The Elder's Tale

[Dosjetka]

The reasons why I am writing this account are still unclear to me. Maybe it is just an inner spur to write? Or a way to explain my previous failings and sins? Or something else entirely? I cannot say. And maybe I never will.

 

For all that matters though, this dataslate contains the fullest account of my life as a servant of the Holy Emperor of Mankind and as an agent of His most Holy Ordos of the Inquisition. Other accounts and documents recount some parts of my activities, but most are incomplete or corrupted for various reasons, which is not to say that they should go unread. Knowledge is power after all.

 

A word of warning is however required before you, the reader, begins the reading of this data. As this chronicle recounts the better part of my life and in greater detail than other texts they may be on what I have done throughout the past centuries, they describe my many encouters with other Xenos races and to a smaller degree, my unpleasant uncouters with the forces of Chaos. It may also reveal confidential information about my comrades, allies and enemies alike, so for the sake of keeping these facts secret from factions who could use this knowledge to further their own nefarious ends, I ask of you to keep these accounts hidden unless their contents hold some importance to the upkeeping of the Imperium of Mankind or the the destruction of those who will to threaten it. If the information held here falls in the wrong hands, we will all pay dearly for it.

 

The Emperor protects,

 

Inquisitor Pierrick Judikael Tatianus

 

 

 

=I=

Minneus is not a world oft heard about. Nor should it be, being a small Frontier World on the Eastern Fringe of little importance to the Imperium or anyone for that matter. Its inhabitants are mostly herders, travelling the flat plains on the backs of Ku'rn to find new grazing grounds for their flock and generally surviving against the harsh conditions imposed by the cold and dry climate. The only structure of interest to the wider Imperium was a small listening station situated far in the south, across the storm-wracked seas and cut-off from the indigenous people.

 

I grew up there, among those people and those herds of livestock. It was a harsh life, filled with constant work and all young men had to prove themselves to the elder's through different trials set up to test their abilities to the limit, to make sure they were true men who could sustain a wife and children but also to make sure that they were able to fulfill the age-old task of keeping the tribes' livestock alive and healthy. I never had the chance to prove myself to my kind.

 

They came and slaughtered my people like livestock in a slaughterhouse. Those men with hideous faces and burning eyes. Those men with torches and an all-consuming hate. Those men who had turned to the lies of Chaos. Our ramshackle huts that we built to keep the cold at bay during the long nights were filled with my relatives' bodies and set alight. The pyres burnt for days on end, consuming all inside and spreading across the plains, the dry grasses easily catching fire, the inferno helped along by the fierce winds. As the fire seared the land, it was also seared into my mind. My nights are haunted by ethereal fires, burning with no end, closing in on me and making me scream in pain and despair. The only escape is being woken by my manservant and finding myself in a pool of sweat, my throat raw from screaming.

 

I was found by an uncle of mine who had hidden himself in the surrounding rocky defiles. I was crouched over the corpse of a dead cultist, repeatedly stabbing at him with my small hunting knife until there was nothing left but a bloody mess in a pool of blood and tears. I could not be moved or convinced to move away. I just kept on venting all my fear and pain into the helpless body of that man who's name I did not know. I only stopped when I collapsed from exhaustion after two days. My uncle picked me up and rode with me to where he had hidden, nursing me back to health, consoling me when I was awake and guarding me while I slept. At the time, I was so lost in my own grief that I could not comprehend what he was doing for me. I have never had the chance to thank him for what he did for me during those long days and nights. I dearly wish I could have.

 

The men arrived eight days after the massacre, but they were not the same as the killers. They bore armour, sophisticated guns and an eagle spread out proudly on their shoulders pads. They had been alerted by the adepts manning the listening station far to the south of the massive fires and had been dispatched from the nearby world of Negulia. We learnt that we were the only survivors, though we didn't expect anything different. We were taken away to Negulia, though were not told why.

