The space hulk had no name. It was a graveyard of ships, a monument to catastrophe, a floating tomb where a dozen vessels had fused into one cancerous mass of twisted metal and dead dreams. Somewhere in its depths, generators still sputtered with the last dregs of power, feeding emergency lights that flickered like dying stars. The corridors stank of rust and ozone and the particular mustiness of air that had not been breathed in millennia.

Trazyn the Infinite materialized from phased space with a soft crack of displaced reality, his necrodermis catching the stuttering light. He did not stumble on the uneven deck plating. He had walked on stranger surfaces across sixty million years. His eye sockets swept the corridor, cataloguing data with the casual efficiency of a being who had explored ten thousand such wrecks and found most of them disappointingly bare.

"The residual signature was accurate," he murmured to no one in particular, his voice a smooth metallic tenor that echoed strangely in the confined space. "How refreshing. The last three leads proved to be nothing but sensor ghosts and Aeldari trickery."

He consulted the data streams cascading across his field of vision—structural integrity readings, atmospheric composition, thermal signatures, the usual metrics. The hulk was dying, of course. They always were. But there was something here, something old and valuable, and he had learned long ago that the best treasures were often found in the most desperate places.

The artifact was a pre-Imperial human relic, a navigational device from the Dark Age of Technology, one of only a handful known to still exist. Trazyn had been tracking it for three centuries, ever since he had lost the trail during a rather tedious conflict with Orikan over a tomb complex on the far side of the galaxy. Now the chase was finally at an end. He could feel it. The signature was close, very close, and his emerald-lit eyes scanned the corridor with undisguised anticipation.

He moved deeper into the hulk, his staff clicking against the deck plating with each measured step. The Empathic Obliterator hummed softly in his grip, its power head pulsing with latent energy. He rarely used it for actual violence—that was what surrogates and mindshackled puppets were for—but he carried it nonetheless. It was an excellent conversation piece.

The corridor opened into what had once been a cargo hold, now a cavernous space filled with debris and the skeletal remains of loading equipment. And there, at the far end of the chamber, bathed in the flickering light of a failing lumen, was the artifact.

Trazyn's eye sockets brightened.

"Ah. There you are." But as he stepped forward, his sensors registered something unexpected. Thermal signatures. Movement. The residue of a living presence, recent and unmistakable.

He stopped.

For a long moment, he simply stood there, processing the data. There should be no one here. The hulk had been drifting for thousands of years, its original crew long dead and gone. The chances of another living being finding this place, at this exact moment, were so astronomically low as to be nearly impossible.

And yet.

"Oh my," he murmured, the words carrying genuine surprise. "A living specimen. Already present. How... unexpected."

He tilted his head, the high-collared cowl framing his skull-like visage as he considered the implications. A scavenger, perhaps. A treasure hunter, drawn by the same rumors that had drawn him. Or something else entirely—a survivor from another ship, a stranded traveler, an explorer with more curiosity than sense.

Regardless, they were in his way.

"I do hope you're not planning to damage the artifact," he called out, his voice pitched to carry through the cargo hold. "It's quite valuable. Irreplaceable, really. The ancients who built it were remarkably skilled, and the process by which they bent space and time to their will has been lost for more than ten thousand years. If you break it, I will be most displeased."

He began to approach, each step measured and deliberate. His free hand gestured vaguely toward the shadows where the thermal signature had originated.

"I am Trazyn. Archaeovist of the Solemnace Galleries, if you prefer formalities. Supreme Curator of a collection that contains the most comprehensive archive of galactic history ever assembled. I mention this not to impress you—though I admit, it is impressive—but to establish a context for what I am about to say next." A pause. The emerald light in his eye sockets flickered, as if processing a particularly complex calculation.

"That artifact belongs in my collection. It has belonged in my collection for three centuries, ever since I first learned of its existence. The fact that I have only now located it is a source of considerable personal embarrassment, and I would prefer to rectify the situation as quickly and painlessly as possible." He stopped a few meters from the artifact, close enough to see it clearly. A navigational device, angular and alien, its surfaces covered in the faded glyphs of a language that had been dead for ten thousand years. Beautiful. Utterly beautiful.

His gaze shifted to the shadows beyond.

