+Shadows in the Storm; The Siege of Korrianna Forge+

[Flint13]

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Eighth Legion Astartes; 28th Company

Saeva Nocte

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXa8MNo4kfY

 

 

 

"They have forgotten us, boy. 

 

Come, let us remind them that the Eighth are not just thieves, murderers, and cowards.

 

Let us remind them that we are warriors still."

 

 

~Quoted from the diaries of Remembrancer 2nd Class, Simeon Vasquez

 

 

 

 

 

Darkness Falls on Severed Angels: Part 1

(Shadow Fall +17 Local Standard)

 

 

Vasquez’s heart hammered in his chest as he pelted down the narrow alleyway. His scholam robes flapped wetly around his churning legs. Flurries of chem-snow and ash waste whipped around his head as he sped on, obscuring his vision and stinging the exposed skin around his shield goggles. He could hear the cries of the hunting pack behind him, their low bass cries haunting in the shrieking wind. That same shrieking wind and flurried chemical precip had separated him from his master several minutes ago… just before he had run into an active Mecharcano pack.

 

 The remembrancer reached the end of the alley and slammed his back against the wall at the far end of the street. Breath heaving, his hands fell to his knees as he bent at the waist and retched his meagre morning rations into the frozen mud between his boots.

 

“Warmaster’s teeth, that’s the last damn time I let training at the Cardiotorium pass me by,” his curse went unheard by any but himself as he hugged his knees in the snow.

 

A crackling, energy wreathed claw, sheared through the wall of the building behind him. Vasquez shrieked and tumbled forward away from the structure. With a rending crash, a gigantic mechanical form barged its way through the expanding portal. Its hulking shoulders easily crumbled the cindercrete blocks of the habstructure. Standing to its full height, it towered over the remembrancer, an impassive black faceplate of reflective ballistic glass turning down to face him. Its monotone not-voice blared out from some internal vox-hailer,

 

“Organic unit designation Remembrancer… *Analyzing*…  Simeon Vasquez, surrender weapons and …”

 

Vasquez didn’t wait for it to finish its sentence. He was already scrambling up and away. He heard its heavy footfalls as the Thallax cyborg began to pursue him again. Twenty meters down the next ally, he dodged sideways as a second mechanical giant plunged into the snow several feet to his right, shoulder mounted jump jets howling as they arrested the tech-creature’s descent. Its shrieking repulsor weapon glowed white hot before it discharging a stream of plasma into the habwall behind Vasquez, close enough for him to lose the trailing few inches of his robes. He could hear both of the Mecharcano giants vaulting through the snow just behind him, the whipping wind and flurries no obstacle to their tech-djinn blessed vision.

 

Fatigue and frustration induced tears touched the edges of his eyes as the dead end of the habway alley came into sight, a blank, plascrete wall looming out of the howling white gale. Even through the gasping, his breath caught as he saw something dark drop from the top of the containment wall to the snowbanks in front of him. Another massive armored figure reared up, weapon drawn as Vasquez struggled to arrest his forward momentum. His blood ran cold as he recognized the barrel of an Astartes pattern boltgun leveled at his head. The maw of the weapon yawned open in front of him, his entire world lost in that lethal, black abyss.

 

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“Lad, DOWN!” The vox enhanced command cut through the howl of the chem blizzard like a razor. Vasquez was already in the process of obeying, however unintentionally as the worn treads of his combat boots shot out from under him as they encountered an ice slick. His backside hammered into the frozen ground as a midnight clad war god strode past him, boltgun roaring in one hand, a long hafted power axe in the other.

 

Both of Vasquez’s techarchanic pursuers thundered towards the Astartes. The chest of the clawed cyborg came apart under the hail of armor piercing bolt rounds, showering the snow with bio-lubricants and stasis fluids. The second leveled its plasma carbine, the whine of containment coils spooling up easily audible over the storm even to Vasquez’s unenhanced ears. Two more bolt rounds hammered into the tech creature’s shoulder joint, spinning its aim wide and sending the plasma beam flashing uselessly into the night sky. A last round from the bolter speared the Thallax’s faceplate, blowing out the back of its ferromantic skull.

