Klydia Irosta
Klydia Irosta is a Freeblade Knight, who serves the Adeptus Mechanicus and she commands the Knight Defender Aereus.[1]
History
She was once a Baroness Prime of the Questor Mechanicus Knight House Irostus Xo, which was the most prominent House of the Knight World Wrath's Fall. Klydia also served as the Forge Master of Irostus Xo's Exalted Court and this made the Baroness the prime conduit for the Tech-Priests of Mars, who studied the ancient technologies that Irostus Xo held within its citadel. However, disaster struck in the wake of the Great Rift's creation, when the Knight World was invaded by by an armada of heretics and mutants.[1]
Though all of Wrath's Fall's Knight Houses fought gallantly, they could not defeat the invaders and Irostus Xo sent out a request for help. However, the Great Rift's birth had left the Imperium besieged by numerous foes and the House's pleas for aid would not be answered in time to save Wrath's Fall. With their world now doomed and Irostus Xo's technologies at risk of being lost to the Imperium, the House's Princeps agreed to the Martian Tech-Priests' desperate plan to save its most valuable artefacts. This resulted in the Tech-Priests and Irostus Xo's Sacristans installing Klydia's Knight Defender, Opus Gatekeeper, with numerous devices, while the House's remaining Knights and serf soldier companies held back the advancing invaders. The priests worked as fast as their sacred tenets allowed them to, but soon Irostus Xo's citadel began to be overrun. Before it fell though, Klydia escaped aboard the Tech-Priests' Orbital Conveyor to Mars, along with the most senior members of its priesthood on Wrath's Fall, the Baroness Prime's Sacristan cabals and a company of her House's serf soldiers. Shortly afterwards, Wrath's Fall was lost to the Imperium and all of its Knight Houses were destroyed by the invaders.[1]
While Klydia later successfully arrived on Mars, its Tech-Priests discovered that Irostus Xo's technologies could not be removed from her Knight. They had fully embedded themselves into the suit and the artefacts had greatly increased the Gatekeeper's reaction speed, the potency of its weapons and its power core. This also impacted the Knight's Throne Mechanicum, as strange binharic pathways has appeared within it, and the former Baroness Prime's desire to fulfill her Princeps' last protocol of defending Irostus Xo's artefacts was reinforced every time she used the Knight suit. Her interface with the Gatekeeper had also increased and new voices rang out from the Mechanicum, while old ones took on a new tone as well. The title Aereus soon rose up from these voices and Klydia accepted this as her Knight Defender's new name. None can say where it came from, but the Technohistoritors of Olympus Mons stated the title echoed the name of the ancient manifestation of the Omnissiah known as the Divine Disassembler.[1]
Since her escape, Klydia has served the Adeptus Mechanicus as a Freeblade Knight and has become a guardian to not only Irostus Xo's surviving technologies, but also to every artefact that the Mechanicus reveres. She has become a protector of its servants as well and Klydia stridently fulfils both roles with a singular devotion. This has led the Freeblade's aid to be petitioned for and she accepts requests that have sacred import to the Omnissiah and those who serve the Machine God. As a result of this, Klydia has fought beside Mechanicus armies to claim caches of archeotech from Xenos, break sieges of imperiled Forge Shrines and hunt down mechanical abominations. The Freeblade does so with brutal clarity and indomitable resilience, which has allowed her to throw back sallies from foes, while helping to defend her allies from their attacks. However, some have come to suspect that Klydia's sanity has slipped since the loss of Wrath's Fall and her Knight House. But even those that do, do not doubt that the Mechanicus Freeblade has an overriding desire to safeguard Humanity's technological relics.[1]
Sources
- 1: White Dwarf 523, pg. 12 — A Tapestry of Honour
