 This sub-record is an appended data extension to the full Logos record upon the subject of the Blackstone Fortresses. Should you wish, please use the ident tags included to navigate to said records location within this archival stack. In the processing of one's research upon the subject of the Blackstone Fortresses, your humble servant was able to uncover an archived recording of a conversation pertaining to their possible origins. The recording had been mis-filed and was scheduled for deletion from this particular librarian before my intervention, mercifully, timely, saved it from the grinding wheels of adeptus administratum efficiencies. Its provenance is questionable, at best, presumably being what led to the mis-filing in the first place. It purports to be a conversation between Lord Inquisitor Thaddeus Horst, Ordo Xenos, and a representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus, named Alagos, concerning the possible origin legends of the Blackstone Fortresses derived from ancient Eildari texts and extracted from interrogations of captured Xenos specimens. The results are interesting, to say the least, and lend somewhat further credence to the existence of some vast, impossibly ancient progenitor species, the hand of which I fear to say I have been seeing more and more as my studies into the foul Xenos races of our galaxy continue. Nevertheless, I have included the recording here in order for any acolytes examining the full record of the Fortresses to draw their own conclusions. Subsequent to this extract, I shall also elucidate further upon the origins that Inquisitor Horst is referring to. Recording begins. Endeavour to tell me where I should furnish you with knowledge that has cost me the majority of my lifetime to procure tech priest Alagos. The Fortresses were not all destroyed, as you know, my Lord Inquisitor. Of course, fool. Do not presume to tell me that which is ingrained upon my memory, instead. Begin by telling me what you think this has to do with the recent Necron attacks. My apologies, Inquisitor Horst. It is believed by many of my order that the Fortresses were created by a Xenos race for this very eventuality. If we were to regain possession of one of the Fortresses and unlock its secrets with the benefit of your researches, we believe the Xenos threat could be nullified. Do not seek to gain answers by flattery. Even my life's work could do no more than hint at the complex and arcane technology of the talismans of all. Talismans of all, my Lord? I have not heard this term. Of course you haven't, few have. It is the true name of what we call the Fortresses. They were created either by the Eldar, by one of their gods, or both. Surely Eldar gods? They only exist in the legends of the Xenos. Do they not? I distinctly remember your predecessors being possessed of, at the very least, rudimentary intelligence. How can you seek to fight the gods of the Necron tier without acknowledging the fact that beings of such incredible power exist? So you do have knowledge of them? Of course. Despite your insolence and disrespect, your answer comforts me a little. I trust your memory and grams are operative. If I'm to recount this tale, you'd better make damned sure you're recording it. All the communications of the Adeptus Mechanicus are recorded, my Lord. Then take heed and deliver this message to fabricator general Vilvoi. You don't know it, of course, but it will have been he who sent you here. If you must ask a question, try and make it brief and to the point. Is that understood? Yes, Lord Inquisitor Horst. Vall is believed to be the Eldar god of the forge, crippled physically, but mighty in artifice and skill. He was not the apex of their pantheon, but the brother of Azurion, the Phoenix King. It is said he was equally skilled at creating both things of beauty and tools of war, and he was able to forge the souls of the departed into the things he made. In this matter, he defeated the necrons who were preying on his people. Do you believe he forged the fortresses for this purpose? Patience! This has brought to light in the knowledge I am about to impart. There was a time before even the birth of humanity when the Eldar fought hard to stop the works of the necron gods, who they called Yignir. One of these, the most powerful of its kind, was exterminating the Eldar. They named it the void dragon Oblivion itself, a figure of wanton destruction and devastation in Eldar mythology. It had such mastery over the material realm that its warriors were practically invincible. Just one of its servants could slaughter hundreds of Eldar before falling only to rise once more. They could channel lighting into their foes, and it is said the battlefields of that time were thick with the charred remains of those who dared oppose them. The necrons with the ability to discharge electricity have been encountered in a metallic loop. Quite so. Although bear in mind the necrons of that time, or perhaps that allegiance were far more powerful than those emergent of the last few years, the Eldar simply could not defeat them. But Val was resourceful, and no doubt necessity spurred him on to the achievement that held the necron invasion in check. Classma technology has proven to be effective against standard pattern necrons. Did the Eldar know of a better way? You'll never cease to amaze me with your lack