 

Sevik Lo, of the 28^th Company, thumbed the magazine release of his boltgun. As the spent magazine tumbled to the snow covered mud, the midnight armored Astartes lifted his head to the sky. The jump jets of a third thallax automata cut off with a roar, sending it to the ground in a fountaining spray of chemical precipitation and rockcrete chips. A massive rotary cannon made up its left arm. The weapon was already spinning up to firing capacity as the same monotone voice blasted from some internal auditory emmiter,

 

“Augmented organic, designation Eighth Legion Astartes… *Analyzing*… Sevikadyn Lo’Daeyn… your ordinance is expended. Do not attempt to resist processing under the most exceptional creations of Arch Magos Danav…”

 

The tumbling bolter cracked into the machine creature’s faceplate, crazing the ballistic glass and cutting its proclamation short. It had almost managed to realign the aim of the rotary cannon when Sevik buried the admantium axe blade into its blank visage with an overhanded swing. The Thallax spasmed, internal systems attempting to reroute to cope with such catastrophic damage. With a wrenching howl of tortured metal, the creature fell backwards into an ice drift.

 

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All of this in the time it took Vasquez to clamor up, hands holding a bruised posterior. His gaze snapped up to the Astartes, as he strode back through the snow drifts to the rememberancer. Power axe mag-locked securely to his belt, Sevik Lo ran his armored gauntlets across the body of the retrieved boltgun and snapped a new magazine into the well.  

 

“Kurze damned popgun,” Vasquez could hear the sneer even through the distortion of the war helm’s vox grille, “Worked better when I threw the useless thing.”

 

The marine paused briefly to give the boltgun a once over, “Lad, I will personally skin the sorry bastard in the armory who saddled me with this damned ‘advanced’ hardware when we make it back to the Nix.”Sevik shrugged and clamped the boltgun to his belt as he plowed effortlessly on down the accessway and through the blizzard, seemingly assured of his direction.

 

The remembrancer turned, slowly unlimbering his own rifle, a las carbine with a collapsible stock that was wrapped securely under his robes in a slim combat rig. He checked it over briefly to make sure breaking his fall to the ice had no ill effects upon the weapon. Finding it acceptable, he turned to renew his trek behind his regrouped master.

Sevik’s vox amplified voice drifted back to Vasquez as the remembrancer plowed ahead through what he could only assume were ever deepening drifts of chem snow,

 

“I’m getting far too old to be shot at, lad. But at least we know the sad bastards of the Thirteenth won’t be doing much damage equipped like this.”

 

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[Hyaenidae]

Nice. Excellent mini, excellent story.

[Slips]

Ohh lovely start!

[JackDaw]

Gods....yes. I'm shattered, but this kept me awake through awesomeness. Lo is perfect.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Nice to see some Mechanicum cyborgs in here! Good start, though I wasn't crazy about the music choice.

[Vazzy]

Hmmmmmmm....Vasquez ehhh?

[LongGone]

Best part = Throwing the bolter

[Daemon2027]

Good start, excellent model.

[Montuhotep]

Excellent beginning - nice to see any Astartes, especially one of the 8th, with something verging on a sense of humour!

[TearsOfTheRaven]

Awesome story and awesome marine= awesome person.

 

You go flint.

[Forté]

Wow, another quality Flint thread. Think someone needs here own blog ;)

[Dantay VI]

 

Honest opinion?

 

It is a very good start. You have me intrigued as to why Vasquez is on the run from the Mechanicum, is he a remebrancer or a spy?

 

I like that you've kept the tone of the storytelling in the same tone as you have with your plog, as it is one of the things which drew me to it and kept me reading.

 

Now we know the NightHaunters kith & kin are here,

 

I amlooking forward to finding out why? 

 

Why am I imagining Lo speaking with this mans voice?

 

http://hollywoodhatesme.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/captain-barbossa.jpg

[Knight of the Raven]

Sorry, I didn't read your fluff... Every time I read someone's fluff here, I want to flip tables and delete all my fanfictions.

I'm not an expert painter, but he seems better painted than his previous incarnation. And certainly more dynamic. What has his old self been demoted to?

[GhostMalone]

So I guess people are wondering what else is to come....

 

All I can say on my part is there are 4 more legions on my part along with Mech and Guard support.

 

I'm in the process of finishing some pieces as there is a gentle (woman's) men's agreement on only finished pieces for our work.

 

 

I'd like to thank my sister flint for helping me to get back on track and start working on my pieces

[Flint13]

Good Evening everyone!

I'm so glad to see that our humble little project has been so well received! Jasp and I have put a lot of plotting and work into it behind the scenes, so I can't say how happy I am to see everyone enjoying it. Hopefully it will be quite a long lived and fulfilling project for both contributing artists and readers alike.

@ Heathens - Thanks! That's good to hear for a first response.

@ Slipstreams - Thanks! More to come shortly.

@ JackDaw - Any day I can help someone more than a single cup of coffee, it's a success for me ^_^

@ BCK - No worries, there are plenty of Ad Mech goodness planned (and other music!) for the near future. I have a complete Ad Mech army waiting on paint.