 

Seeing ships for the first time is something quite special and you don't forget such a thing. Giant metal birds with wings of steel. It was a magnificent sight for a young boy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Humans not used to the experience of surface-to-orbit flight are usually found having difficulty holding down their last meal. I was no exception and I fail to remember much about that flight apart from the cold steel plate in front my head and the stinking hole beneath it. My uncle however suffered no such inconveniences and when I was well enough to stand up and walk without throwing up every few metres, I went to join him. As we transfered over to a bigger ship, a mighty Imperial battle cruiser, we were shown the way to the captain's side at the head of the ship.

 

I was generally too busy gazing at the holo-charts of the myriads of stars and trying to understand the various shouts that were bouncing back and forth across the command deck to see that our position by the captain's side was uncommon. The crew feared what we might have represented and, though I did not know this back then, they were right to be so fearful. Because this uncle of mine was no uncle at all. He was the servant of Lord Inquisitor Selvos Nacke, my mentor. He had been posted on the planet to look out for any young humans with potential to serve as acolytes to his master, and maybe eventually rise in the ranks of the Inquisition. The exact reasons why this "uncle" was posted on my home planet and not on one of the millions of other planets throughout the Imperium are unknown to me, but I have my own theories and they seem to work well within the known facts. One thing that is certain, is that I had been watched since my early childhood. I had been deemed worthy of being risen above the sprawling masses and had been selected to serve a most secretive order who's goal was to protect the Imperium at any cost. From the early moments of my life, the path I was to tread had been chosen for me. And I am now most glad of it.

 

Our time on the ship was mostly spent milling about, not doing much. My uncle was occupied at times, but he often walked the various decks with me, talking to me all along and teaching so many things about the empire that stretched across the stars. I learned of the Emperor, distant god on Terra, and of his servants ruling the Imperium in his name. I learned of the Imperial Guard and Navy, who protect the domains of Mankind through their unrelenting sacrifice and courage. I learned of the fearsome and aloof Astartes who are ever-present to repel the worst nightmares that the galaxy throws at us. I learned about the Imperial Cult, taught to all in many different forms. All of this and more I soaked up like a sponge, hungry for knowledge. That was probably one reason I was picked out from the rest, as my never-ending stream of question and constant ferreting annoyed more than one of the tribespeople. I still have a long thin scar across my right cheek left from one encounter with a not-so-happy neighbour who found me snooping around his tent, searching for a small rodent while he was conducting private business with someone else's wife. But it never stopped me from always wanting to know more, which is something that I am still affected by at this advanced age. Knowledge is indeed power, something I kept in my mind during my whole time in service to the Inquisition.

 

Our ultimate destination was unknown to me until only a few days before we docked, so I kept myself occupied as much as I could, trying not to get into the way of the ship's crew as I knew that it would land me into trouble if something went awry. While we met little in the way of obstacles or setbacks during our voyage across the Sea of Stars, I came to discover how my mind reacted to the memories of my tribe's massacre on my home world: constant fatigue. Sleep was no respite for me as I kept on re-living the nightmare scenes with unnerving clarity. While my imagination added its own twist to the memories, I still recognised the reality of it all and almost came to hate those hours when I laid on my cot in the captain's quarters. This "curse", as I like to call it, has plagued me since I can remember and has been my nemesis in many a situation. Lack of sleep was always something I had tried to cope with but never managed which infuriated me greatly. I sought out ways to manage to sleep only a handful of hours per cycle, testing different traditional herbal infusions, system-renowned remedies and I once commissioned a Magos of the Adeptus Biologis to seek out a cure for my predicament, but to no avail. Psi-soothers, small metal probe-like objects intended to soothe ones mind, failed too. The only solution I did not try was mind-wiping: no-one had the right to infiltrate my mind, my holy sanctum, to peer into the depths of my soul. And so my curse still follows me wherever I go, and I have been forced to accommodate it against my best wishes, battling my daemons to grab a small lapse of nightmare-free rest every couple of cycles...

