Vastarian: Glass for the Beacon

The Diocese of the Adamant Spires comes to a chapel in Saint-Fauré to request the aid of the Church of the Red Athenæum for creating an astropathic beacon.

Retrofitting the Ravachol lighthouse as an astropathic beacon was a risk. If fortunate, concentrating and focusing a massive amount of psychic energy might serve as a conduit to amplify the waning Astronomican and pierce the darkness enveloping Vastarian. But it might also serve as a lightning rod for the horrors of the Immaterium, like a scintilla of blood in the water drawing in cartilaginous horrors from the stygian depths, Helicoprion and Edestus.

While the principle Ravachol lighthouse would provide the mundane structural elements for the beacon, it needed other more esoteric ingredients such as a wealth of potent psykers, but also a specialized hyper-radial Fresnel lens. Abrax Beregim IV, archbishop of the Diocese of the Adamant Spires, recognized the need for optically pure glass cut into the concentric Fresnel design, which led them to the Church of the Red Athenæum. The Red Church was long venerated for their skill in glass making, with many of its members being master glassmiths and artisans. With this in mind, the Spyreheads made their way to a church in Saint-Fauré, a small precinct south of Ravachol…

Abrax Beregim IV, archbishop of the Diocese of the Adamant Spires, and his followers advance through a seemingly empty church, sparsely lit with glowglobes, tallow candles, and the cold glow of the planet’s moon.

Ehret Filipovic, Chief Bibliognost of the Church abruptly enters the nave of the small chapel, moonlight at his back, to parley with the newly arrived Sypreheads of the Diocese of the Adamant Spires.

Although Church of the Red Athenæum do not share the Adamant Spires’ creed, out of respect borne from the Spyreheads’ decades of civic service, Filipovic hears Abrax Beregim IV’s request for optically pure glass, cut into a concentric Fresnel pattern, to be the crowning mechanism of the astropathic beacon they were constructing.

An immeasurable weight of sadness descends on Abrax Beregim IV, archbishop of the Diocese of the Adamant Spires, as he leaves the small chapel in Saint-Fauré without the Red Church’s support, for he knows in his marrow that when they next meet they will be enemies.

Urdeshi Automatic Rifle in hand, Marcelo Lythgoe escorts the Spyreheads out of their sanctuary. The tension in the place of worship was so tense it could have been cut by a knife, but bloodshed was avoided. Events were escalating, and things could no longer return to how they were before the malignant dreams.

- Eric Wier