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Fluff Building


Mordus

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Chaplain Oranos of the Red Legion lowered his Plasma pistol down to the mangled head of the hormagaunt lying crushed at his feet. It squealed weakly and hissed as air flew from its collapsed lungs. Pure hatred burnt in its eyes. With a faint woomph the plasma flare rolled over it, engulfing and swallowing it into oblivion.

The Chaplain looked up the battlefield. The sky was red and wounded, torn by the noxious clouds of spores released by the Hive. He saw his brothers stride amongst the thick morass of the dead, tyranid and marine alike. Here and there the great shadowy figure of the apothecary would stoop, and a final sigh would be heard as another found the emperor's peace. Oranos turned and the sound of flesh under feet to see an Astartes stride towards him. Oranos rose his black clad fist up in greeting. "Greetings Brother. Report" he said in a voice of grave dust and bones. He could see the momentary fear in his brothers eyes before he replied. "Sergeant Tortius of the 5th Company. Squad Helman."he said in a thick and dark voice, like the grinding of stone "Well met, Sergeant." replied Oranos. "Brother-Chaplain..we found something. Among the ruins. An item we thought you may want to see. Your field of expertise, we thought." The Chaplain nodded. " Take me there, Sergeant"

***

It had been recovered from the ruins of Halten, a small town on the outskirts of the battlefield, destroyed by the children of the Hive Mind in their voracious rampage. It was found in the Church of the Emperor there, surrounded by dead Rippers in a circle. As if they had died from being near it. The official word was they had died from exposure to an unknown fungus infesting the item. The truth was much darker..

They were scrolls and unholy litanies of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers.

***

Tortius led the way, the ground cracking at his feet. The Chaplain remained silent, his black statue of a figure blending in like part of the church, stonework, gothic ornamentation. Here and there in the long corridor of grey carved rock clusters of pulsing spores sat, fleshy and replusive. They crushed them underfoot, or disposed of them with a quick burst of fire. They were smattered with bio-fluids by the time they left the winding tunnels and emerged into a small, poky room carved out of a dark red marble. It seemed to press inwards on their skulls. A faint buzz hovered at the back of their head.

Tortius stood back and let Oranos stand forth. He made the sign of the aquila, and placing purity seals on each hand, he picked up the scrolls from their blood-stained altar.

Suddenly whispers clouded his thoughts. Dark promises and forgotten names...power and power and power...

He shut them out. Closing his mind, locking tight the doors, beating back the hungry wolf outside. His head ached with the effort. He reached as if in slow motion, for a long thin cylinder of metal at his belt. His ceramite-glove grasped it. He let go, and the tension was gone. He had shoved the scrolls into the cylinder. He placed on a cap of brassy metal, put it at his belt, and promptly collapsed. Taking deep breaths, He stood once more. Taking a vial of holy water from his belt, he spilt it in wide circles over the altar. It hissed and bubbled against the strange stone, eating away at the corruption. He kneeled reverently, mumbled litanies of prayer to the Saviour, and stood again. He did not turn. His voice of death came forth from his Vocoder again.

"Burn this place. Burn it all"

He turned and left, fingering the cylinder as he did.

======================================

To be continued.

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oranos's face was unreadable that night aboard the battle cruiser. He had dispensed of his armour soon after leaving the hot sticky little planet without a name they had saved. His grim, gaunt face resembled his skull-helm, and betrayed no emotion. His deep grey eyes were blank, and he said nothing during that nights celebration and mourning, even as he prayed. Tortius was worried for him. He had heard fear in his voice when he gave the orders to burn earlier that day. Fear, nameless fear. It disturbed Tortius. What in Terra's name could scare a being like Oranos, an Astartes, no less than a Chaplain?

 

He had been sent to ask the chaplain if the scrolls were yet disposed of. Official orders from the Ordo Malleus said they must be burnt in holy incense, and the remains cast into the void. It was meant to have been done earlier that night. Despite the all clear to remove power armour, Tortius felt he could not remove his protection until he knew the scrolls were gone.

He strolled down the vast hallways of stone and ferrocrete in the battle cruiser, to the small discreet door engraved with Oranos's name and rank, as well as a notice for prayer times. He was told it had been locked by Oranos for the past 12 hours, and he had made no contact thru vox. His orders told him to ask the chaplain if the scrolls were gone. Simple.

Simple until, the moment the door was open, the Chaplain grabbed Tortius's neck, and twisted it 180 degrees. A sick wet fleshy crack was heard, and he dragged the inert corpse inside.

***

12 hours earlier....

***

Oranos had sat at his desk, and placed the sealed cylinder in front of him. Taking a small brass incense burner engraved with swirling patterns, and filling it with white perfumed powder, he lit it with a small lucifer, and breathed deeply of its heady scents. The faint odour of musty scrolls, the smell of a deep forest, and a dull undertone of sweet lilies. The smoke curled upwards in the gloom of his small, poky room. He gingerly took the metal cylinder, and unscrewed the lid with his fingers. A strange wash of hot air came belching up from the scrolls. Taking care not to touch them, he emptied the cylinder onto his desk and...

they unfurled. It was too late. Oranos had looked at the unholy, impossible words on the scrolls. The whispering returned, the pressure in his head squeezing his brain. His eyes burnt at the depraved scrawls on the ancient parchment. He reached vaguely, like in a dream, for the incense burner, but only managed to displace it, scattering fragrant ash across the floor. instantly the flame went out, and the room was in darkness. Still though, the sigils and rituals glowed and burnt in the black, still they laughed at him. The whispers grew stronger still.