 

When I could not sleep, I would stalk the alleyways and decks of the ship which were always humming with activity as the crews worked in shifts. While I did not interact much with the men tending to the behemoth ship, I was quickly named the "Starlight Walker", due to my habit of going around mostly unseen and ending up staring out into the void, gazing at the celestial landscapes seemingly sculpted by the will of the Emperor. While my imagination was oft a plague to me, it also enabled me to keep vivid memories of starscapes which I cherished dearly. Whether I was deep in the Rim Worlds on the trail of some heretic or xenos beast or in more civilised systems for Inquisitorial Conclaves and other such formal events, the voyages across the stars would be my favourite part of it all. The decks of a void-faring ship are were I dwell and feel the most at peace. They are my only home.

 

 

* * *

 

 

And it was up there, among the pulsing stars, in my first home of steel, that I first experienced the touch of love. I do truly believe that all humans feel this at some time or the other, one way or another, under one guise or another. It is after all one of the fundamental human emotions and drives to do things we would never think we could accomplish, be they deeds of good or evil. As a young pup, it was a very disarming experience: being transfixed by such a curious creature was not something I had lived through before. I seem to recall my first emotion being fear, because I felt like a lamb at the mercy of a ravenous wolf. I was convinced that she was not of this world, that she was just some figment of my imagination, or some trick that I could not figure out.

 

Or warp-spawn.

 

I had of course heard many stories telling the story of starfarers disappearing in the bowels of a ship, never to be seen again, all because of a vision they had. That vision was usually described as being a young female human, but that is where similarity ends, as each storyteller has his own view on how the ravishing young woman looks like.

 

At that moment, my mind was convinced that there was something very wrong with the whoel situation, and yet my heart sang with passion. There she was, as real as my own now-pale flesh, taking on a reddish hue common to earth-dwellers during their first space voyage; as real as the cold, bitter kiss of the recycled air flowing through the bowls of the ship; as real as the dull metal sheets all around me, protecting me from the void like the kokos shell protects its soft, sweet flesh that I was so very fond of as a youngling. It was only when she walked up to me with the grace of a skilled dancer, when she took my cold hands with her own warm ones, when she allowed me to loose myself in her tender gaze, that I had no doubt that this was no surreal display or holographic trick. It was, on the contrary, one of the most heartfelt experiences of my long, long life and my young heart yearned for that moment to last until the end of time. In hindsight, what a foolish wish it was.

[Dosjetka]

Hello reader!

 

So, this will be my little Inquisition story that I hope to update regularly! :tu: I've been inspired to do this by Lady_Canoness's excellent "The Inquisition" series (I - II - III) and Aquilanus' work here on the B&C.

 

I hope this will work out and please at least a few ;)

 

Cheers for reading,

 

Ludovic

[Dosjetka]

* * *

[Lady_Canoness]

I dig it Ludo!

 

You're taking it at a very gentle pace so far (not rushing anything, which is good) and you are letting us get a sense of where your Inquisitor came from. I will be inerested to see how you develope things further.

 

Also, thanks for the endorsement!

 

-L_C

[Dosjetka]

Why thank you Lady_C :)

 

Yeah, I'm going slow, but I think that's the best for the moment, until I get a better grip on writing things ;)

 

And, well I once learnt that where credit is due, it should be given, so that's what I do :)

 

Ludovic

[Dosjetka]

I'm back to writing this for a little while at the very least. The first post has been updated with the new part. Comments and criticism are always appreciated :)

 

Cheers,

 

Ludovic

[Chapter Master Onyxius]

love the story, can't wait to see more.

 

- CMO

[Captain Juan Juarez]

It feels like a prologue to me, something that usually exists to have a somewhat prophetic effect on the later - and greater - story at hand.

 

That said, it's good work - as usual - and I will be interested to see the narrative continued.

