Must Be Completed
The bottom level of the 10th Battalion's flagship, the Relic-class warship Sting Rose.
The Apothecaries of the Shadow of Order habitually placed their laboratories in the deepest parts of the warship.
Lord Ramsey walked down the spiral staircase to the entrance of the laboratory hung with the spiral emblem. The moment he stepped inside, his vision immediately darkened.
The Shadow of Order's laboratory was not as clean and bright as those of other Legions. There were no polished walls or brilliant lights.
All the light came from the surrounding silos. Bright illumination lit the operating tables, where the Apothecaries supervised the Legion's medical servitors as they performed modification surgeries.
The light shone out from them, growing dimmer the closer it came to the central experiment table.
Ramsey's gaze shifted, and he adapted to the gloom.
His high, straight nose trembled slightly. As the foremost expert in the biochemical field beneath the Primarchs, acknowledged even by Hathor Maat, Temple Master of the Thousand Sons' Pavoni, he could clearly sense the bottles of fresh blood sealed within stasis vessels and Runes.
Ramsey knew that the Apothecaries to whom the Black Emperor had granted wondrous powers had favored blood food ever since becoming Barons.
They usually fed on the blood of Kraken and other Fenrisian beasts sent by the Space Wolves. It had been this way ever since the Black Emperor crushed and beat Russ on Duran.
Occasionally, they also consumed the eponymous beasts sent by the Salamanders, a testament to Lord Vulkan's friendship with the Black Emperor.
"My lord." The Battalion's Apothecaries bowed in greeting. Ramsey nodded back and said to Chief Apothecary Mikel, "I captured thirteen Bone-Drinker parasites."
Mikel stared at Ramsey. Seeing no container or the like behind him, he understood that Ramsey must have used some