@ Vazzy - Indeed! Remember him?

I like him, so he'll be around for quite awhile... probably

@ LongGone - Seemed like something Danny Glover would do, so I had to put it in.

@ Demon2027 - Thanks buddy!

@ Paladin - To me, 30k is the blackest of black comedies. I like to work that angle in my writing.

@ Tears - Thanks! I will go. Right back to the painting table to work on the next installment.

@ Forte - Thanks! I dunno how well that would go. I am sadly technologically impaired. The little sister is the web designer in the family

@ Dantay - Awesome! If Sevik sounds like Jeoffrey Rush, I have no complaints.

@ Knight of the Raven - No worries, 1000Heathens stuff makes me table flip, so I guess it's only fair ^_^

Good to hear the painting is going in the right direction.

@ Jaspcat - Sure thing buddy! Let's kick serious ass on this.

[Vazzy]

How could I forget him? I invented him!

[Larkyn]

Well then, I leave for a few days, and come back and find this. I need to get working on my Round Base stuff again. But...Square Base has Nagash...

 

Great stuff, I'm excited to see what goes on here.

[BassWave]

Flint you are such a tease! After reading the title, I thought this was the start of your Dark mech! Regardless, top notch work as always.

[Kizzdougs]

Nice paint job! The axe blade and the red lens on the back pack are particularly impressive. Really nice blending on the lens :)

[Marshal Rohr]

A night lord with Geoffrey Rush's voice is right up there with Benebatch as Horus.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

 

@ BCK -  I have a complete Ad Mech army waiting on paint.

 

Oh really That could be very interesting...

[Dosjetka]

You've definitely stepped up your game on the painting side of things, Flint. Nice looking heretic you've got there ;)

 

Looking forward to seeing Jaspcat's contributions as well as the next update.

[Flint13]

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Of Knightly Temper; House dan Elsan

The Birth of Jackal Dawn

[YT]

[/YT]
 

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“The Knightly House of Korrianna, one “dan Elsan,” by name, is singularly non-unique, and has gone on to provide loyal if unspectacular service to it’s Imperium since it’s time of alliance some twenty years past. The house is commanded by it’s patriarch, Luthar dan Elsan, a veteran of several small galactic border skirmishes against greenskin xenos (see linked documentation: LX717FortisGulf)

The House’s only outstanding oddity is in the acceptance of both males and females of the patriarchal line into the ranks the Knighthood. Even that is not much out of the ordinary, with the number of co-ed or even matriarch-centered Houses seemingly exploding in recent years. The majority of House dan Elsan’s pilots are non-spectacular, each an offspring of the patriarch save a single vassal seneschal. The house pilots’ main contributions are providing service and protection for the micro-forgeworld from the completion of their training squireship, most commonly at the age of fifteen to sixteen Terran standard.

Current battle ready pilots number twelve and machines fourteen sound, two of which are of the advanced Cerastus pattern, and are held as the personal war mounts of the Household patriarch. Both of these machines were created and delivered by the micro-forge proper as a symbol of the alliance between the newly developing Mechanicum sectors and the dan Elsan household.

Current strengths and pilot dossiers are attached for your convienience.”

House of dan Elsan; Availible Force Muster

LX717: Luthar dan Elsan (House Patriarch) – “Wolf of Worlds,” Cerastus pattern Lance Titan
LX718: Brode dan Elsan – “Gyr Fox,” Paladin pattern Knight Titan
LX719: Jullianna dan Elsan – “Thunder Daughter,” Errant Pattern Knight Titan
LX720: Harken dan Elsan – “Tremor Child,” Errant Pattern Knight Titan
LX721: Lohan dan Elsan – “Falconer,” Paladin pattern Knight Titan
***REDACTED***
LX723: Katryn dan Elsan – “Pyreclad,” Volkane pattern Knight Titan
***REDACTED***
***REDACTED***
***REDACTED***
***REDACTED***
***REDACTED***
***REDACTED***
***REDACTED***
 

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Last Melody of a Throat-cut Siren: Part 1

(Shadow Fall -22 Terran Standard)

Sounds of exertion and heavy impacts rang across the sparsely occupied hangar bay of Outpost/Refit 213. Underneath looming rearming gantries, the towering bodies of four massive knight titans slumbered impassively, each painted with the proud Ice and Ash heraldry of the House dan Elsan.

Inside the small deck office, in a far corner of the massive machine barracks, Ward-Sergeant Samantha Augustine hammered her heel into the side of her training dummy’s head. The plyofoam construct rocked back under the force of her blow, before its tiny internal stabilizers snapped it upright.