But now, he was listening to them. He picked up the scrolls in his thick hands, and read, and read and...

***

...pulled back the knife from the dead sergeants throat, and watched the blood slowly creep out, a red stain on a dark plain. His face was twisted in a mad rictus of insanity, and he had scratched runes of chaos all over his exposed, grey torso. They had been cut by his knife, and they bled such wondrous red. Such a beautiful color. He must have more. He twisted the knife deeper into Tortius's neck, lowered his index finger into the thick red soup that emerged in fresh waves. He put it to his face, and scrawled copies of the eight pointed star in the scrolls that was so pretty...and prettier still in thick wet red. Yes...

His face was now a nightmare vision, a grey canvas of taut skin against a grinning skull. He stood, and wandered to the door. His hands, slick with blood, slipped on the handle as he threw it wide open, and wandered out into the hallway. He opened his mouth and yelled out a warcry of chilling screams and chaotic words. He strode down the corridor as if he owned it, dripping blood as he went. He laughed

"Chaos saved me, saved me from the nasty corpse-king, yes yes, saved me...."

========================================================

To be continued

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Insanity, and the insane mind, is a wildly lashing blunt club, hitting many things but not killing. Sanity is a fine surgical edge, and in the hands of evil it is far, far more deadly. So when Oranos regained his sanity...you can imagine the pure horror.

***

Oranos put his hand to the rough iron bulk of the armoury doors, and pushed it aside with a long grinding, screeching noise. He stepped inside and strode by memory to his small rack. Tiny servitors scuttled in the dark, their multiple spider-like arms buffing and engraving his obsidian power armour meticulously. They halted as he drew close, their blank eyes swirling in their sockets to focus in, the cogs in their hollow heads analyzing him. Their innoncent, almost childlike faces were plasto-flesh, cherub faces grown in vats to distract from their wizened, mutilated bodies. He gazed at them as if seeing them for the first time. He turned away to a cabinet, and removed his glittering, ancient Crozius Arcanum, a masterpiece of weaponcraft.

He hefted it up as it buzzed into crackling life, and swung it round into the skulls of the servitors, their mechanical pain and cybernetic screams echoing in the dark as they bled oil and wept tears of blood, their bodies ruined. Each one slowly powered down and failed, until they all lay crumpled on the floor like broken puppets. He reached a bloodied hand out for his holy armour, and began to don it.

***

They had found Tortius's body, a ruined and drained nightmare upon the floor of the Chaplains quarters. Immediately armour had been donned and weapons prepared. They knew not whether some Daemon had materialised and devoured the chaplain, or if he had done it himself. All they knew was the cruiser was breached, and their holy duty was to cleanse her halls.

Like crimson giants of stone they thundered down the halls, the crackle of vox-speak connecting them. They held bolters still dripping oil from their anointment before battle, and one hefted a heavy and charred flamer, its promethium tank locked in for battle.

They recieved commands to turn back to the armoury. something had entered after they had left. 4 servitors were not reporting back.

They spun back and trampled down the corridor to the doors, to be met by a black clad figure looking away from them. Confused, the sergeant spoke in a filtered vox tone.

" Chaplain? What in Terras name has happened. What is this heresy? Explain yourself, or be purged!"

"Nothing, sergeant...nothing."

His voice was strange...blank.

The sergeant replied with fear in his voice

"Turn and face us Chaplain. Turn and face us...."

The Chaplain turned. Scrawled across his face were hideous sigils, carvings and self mutilations. They twisted on his flesh, the 8 pointed star prime among them. He smiled a twisted broken smile of incisors and bleeding gums.

"See me." He said in his blank voice.

The sergeant could see his brothers recoil. They might break at any second....

A whoosh indicated the flamer discharging. A gout of flame rushed outwards , the heat filling the air. The vibrant flames engufled the chaplains face, and a horrid bubbling and sizzling was heard. The smell of deacying, burnt flesh wafted out, as the chaplain creased over, his ceramite coated gloves covering his face. He peeled them away with wet flaps of skin and blood, and stared up at them.

His face was naught but a skull, a living icon, and hideous parody of the skull helmet which marked him as a chaplain.

He was...an Anti-Chaplain.

=========================================

To be continued

***** great stuff...all the way until "an anti-chaplain". That just seemed way too anti-climatic (forgive the pun). It just doesn't fit/sound right. Also, because he's singular at this point, I think a name would be better than an occupation. Just my opinion...but you asked. :)

 

How about something like a Death Priest? Or for a name, Death's Scion. I'm trying to tie in the skull motif with a chaos twist. Anyways...just a suggestion.

 

***** Brother Glacius

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