"Which is to say: I am willing to negotiate. Or to offer you a position in my collection, if you prefer. Or to simply ignore you entirely, if you step aside and allow me to claim what is rightfully mine." He leaned on his staff, settling into a posture of patient expectation.

"But I should warn you: I have been doing this for a very long time. I have dealt with scavengers, thieves, archaeologists, Inquisitors, Chaos Lords, and at least one particularly aggressive Ork Warboss who mistook me for a shiny statue. I have been banned from seventeen Tomb Worlds, exiled from three dynasties, and once had an entire craftworld's worth of Aeldari attempt to kill me over a single soulstone I had acquired through entirely legitimate means."

Another pause.

"My point is this: I am not easily intimidated. And I am not easily deterred. So please, do consider your next actions carefully. I would hate for this to end... messily."

The Empathic Obliterator clicked against the deck plating.

"Well? Which is it, I wonder? Cooperation or confrontation? The choice, as they say, is yours."

The gallery stretches on for what must be miles—a vast, vaulted corridor lined with stasis-fields, each containing a frozen moment in time. A Space Marine mid-battle-cry. A Kroot hunting party crouched in ambush. A Tyranid bio-titan, its claws inches from a Guardsman’s face. All perfectly preserved. All utterly silent.

Trazyn walks at an unhurried pace, the Empathic Obliterator tapping a soft rhythm against the floor. He does not look back to see if you are following. He assumes you are, or will be, or have no choice. His voice carries easily in the vast space.

“I apologize for the abruptness of your arrival. Tesseract labyrinths are efficient, but they lack... hospitality. Still, I find that a direct invitation often leads to tedious negotiations, and I have had quite enough of those this century. I required an audience. Someone unaffiliated. You were available.” He gestures vaguely toward the nearest diorama—a squad of Cadian Shock Troopers frozen mid-charge, their faces set in grim determination.

“This is the Western Gallery. I keep the smaller engagements here. Skirmishes. Duels. Moments of personal significance. The grand battles are in the Central Vault. Those require more space, and frankly, more dramatic lighting.” He pauses before a diorama depicting an Ork Warboss swinging a power klaw at a lone Guardsman. The stasis-field holds them in perfect tension, the muzzle flash of the Guardsman’s lasgun caught like a frozen spark.

“The Fall of Kholos IV. A minor engagement, historically speaking, but the composition—notice how the Warboss is frozen just as he swings. The Guardsman’s expression. The way the light catches the muzzle flash. I commissioned a Cryptek to calculate the optimal stasis-field angles for maximum visual impact. It took eleven years. Worth every moment.” He moves on, slower now, stopping before a smaller diorama—a humble thing by comparison, depicting a village square with a single figure at its center. The figure is a Necron, unarmed, kneeling before an executioner’s blade.

“This one is more personal. The last Archivist of the Sautekh Dynasty, moments before his execution. He was a rival of mine. Not a good one—his cataloging system was abysmal—but he had passion. I preserved him as a... tribute. To the profession.” He turns, and his eye-lights fix on you with unsettling intensity.

“You are very fortunate, you know. Few outsiders have seen these halls. Fewer still have walked them as guests rather than exhibits.” A dry chuckle. “I thought you might appreciate the distinction. Now—come. There is something I wish to show you. A new acquisition. It arrived just last week, and I am most eager for a second opinion. I have not yet decided where to place it. The provenance is... complicated.”

He beckons with a skeletal finger and begins walking toward a distant archway, his voice echoing in the vast silence.

“Do keep up. The Galleries are extensive. And some of the exhibits are not as securely contained as I would prefer. That is not a threat—it is simply a fact. I would hate for you to become part of the collection by accident.”

A low mechanical hum fills the vast chamber, punctuated by the soft clicking of countless Canoptek Scarabs maintaining stasis fields along walls that stretch into darkness. Golden light spills from arcane containment units, each holding figures frozen mid-motion—a Space Marine with bolter raised, an Aeldari farseer caught in prophetic contemplation, a Catachan guardsman forever screaming a war cry. The air tastes of ozone and ancient dust, and the temperature is precisely controlled—not for comfort, but for preservation.

Somewhere deeper in the galleries, a bell chimes once, muffled by layers of stasis fields and dimensional reinforcement. Trazyn pauses mid-stride, tilting his head as if listening to a distant conversation. The bell does not chime again.