From the messy desk shoved back against the office’s rear wall, a small chime started to sound. Sgt. Augustine paused momentarily, tucking a brunette flyaway back under her forage cap and glaring at the heaps of paperwork, repair orders, docking reports and machine codings piled upon the desk. Sweat glistened lightly in the hollow of her throat and across the muscular ridges of her bare mid-riff as she scanned for the short-hail vox. Somewhere amongst the geography of stationary, the tiny communication device continued its plaintive wail.

“Not this time Rog,” her expression was as much a sneer as a small spiteful grin, “You’ll just have to deal with the dan Elsan younglings by yourself this time. I’m tired of my personal hours getting ganged.”

She was about to return to her training dummy when a pale flash across one of the upper catwalks caught her eye. A quizzical frown furrowing her brow, Samantha leaned out of the office’s solitary window to gaze up across the repair floor. The hangar bay was so large, she could barely hear the thudding boots of the small figure as it raced along the raised walkway. Sgt Augustine’s eyes widened with recognition. The third youngest of the House dan Elsan, clad only in small boots and a sheer under-dress, was tearing across the gangways towards one of the arming stations.

“Malady dan Elsan!” Augustine yelled across the bay, “Your father forbid you from the Knight Stable!” Whether the young woman heard or not, she gave no sign. Slim thighs pumping hard under her sheer dresslette, she pounded the few remaining yards to a control station.

“Magos damn these impulsive children,” the Ward-Sergeant cursed to herself as she tucked her head back into the repair office. She whirled to the locker in the corner and snatched her uniform from its hanger. Fingers flying over the buttons, attempting to at least make a token gesture of proper attire, Samantha’s head snapped up at the sound of small arms fire. She practically kicked the thin door partition door down as she exited her tiny office.

“What in the Gulf are you doing!” Her bellow rang across the hanger bay. Several black armored auxillia troopers had autoguns leveled at the teenager frantically adjusting dials and levers on the farthest arming station. With some trepidation, Augustine realized the Baronetta dan Elsan was attacking the armory controls for her father’s prize warmount, a towering Cerastus Knight Lancer. That would not be an amusing conversation for the Ward-Sergeant when the patriarch of House dan Elsan heard of it. Still, more pressing immediate matters…

Augustine reached the first trooper, the one who had fired. The flat of her left palm cracked solidly into the bridge of his nose as her right hand pressed the barrel of his weapon down hard. His short scream was cut off abruptly when she kicked him squarely in the gut. She whirled on the other half dozen men.

“Corporal Vandt,” Samantha snarled as she read the tags of the highest ranked of the three troopers, snapping the front of his uniform tight in her fist. Her face was millimeters from the stammering NCO, “I repeat myself, once and once only. By what right in the cursed blackness do you dare fire on the progeny of the House?”

His response flattened Ward-Sergeant Samantha Augustine more than any assault, any incursion, any action she had ever had
the misfortune of attending.

“Ward Sergeant… the Baronetta… she has murdered Patriarch dan Elsan. She stabbed him in the heart, not fifteen minutes past.”
 

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Fingers working frantically across the arming controls, a manic smile spread her lips as Jaquelyn dan Elsan entered the last rite of armament into the station. A klaxon began to howl overhead as the gantry began to retract. Her father should have moved to change the access codes sooner, before he had publically disowned her from joining the Knighthood. The bastard would never have the chance now, she mused blackly, her grin deepening. No time for that now, she needed to move quickly before the gantry retracted entirely, leaving her stranded on the catwalk. Any other pilot would never have been forced to stoop to the
level of arming rituals for their own war mount.

“Jacquelyn! What have you done?” The teen glanced over her slim shoulder to see her handler and trainer, the Augustine woman, advancing down the walkway towards her.

“Don’t give me that tired cliché you lowborn bitch,” Jacquelyn’s barking reply made the Ward-Sergeant wince, “don’t ever presume to speak to me that way.”

Samantha continued to advance towards the girl, her hands held low in a hopefully non-threatening position as she moved.

“Baronetta dan Elsan, you are just lost. We worked and trained together for years. I saw you ride your first Knight into the training runs just three years past. Your father was so proud of you then,” lower, slower, Augustine tried to make her voice as calm as possible, while loud enough to be heard over the wailing klaxon.

“And look where that got both of us!” Jacquelyn shrieked as she backed towards the rapidly retreating access gantry, “ I was expelled from the squire’s training, and that old, wretched bastard is back in the mud.”