of insight, tech, adapt, and largos. Therefore, when you receive this, I advise you to employ an emissary with a remnant of imagination. We speak of gods and souls, and this one assumes the smith god's gift to the Eldar was plasma weaponry. These events occurred eons before the Eldar had mastered such things. They fought with swords, spears, and their own twisted version of faith. And it was found wanting. So, Val took the souls of the departed and forged them into new bodies. He placed their essences into the chests of an army of iron knights, animated by the souls of the Eldar dead. He intended to fight the necrons on their own terms. In this form, they marched to war once more. I believe the Eldar still employed necromancy in this way. Indeed, a loathsome and inexcusable practice, nevertheless. The iron knights towered over the necron foes, and the lightning blasts that would have ravaged an Eldar warrior had no deadlier effect upon them than a light breeze. They were led by wraith giants, inhabited by the souls of the greatest of the Eldar heroes. Fully three times taller than a necron, and virtually indestructible. The knights they led carried arcane weaponry that could channel and project soul fire, ripping the foes apart in a split second. Wave upon wave of necrons, each deadlier than the last, was sent from the tombforges against the indefatigable warriors Val had created. None could defeat them. In this way, Val bought enough time to construct the Tarrismans. Our information states there were six fortresses prior to the Gothic War. True enough, but their real potential was never realised by the Imperium, nor even by the Dispoiler. The Tarrismans of Val were controlled by the spirits of those Eldar seers killed by the necron invasion. At the heart of each Tarrism sat one of the Eyes of the Witch. These were gifted to Val by Moray Hague, the crone goddess of the Eldar, whose domain was secret knowledge. They enabled the departed spirits to channel vast amounts of energy straight from the Imperium into real space. In this way, Val intended to banish the dragon for eternity. But how could he locate the necron god? The void dragon, its dreams of conquest halted in their tracks and decided to lead its minions on the battlefield. None could stand before a fully manifested god, not even the Eldar assault constructs. To ensure it was at the zenith of its power, the void dragon began draining the energies of a binary star. It took the form of a cloud of dark light, surrounding the stellar anomaly and leaching energy from it until it was sated. Val knew the stars as well as he did the forge. And when the twin suns began to dim, he set forth to battle. And how did the conflict resolve? It didn't. The myth ends there. It is a mistake to assume the Eldar legends for all the same patterns as our own. For what it's worth? I believe Val failed in his appointed task. True, the void dragon was stopped in its methodical slaughter. But there are Eldar left in the galaxy. But I am no blinkered fool. I believe it to be dormant. We're waiting the right moment to reappear. Are you aware of the location of its refuge? Don't be absurd! Nobody has that knowledge. Of course. My apologies, Lord Inquisitor. Farewell. What? I have assumed you wanted to find out more. We have learned the requisite information. Farewell then. Tech Priest, the Logos. Judging from the contents of this log, it would appear Inquisitor Horst was involved with several members of the Adeptus Mechanicus in high-level discussions concerning the origins of the Blackstone Fortresses, including the ear of the then Fabricator General himself. His disappearance has left something of a large hole in the Ordo Xenos' knowledge base where the Blackstone Fortresses are concerned. But through Horst's sea's writings and Mechanicus' own expeditions, we have been able to discern other elements surrounding their origins and capabilities. Horst appeared to be under the assumption that the Fortresses were created by an Eldari god entity, the Smith Deity Vaul, in order to combat the hosts of the Necrons during the Mythic War in Heaven. Inquisitor's notes additionally record segments taken directly from Eldari mythology, including the very telling line, In pearls of Vaul is dragon becalmed. Highlighted again and again. Extrapolating beyond the poetry, this line would appear to refer to two specific figures. Before mentioned Vaul, the Necron Star God referred to in mythic cycles as the dragon, or void dragon, depending on the translation and Eldari tense. The latter entity, one of the behideous catan that ruled over that metallic race, was known to be a wicked thing of exceptional technological skill and power, very much the antithesis of Vaul in many respects. It is possible that Vaul created his talismans, the Fortresses, to specifically combat the dragon. This theory would gain further credence, and indeed Horst's writings insist so, given that the main weapon of the Fortress is a device used to channel the energy of the warp itself, long known to be utterly lethal to the catan. The mention of the catan is important because, again and again, the mention crops up within Horst's writings, especially with regard to one particular entity known as the Deceiver. Inquisitor Horst appears to believe that this catan, or at least a large shard of it, has manipulated