Wang Zhong exchanged glances with the players behind him.
The late M30.
The Great Crusade was nearing its thousandth year.
That meant...
"The Emperor is still out there?"
Wang Zhong pressed, "What about Terra?"
"Th-the Emperor is, of course, still leading the Great Crusade..."
Jeremy looked a little bewildered. "Terra... is the holy homeworld. What about it?"
"What about Horus?"
Tax Brother cut in.
"Horus?!"
"Lord Horus is naturally the Emperor's most capable right hand..."
Jeremy looked even more confused. "Why... why are you asking about these things?"
The players had a good idea now.
Timeline confirmed: late M30, the Great Crusade at its height, and the Horus Heresy had yet to begin.
This was the tail end of the Dark Age of Technology, though to the people at the bottom of this Hive City, the Dark Age of Technology was no different from hell.
"Second question," Wang Zhong continued, pressing his gun muzzle closer. "Who controls Aurelian IV right now?"
"Who's the Imperial Governor? What are the local powers?"
Jeremy swallowed, then began speaking through the pain.
"Aurelian... nominally falls under the jurisdiction of the Imperium's Eastern Fringe, but the Four Great Groups hold actual control."
"The Simans Chamber of Commerce controls commerce and people's livelihoods. The Alu Pharmaceutical Group are their lackeys..."
"The Adons Knight Family controls the military and mining, while the Khomo Psionic Family controls education and the upper echelons..."
"Then there's the Mechanicus branch, the Cult of the Machine Thought. They handle technology."
"The Imperial Governor..."
Jeremy gave a smile more pitiful than a grimace. "He's just a figurehead who collects taxes. Once he's collected the Tithe, he doesn't bother with anything else."
"The Imperium doesn't care about what happens on a planet as long as it doesn't openly rebel."
This intelligence largely matched the players' earlier guesses.
"Third question," Wang Zhong said, pushing his gun muzzle closer again. "What happened here eighty years ago?"
"Have you heard the phrase 'District 7 fell'?"
Jeremy's face went deathly pale.
His pupils contracted, and his body began to tremble uncontrollably, as if he'd heard something utterly terrifying.
"How, how do you know... Th-that was forbidden..."
"Talk."
Wang Zhong's finger rested on the trigger.
"I'll talk! I'll talk!"
Jeremy broke down, speaking at a frantic pace.
"Eighty years ago... the Imperial Primarch, Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands, personally led the Iron Hands Legion to Aurelian."
"The planet's ruler at the time was the Black Royal Family. They worshipped some kind of... heretical deity and refused to join the Imperium."
"The Arar Family was the strongest family of Psykers under their command, controlling most of the planet's psychic resources."
"The Primarch gave them one last ultimatum: surrender or be destroyed."
"The Black Royal Family chose to resist... and then..."
Jeremy's voice dropped, heavy with fear.
"The Iron Hands Legion took only seven days to destroy the royal capital, Dawn City."
"The entire Black Royal Family was exterminated, and the Arar Family's Psykers were all arrested. They were supposedly sent to a Black Ship..."
"And District 7... that was Dawn City's seventh administrative district. It collapsed during an orbital bombardment and fell to the ground."
"Millions of people... gone in an instant."
"Only after that did the Chamber of Commerce rise to power, dividing up Aurelian's power vacuum with the other factions."
When Jeremy finished, he slumped down as if utterly spent.
"No one dares speak openly about those things anymore..."
"The Chamber of Commerce and the Knight Family destroyed all the related records... who are you people...?"
Wang Zhong holstered his laspistol and stood up.
He looked at the players and spoke over the channel:
[Loyal to the Emperor Forever]: "The timeline's confirmed."
"It's late M30. The Iron Hands Primarch came here eighty years ago, slaughtered the local powers, and then the Four Great Groups rose to power."
[Mechanicus Oil-Lover on the Run]: "That fits Warhammer canon."
"During the Great Crusade, the Iron Hands Legion was known for its cold efficiency. There are plenty of records of them destroying the powers that controlled worlds that resisted."
[Schrodinger's Loyalist]: "So this shithole under our feet got slaughtered by a Primarch just eighty years ago? No wonder it's so oppressive..."
[Soul of Cadia]: "Wait, the Iron Hands Primarch... isn't that the one Fulgrim beheaded on Isstvan V later on?"
[Tau-kun, you are right, but Bolter is righter]:
"That's right. It's him."
"So he's still alive, and Horus hasn't rebelled yet... shit, does that mean the Heresy is at most a few decades away?"
The players felt a weight settle in their hearts.
Knowing the timeline only made them feel more desperate.
Because it meant that in a few decades, Horus would unleash a rebellion that swept across the galaxy, half the Primarchs would turn traitor, the Emperor would take his seat on the Golden Toilet, and humanity would enter its darkest ten thousand years.
And what could they, five thousand players who'd just earned a little over three hundred coins, possibly change?
"For now, we can't change the bigger picture."
Wang Zhong spoke over the channel, his tone calm.
"But we still have time to grow stronger."
He looked at Jeremy. "Three last questions."
"First, besides the main entrance, what other exits from the Refinery lead outside?"
Jeremy didn't dare hide anything. "The Raw Material Transport Tunnel, in the northwest corner. Your companion already went that way..."
"There's also the Wastewater Discharge Pipeline underground on the west side, but there's a filter screen and a guard post there..."
"A-and there's an Emergency Maintenance Tunnel under the Central Control Room, but its entrance collapsed..."
"Second, what's the situation in the other sections? Which ones have the fewest guards? Where's the valuable stuff?"
"The East District is the Raw Material Pre-processing Plant. It doesn't have many guards..."
"The South District is the Finished Goods Warehouse and Transport Station. It has more guards, but there are lots of freshly refined Promethium rods and high-purity metals..."
"The North District is the Employee Living Area. There's nothing valuable there..."
"Third," Wang Zhong crouched down and looked Jeremy in the eyes. "Do you want to live?"
Jeremy nodded frantically.
"Good."
Wang Zhong stood and gave Tax Brother a meaningful look.
Tax Brother came over, grabbed Jeremy, and shoved him toward the northwest corner. "Follow the workers. Whether you make it is up to your luck."
Jeremy thanked them profusely, then stumbled off.
Wang Zhong watched him disappear behind the ruins, then abruptly raised his laspistol.
He took aim.
He pulled the trigger.
"Hiss!"
A searing beam pierced the back of Jeremy's head.
He didn't even make a sound before collapsing face-first onto the ground.
The players froze.
"Brother Loyalty, what was that..." Xue Brother frowned.
Wang Zhong holstered his gun, his voice cold.
"He's a foreman. Even if all he did was keep accounts, he was still part of the system of oppression."
"And he knew too much: that we're unusual, that we're ignorant of history, that we're desperate for information."
"If we let him go, he might return to the Chamber of Commerce and sell us out completely."
He looked at the players.
"Remember, brothers, this is the Warhammer World."
"Showing mercy to the enemy is cruelty to ourselves."
"We save the workers because they're the oppressed."
"We kill the foremen because they're the oppressors."
"Simple. Very Warhammer."
Before you continue