Archmagos Overseer Antonia looked at the strange group before him.
If the memories in his storage banks were correct, he recalled that the captain generally held the greatest authority in the Imperial Navy.
Yet now, a man in white robes stood at the head of the group, with a magos and a captain flanking him.
"*...*￥##￥%..."
"Tell me why you have come, Imperial Navy."
Bona looked at the fellow before him, who probably had only a few scraps of flesh left on his entire body. Through his psychic sight, he could see that the man's life hung by a thread, sustained entirely by those mechanical devices.
Bona knew little about the mysterious Adeptus Mechanicus. Everything he knew about it came from Captain Dakan and Horus's accounts.
The Adeptus Mechanicus had originally been a power entrenched on Mars. Before the Great Crusade began, the Emperor had personally visited Mars and, through some unknown means, persuaded the Adeptus Mechanicus to join the Imperium.
These little men in red robes revered a being called the "Omnissiah," the Machine God. They believed the Machine God ruled over every machine in existence, and eagerly replaced their flesh with machinery in an effort to "draw a little closer to the Machine God."
Mortals had their passions and desires, while the Astartes pursued glory. These red-robed men, meanwhile, possessed an extreme thirst for knowledge.
Every one of them tirelessly pursued every scrap of knowledge, even Xenos knowledge, then hoarded it and refused to share it with other Tech-Priests.
Now, Bona wanted to break that pattern.
"We have a small deal to propose. Would you find it acceptable, Archmagos Antonia?"
"*&(￥...&*, I need to know what you can offer."
Bona glared at Magos Dorkerson, who only then began transmitting the data with great reluctance.
Archmagos Antonia was