters tall if not more and his long bck hair must have been smooth and silky befetting doused in blood. He had artistic high cheekbones and an angur jawlihat went well with his thin face, his eyes as I said were amethyst and were a bit angled and rger than the size of his face would suggest for a human. "Why did you heal him?" Selene hissed at me as I watched him rise to his feet. "He will guide us." "Eldar hardly be trusted." "Experience or hearsay?" I g her. "Experience," she grimaced, "they'd do the most outndish things if it was required by one of their hair-brained prophecies." "Let's hope he wants us out of his precious little webway as much as we want to leave this pce behind." I had no illusion that he couldn't hear us, we were standing barely five meters away from him and those pointy ears had to be useful for something aside from aesthetibsp;"Greetings," the man started once he collected himself, you wouldn't be faulted for fetting him nearly dying not long ago if it weren't for the gaping hole in the front of his robe and the overall bloody state of his clothing, "I am Valenith, from Craftworld Ulthwé. Thank you for saving my life." "If you io keep your word then there is no need for thanks," I retorted, daring him to go ba his words. "I don't io," he said, "tally there is supposed to be a disabled Gateway just that way," he pointed right where we came from and Selene was starting to give him stinky looks. "tally," I said, "we came through that Gateway," he stared at me, his rge eyes going wide, "I don't think that gate is funal with it being in quite a few parts after Zedev there decided to 'shut it down'." Zedev of course, said nothing, far too distracted by unblinkingly staring at the live Eldar right in front of him. "So you came through the Ariath Gateway," he was now staring into space, then his gaze moved betweehree of us like he was evaluating us or judging us by some weird metric, his eyes stopped at me and I think I felt some energy brush against my skin which made me grimad gave me goosebumps, "Yes, I will escort you to wherever you wish to go." The feeli as quickly as it came and I stared at him dubiously as he stood there, looking quite satisfied with himself for some reason. "So," I started before Selene could say whatever was brewing in that frowny little head of hers, "is there anateway nearby that leads to a safe pce? I don't want to end up in a spacehulk or something." "Nearby...not as such but it is certainly reachable," he took on a pensive expression, "By myself, I doubt I'd be able to reach it as the way there is ied with Orks and Drukhari raiders scout it for any 'fresh meat' that'd wander into the area, but with your assistance, I think it'd be possible." "How far is it?" I asked, unwilling to think about why that 'you' didn't feel plural but singur and refereng me. "I could reach it in a day if it weren't for the obstrus," he grimaced, "but with your slower speed I'd say a week." "Great," I nodded, "you lead the way." "Magos, I'd be thankful if you could keep an eye on him for me." "Uood," he said, much too happy to tinue visually disseg the Aeldari. I fell into step behind them right o Selene, our pace was faster than before as the space elf led with i behind his steps while my leading before leant more towards wandering into a vague dire. I stared at his back as tendrils of soul energy extended out of me and started poking and prodding at him, I was being careful to see whether or not he'd notice but for now, I seemed to be in the clear. I wasn't too worried about being noticed though, he was doing the same to me before and I wasn't going to apologize for doing it to him. He didn't have any energy actively in his body so I couldn't just 'taste' what sort of energy went through him, instead I wao see how it'd feel for my energy to gh him. I started small, infinitesimal tendrils of soul energy seeped into him and started expl around whatever psychic pathways he used. These pathways were metaphysical in a way, sort of like my mindscape if leaning a bit more towards realspastead of the immaterium. I could feel it with my energy but I knew I wouldn't see a thing even with the best microscope if I were to dissect him. I had an urge to just burst into him with all my power and yank his soul and mind to me through that e I felt deep within him, to extract whatever knowledge and experience he had from there. He was alive, unlike all the humans and stuff I found and my panions wouldn't make a fuss about me killing an Eldar. I wasn't sure I could get anything as I didn't do mind diving before but I was sure I'd get something. I was itg to get my hands on some actual psychiow-how and this man seemed to have turies of experieh them. I WA. I . "You know my grandmother took me on one of her voyages when I was young," all my dark urges were pushed into the depths of my mind as I tore my gaze away from the sweating back of the Eldar. Selene was annoyingly enough, staring right where I was staring a moment ago with a sort of nostalgic look that could easily be mistaken for a dreamy one, "it was a short journey looking ba it, it barely took a year. We went to trade with a smaller craftworld I think, or maybe it was an Exodite world." "So this isn't your first time seeing an Eldar?" I put a smile on my face as I wondered if I'd have stopped myself from pig apart the Eldar were it not for Seleerrupting me. "No," she shook her head with a geion, "I thought they were beautiful back then, they were so elegant and graceful that my young self didn't notice the signs of barely hidden arrogance." "That they even tried to hide it speaks volumes of yrandmother." "I guess so," she sighed wistfully and I had the tact to not ask about what happeo the woman, "sihen I've run into different groups of them and the ohing I learned is that they'd sughter a human world filled with i children if it saved the life of a single Eldar." "That's abht," I nodded. "I know you have a reason to 'trust' that o keep what I said in mind," she said with a sideway gnbsp;"Well," I smiled at her, "I saved one Eldar life so far so a bit of guidance for us shouldn't be too much to ask," I turned my gaze to the back of uide, "but it also be seen as him ag like a good guide to preserve an Eldar life." When I looked back at Selene she was smirking which made me smile too. I wonder if I could bully him into teag me about psychic powers. P3t1