"Ah…" he thought, those were the days."
The Eastern Margrave even let him use Imperial Library as a reward for his discoveries. It was there his life changed forever.
Finding the village of Blithe Axing in the Northern March had been challenging. Northern Reivers had destroyed it over 500 years ago during the Time of Chaos, but Cater was a genius. Finding obscure references of it in both Ragnard Redbeard's Book Of Dirty Limericks, and Ulcome Emer's Amazons: A History of the Woman Warrior Culture, it took but 6 months to find the location and his starting point. That was three very cold weeks ago.
In the Imperial Library he had found, and copied, a text entitled Transcendental Cartography, by T'Caffo Rekeesa. The clearly heretical text led Cater to believe that the sorcerer Rekeesa to be real, not a myth as was the stance of the University. Delving into the subject Cater found reference to Ernst von Zeiten seeking the aid of Rekeesa relating to Sojax. Though the translations were difficult he was certain that all sources pointed to that T'Caffo Rekeesa had found Sojax in the mountains of the Northern Reach.
Cater stood at the base of the tallest of the three mountains, giddy with excitement.
"Sojax!" his mind whirled, The Easterling's greatest weapon against the Warp!"
The find could help all of humanity. The possibilities flooded his mind. It took but a half an hour to find a pass that led upwards to a remarkably winding staircase that led upward to the peak. So intoxicated with the moment he never thought it odd how well preserved the stairs were.
Sweat filtered through his Mark V Thermal Suit into the reprocessing chamber and then fed back into his hydrating tube from which he took a long drink. The climb had bee taxing, but his goal was now in site, a large dome with what could only be the Sojax cannon protruding upward toward the night sky. He approached slowly with reverence. Walking the perimeter Cater soon found the entrance.
"Strange, the entrance has a door of recent manufacture."
"Had someone beat him to his prize? Impossible! No one had the resources or the knowledge that he had."
He resolved himself to confront the probable squatters who knew not of what they had found. He opened the door, and heard the sounds of heavy construction machines. Probably some outlaw miners using this as a base camp seeking ore from the mountain. He made his way through several dark corridors into the gaping main chamber. Lamps and the sparks of welders provided sporadic light. The first thing that caught his eye was the giant mirror being fashioned on the floor; the next stunned him completely.
"That's no cannon… it's a telescope?! Cater exclaimed loudly."
A moment later Cater slumped to the floor in stunned silence, the lasbolt from the sentry vaporizing the top of his skull.
Edited by: John Smith on 9/1/14