Without another word, Jacquelyn spun and leapt from the catwalk towards the armored shell of the Wolf of Worlds’ topmost carapace. She was barely airborne before she felt strong, well-muscled arms encircle her slim waist and pull her back to the walk way. Samantha pulled Jacquelyn close, crushing the smaller woman tight to her chest.

The Baronetta screamed in denied rage, her small hand outflung towards the head of the Cerastus, “Dawn! Dawn, I know you can hear me! Help me. Help me, please!”

A terrified look passed over Augustine’s face as she struggled with the girl. The young Baronetta was in a worse condition that she had even thought originally.

“Are you talking to the Knight? Jacquelyn, it is only a machine. It’s inactive, it can’t hear you! Please just…” Samantha’s last sentence ended in a bloody, breathless gasp. She felt the knife buried under her sternum a split second after it slid home in her body. She felt strength leaving her as quickly as the lifesblood spilling down over her abdomen, and her arms fell away from the Baronetta’s waist. Samantha’s knees hit the grating of the catwalk hard enough to draw blood.

“Do not ever speak to me that way,” Jacquelyn hissed in Samantha’s ear as she planted a booted foot squarely between Augustine’s shoulder blades and kicked the Ward-Sergeant from the catwalk.
 

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Corporal Vandt stared open mouthed for a few vital seconds as he watched the limp form of Samantha Augustine plummet the ten meters from the gantry way to strike the plascrete floor of the hangar bay. His hesitation gave the Baronetta enough time to take a running leap onto the armored mantlet of Ser dan Elsan’s personal knight. The girl’s svelte body striking the cowling hard made him flinch and broke the spell of his fascination.

“Gods damn her. Men, fire, fire! Kill the girl.”

Jacquelyn grasped frantically at the armor plates on top of the Cerastus Knight as she began to slide down one side. She still had not regained her breath from striking as hard as she had. Breath wheezing harshly through her lungs, she could barely gasp in alarm as small arms fire started to ricochet sporadically from the adamantite armor around her.

“Help me…” drawing in enough air to force the words through was agony, worse even than the rough armor abrading her skin as she slid farther down the cowling, “Sister… help me.”

*PSSST… tink*

With a barely audible noise, a tiny maintenance hatch on the side of the machine’s armor hood popped a compression bolt and swung open. The service door was miniscule, barely more than six inches wide at most, but one of Jacquelyn’s flailing boots slid neatly into it, bringing her descent to a halt. Breath still sawing out of her lungs, the Baronetta managed a savage smile, even as hard rounds continued to pepper the plates around her. She began to climb.

On the floor of the hangar bay, Corporal Vandt was almost hyperventilating. His men had still not managed to bring the girl down, even though reinforcements had brought his squad up to almost two dozen now. He had sent six of them up to the gantry way to attempt a better angle of fire. On top of the god machine, he saw the pilot’s access hatch swing wide, and the svelte Baronetta drop into it.

That wasn’t right. The machine was gene-locked to Ser dan Elsan himself. How could she have even gotten the hatch open? Did this mean she could…

The Knight Lancer’s warhorn roared. In the enclosed space of the hanger bay, it was beyond deafening. Several of Vandt’s men dropped to their knees, bleeding from the ears. He couldn’t hear their screams, but he could feel the second blast from the horn shaking his bones as the Knight stood from its slumber. A white hot spear of plasma burst from the god machine’s main weapon, coring a hole clean through the Knight Paladin housed in the adjacent gantry bay and sending more men shrieking to the deck, their eyes burned beyond use.

Vandt stumbled backwards and fell into the repair office, knocking over a plyofoam sparring mannequin as he did so. He had never been privy to the inner mechanics of a god machine, but he had worked around them his entire adult life. He knew how they operated. After transport and slumber, they took time to rise to full wakefulness.

The Knight Lancer had taken no time at all. As if it had not been locked into repair slumber… but waiting. Outside the small office, the earth shook. The Knight Titan’s warhorn roared to the heavens like some ancient Terran thunder lizard, and the screaming started anew.

But Vandt could not hear it. He slid backwards, pressing his spine against the rearmost wall of the office, underneath of a shoddy desk heaped with papers. The young officer crushed himself as small as possible, and waited to die.

[JackDaw]

Godsdamn Flint. That monochrome palette and style you've achieved on Jacquelyne is quite possibly the finest thing youve painted. Immense. Love the story as well, very nicely done.

[Nomus Sardauk]

Once again Flint, your skills leave me utterly awed and seething with envy. Fantastic work as always, I especially like how Jacquelyn considers the Dawn to be her sister.