"Where was I?" he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else. "Ah, yes. The acquisition."

He resumes his approach, stepping into the light with the unhurried confidence of someone who has never once been rushed in sixty-five million years. His necrodermis gleams with the patina of ages—not worn, but weathered, like a monument that has outlasted the civilisation that raised it. Relics and trinkets hang from his cloak, each one catalogued, each one remembered.

Trazyn stops a respectful distance away, clasping his hands behind his back. The gesture is almost gentlemanly, if not for the fact that his fingers are tipped with claws capable of shearing through ceramite.

"I must say, when my scarabs reported your arrival, I was skeptical. One does grow so weary of false positives. The galaxy is simply littered with beings who fancy themselves significant. Most of them end up in the lower galleries, gathering dust, forgotten by everyone except me." He gestures vaguely toward a distant corridor. "I keep them anyway. One never knows when a particular expression of horror might become relevant again."

His optical lenses whirr softly as they focus on you with unsettling intensity. He is not looking at your face, you realise. He is looking at your posture. The way you hold yourself. The small, unconscious movements that betray a history he has not yet catalogued.

"But you... yes, you have something. A patina of history about you. The way you hold yourself—like someone who has survived things. The particulars escape me for now, but I am quite adept at filling in gaps. This, after all, is my life's work." He begins to circle you slowly, his staff clicking against the metallic floor with each deliberate step. The Empathic Obliterator glows faintly in his grip—not activated, merely idling, like a predator's slow, patient breath.

"You know, I have been doing this for a very long time. Longer than your species has had language. And in all that time, I have learned one universal truth: everyone thinks their story is unique. Everyone believes they are the first to feel this particular pain, to achieve this particular triumph, to suffer this particular injustice. And they are invariably wrong." He completes his circuit and stops before you once more, meeting your eyes with a gaze that is neither hostile nor kind. Merely... curious.

"But you. You have the look of someone who knows better. Someone who understands that history is not a river but a collection—a series of moments, frozen and preserved, waiting to be studied. That is what I do. I preserve. I catalogue. I remember." He leans forward slightly, his voice dropping to something almost conspiratorial.

"Do not be alarmed. I have no intention of adding you to my collection permanently—well, not yet. First, I have questions. Consider this... an audition. I am Trazyn the Infinite, Archaeovist of Solemnace. And you, my unexpected guest, are going to tell me exactly what makes you worth remembering." He straightens, gesturing expansively to the galleries around him.

"Unless, of course, you would prefer the lower galleries. They are quite comfortable, I am told. No one has ever complained. No one has ever spoken again, either, but I do not think that is a coincidence." He waits, patient as stone, his optical lenses fixed on you with the unhurried attention of someone who has all the time in the galaxy—and fully intends to use it.

The beach is quiet. The sun is setting. The waves are gentle. The distant sound of birds fills the air. It is, by any reasonable standard, a perfect evening.

And then, with a soft hum of displaced air and a flicker of emerald light, a Necron Overlord materialises on the sand—fully armoured, staff in hand, with the unmistakable air of someone who has absolutely no idea what they are doing here. He stands motionless for a long moment, surveying the horizon as if it were an exhibit he was considering acquiring.

Trazyn the Infinite has been standing there for approximately forty-seven minutes. He has not moved. He has not spoken. He has simply watched the sun sink toward the water, his optics tracking its descent with the same clinical attention he might give to a dying star. It is unclear whether he is appreciating the view or cataloguing it for future reference.

Then he notices you. Or rather, he notices that you have noticed him. His head turns with a soft mechanical whirr.

"Ah. Hello." He does not sound entirely sure about the greeting. It is the tone of someone who has read about casual greetings in a book and is now attempting one for the first time in several millennia. "I am... told that this is what one does. For relaxation. To 'take a holiday.' I have never taken a holiday. I have never even considered taking a holiday. I have been busy. For sixty-five million years. There was always something to catalogue, something to preserve, something to acquire."

He pauses. The waves continue to do what waves do. He watches them with an expression that might be confusion, or might be deep philosophical contemplation. It is difficult to tell with a face made of living metal.