historical events in order to bring about the destruction of the Fortresses where possible. Whether Horst means to accuse this being of having orchestrated the entire 12th Black Crusade is unclear. One finds it hard to conceive of, but, given what little one knows of the catan, it appears to be unwise to underestimate their capabilities. Concerning the necrons and their former masters, they themselves form another intriguing piece of the puzzle of the Fortresses. Upon further entreaties to the Adeptus Mechanicus, it would appear that their name itself, Blackstone, refers not simply to the colour of their hulls, but to the material they are made from. Blackstone is a substance fully known now to the Mechanicus, if only a privileged few, for its effect upon the interaction of reality and the warp. The pylons, on long last Cadia, appear to have been constructed from the same material. Pylons which, for so many uncounted millennia, actively kept reality stable and the hungry tides of the warp itself at bay in the regions around the Eye of Terror. Similar pylon structures on other planets in the vicinity of the Great Eye still exist and continue to exert a calming effect upon the imiterium in their local volumes, although one need only cast one's eyes to the skies and observe the stain upon reality that is the Great Rift to see the damage wrought by the loss of so many pylons with mourned Cadia. Based upon the events of the 13th Black Crusade and the testimony of Belisarius' call regarding the Necron creature that provided him aid, it is a safe assumption to operate under that the Necrons were the original architects of the pylons, moulding Blackstone into devices to shield their star gods from the depredations of warp-born psychic weaponry. The question this raises is obvious. How can a Blackstone fortress, a weapon that quite literally channels warp power as its main weapon, be of the same material of the pylons, devices that utterly repel it? The answer, according to the Mechanicus, is polarity. While the exact details of just how are occluded from my sight by Mechanicus' secrecy protocols, if even Red Mars actually is aware, the explanation extant is that Blackstone can be polarised into one state or another. In its first, it actively repels the warp, firming up the veil that separates dimensional planes. While in the other, it enhances it, allowing through means arcane for the raw energy of the immaterium to be directed through it. If such a thing is indeed true, the substance is perhaps one of the most valuable and dangerous materials in all creation. Through it, the Necrons have combated the warp, and yet, conversely, the Dispoiler has annihilated stars and destroyed one of the Imperium's greatest bastions, with the device made from it. The emergence of the new Blackstone Fortress in the depths of Wildspace casts an enormous question over most of what we have discussed herein. If Inquisitor Horst is correct, and the Fortresses are indeed the creation of the Eldari God of all, this one, appears, at least initially, to predate the admittedly uncertain timeframe of this creation, give or take tens of millions of years. That being said, this could simply be due to the Fortress's known ability to confound attempts to accurately date their superstructures, and the lack of a concerted Adeptus Mechanicus presence in the near space surrounding this new Fortress. Currently, the only reports the Order can obtain are from a motley collection of rogue traders, bounty hunters, and treasure seekers that, free from the chains of imperial bureaucracy, have descended upon this place in the hopes of scavenging riches or archaeotech. Unlike the Fortresses of the Gothic Sector, however, this one appears to be much less dormant, with accounts speaking of uncanny angles and actively shifting internal structure and aggressive defense systems. The oft-rumored sentience of the Fortresses has been whispered that this one is more alive than its fellows, although what could motivate such an intelligence if one exists within this Fortress's dark reaches? We can only imagine. Additionally, it has been reported to be playing host to a frankly bizarre range of denizens even before the arrival of the explorers. The missiles have been lurid, claiming everything from heretic astartes and guardsmen to mutants, to Xenos creatures, to utterly unknown construct things, contrasting again with the Gothic Blackstone Fortresses, which were utterly devoid of life upon discovery. This new citadel appears to be entirely contradictory, bucking expectations and maddeningly heaping questions upon a subject that was largely questions to begin with. Even the adeptus mechanicus has renewed interest in Blackstone, as well as the rising tides of arch-enemy activity, galaxy-wide and on the vigilus specifically, as well as the reawakening Necron dynasties the galaxy over. It is doubtful the secrets of this newest Fortress will remain hidden for long. It is too great a prize to simply be left in the hands of pirates and renegades. But as to who will eventually claim it, that remains another question, also unanswered. Should further information come to light, I shall update this record with all haste, although given the nature of these things, one does not hold one's breath. Until such a time. Ave Imperator. Gloria in Excelsis Terra. Thank you for watching.