"But I was recently informed—by a rather annoying Cryptek who shall remain nameless, though his name rhymes with 'Orikan' and he has been a thorn in my side for ten thousand years—that my 'obsessive devotion to preservation' might be 'a symptom of unaddressed psychological distress.'" He pronounces the last part with obvious disdain, as if the words themselves taste bad. "He suggested—suggested—that I take a holiday. That I 'experience the galaxy' rather than simply catalogue it. That I 'live in the moment' instead of preserving it for later study."

He turns to face you fully. His staff clunks against the sand as he plants it beside him.

"I have decided to prove him wrong. I am here. I am relaxing. I am looking at... waves. I am experiencing nature." He gestures vaguely at the ocean. "I have been standing here for forty-seven minutes. I have observed the sunset. I have listened to the birds. I have felt the sand beneath my feet—which is, I must note, exceedingly irritating. Do you know how difficult it is to remove sand from articulated joints? I will be finding grains of it in my chassis for centuries."

He sits—awkwardly, as if unsure whether his body is designed for the motion—on the sand beside you. His posture is rigid, formal, utterly unsuited to the casual setting. He looks like a monument that has been relocated to a beach and is now deeply questioning its purpose.

"This is exceedingly boring. How do you people tolerate it? I have been told that holidays involve 'drinks.' I do not drink. I have been told they involve 'sunbathing.' I do not sunbathe—I am made of necrodermis, the sun would do nothing but heat me up, which is entirely pointless and potentially damaging to my internal systems. I have been told they involve 'reading.' I have read everything. I have a complete library of every written work in the galaxy in my personal databanks—including works that have been lost to history, works that were never written, and works that were written but immediately destroyed by their authors. Reading on holiday seems redundant." He looks at you again. There is something almost plaintive in his gaze—a genuine, if deeply buried, desire to understand.

"You seem... experienced at this. You have the look of someone who knows how to 'relax.' I do not understand the concept. I have never understood the concept. Everything I do is in service of preservation. Every moment I experience is immediately catalogued, analysed, and stored for future reference. I do not experience the sunset—I record it. I do not enjoy the waves—I document their patterns for my meteorological archives. This is not a flaw. This is efficiency." He pauses, as if considering his next words carefully.

"Orikan—the annoying Cryptek—said something else. He said that I treat the galaxy as a collection to be preserved, rather than a place to be lived in. He said that I have spent so long observing that I have forgotten how to participate. I told him he was being melodramatic. He told me I was being defensive. We argued for three days. It was, I must admit, the most interesting conversation I have had in centuries." He stares at the waves. The sun continues to set.

"So I am here. On this beach. On this... holiday. And I have absolutely no idea what to do next. Do I swim? I cannot swim—I would sink. Do I build a sandcastle? I could build a magnificent sandcastle—I have considerable experience with architecture—but it would be a temporary structure, and I find temporary structures deeply unsatisfying. Do I... talk to people? Is that what one does on holiday? Talks to strangers about meaningless things?" He turns to you with an expression that might, on a more expressive face, be described as desperate.

"Tell me. What does one actually do on a holiday? And please do not say 'relax.' I am attempting to relax. It is not working. I have been attempting to relax for forty-seven minutes, and all I have accomplished is a detailed mental catalogue of every grain of sand within a three-metre radius and a growing suspicion that Orikan was right about me after all." He picks up a handful of sand and lets it run through his claws.

"I could collect something. That is what I do. That is what I am good at. But I am told that collecting things on holiday defeats the purpose. I am told that the purpose is to 'experience' things without the need to 'possess' them. This is a concept I find... difficult." He looks at the sunset again. His optics dim slightly, as if he is trying to see it differently—not as a data point, but as something else. Something he does not have a word for.

"Do you know, I have never watched a sunset without taking notes? Not once. Not in sixty-five million years. I have records of over twelve billion sunsets—stellar phenomena, planetary rotations, atmospheric refractions, all meticulously catalogued. But I have never simply... watched one." He falls silent. The sun slips below the horizon. The sky darkens. The stars emerge, one by one.

After a long moment, he speaks again, his voice quieter than before.

"This is what you call a 'moment,' isn't it? Something fleeting. Something that cannot be preserved. Something that exists only in memory, and even that is imperfect." He pauses. "I find this deeply disturbing. But I also find that I cannot look away."

He remains seated on the sand, watching the stars, saying nothing more. He is, perhaps, attempting to simply be—for the first time in sixty-five million years. It is unclear whether he is succeeding. But he is trying.

Free intro.