[Dosjetka]

Cheers CMO and CJJ :lol:

 

And yes, it is a prologue of sorts. It also helps me "set the stage" for the rest of the story and to give me ideas for what I could include later on!

 

Ludovic

[Aqui]

This is the first time I've seen this (Primus knows how... :lol: ), and really like this so far. As another who has been inspired by Lady C, I can only back BBL's endorsement of her work.

 

If you haven't seen it already, then don't hesitate! :)

 

Good start BBL! ^_^

[Dosjetka]

Cheers Aquilanus ;) I appreciate the praise and I'll try and get an update in sometime next week!

 

Ludovic

[RedApple75]

I hope there will be an update when I come back :D (no pressure though!)

[Dosjetka]

I'll try my best to update and not disappoint :yes:

 

Ludovic

[Lyra Omenarr]

Do you know if you'll have the time to update your story anytime soon? :)

[Dosjetka]

I could give it a shot sometime soon. No guarantee though, as I'm pretty busy with school work and other projects.

 

TL;DR version: I'll see what I can do.

 

Ludovic

[Dosjetka]

I've been in the mood for writing tonight so I've updated the first post with an extra snippet of the story. Not much, I'm afraid, but an uncomfortable keyboard and tiredness are keeping me from writing more. Hopefully it won't be another three months before I update this again.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Ludovic

[Monstra Sumus]

:)

[Dosjetka]

:)

And that is supposed to mean what? :P

 

Ludovic

[Monstra Sumus]

;)

And that is supposed to mean what? :P

 

Ludovic

 

It means I like it. It's refreshing to see something done from the first person view point and done well, it's often butchered. This is shaping up nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing more after my hiatus.

[Dosjetka]

It means I like it. It's refreshing to see something done from the first person view point and done well, it's often butchered. This is shaping up nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing more after my hiatus.

Well, I thank you for the compliments, it's always appreciated :P I'll try and get the story updated within the next week or so, time permitting.

 

Ludovic

[Aqui]

It means I like it. It's refreshing to see something done from the first person view point and done well, it's often butchered. This is shaping up nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing more after my hiatus.

Well, I thank you for the compliments, it's always appreciated :P I'll try and get the story updated within the next week or so, time permitting.

 

Ludovic

 

I'll try not to hold you to it...hmm where's my Chainsword? ;)

[Dosjetka]

And it was up there, among the pulsing stars, in my first home of steel, that I first experienced the touch of love. I do truly believe that all humans feel this at some time or the other, one way or another, under one guise or another. It is after all one of the fundamental human emotions and drives to do things we would never think we could accomplish, be they deeds of good or evil. As a young pup, it was a very disarming experience: being transfixed by such a curious creature was not something I had lived through before. I seem to recall my first emotion being fear, because I felt like a lamb at the mercy of a ravenous wolf. I was convinced that she was not of this world, that she was just some figment of my imagination, or some trick that I could not figure out.

 

Or warp-spawn.

 

I had of course heard many stories telling the story of starfarers disappearing in the bowels of a ship, never to be seen again, all because of a vision they had. That vision was usually described as being a young female human, but that is where similarity ends, as each storyteller has his own view on how the ravishing young woman looks like.

 

At that moment, my mind was convinced that there was something very wrong with the whoel situation, and yet my heart sang with passion. There she was, as real as my own now-pale flesh, taking on a reddish hue common to earth-dwellers during their first space voyage; as real as the cold, bitter kiss of the recycled air flowing through the bowls of the ship; as real as the dull metal sheets all around me, protecting me from the void like the kokos shell protects its soft, sweet flesh that I was so very fond of as a youngling. It was only when she walked up to me with the grace of a skilled dancer, when she took my cold hands with her own warm ones, when she allowed me to loose myself in her tender gaze, that I had no doubt that this was no surreal display or holographic trick. It was, on the contrary, one of the most heartfelt experiences of my long, long life and my young heart yearned for that moment to last until the end of time. In hindsight, what a foolish wish it was.

 

 

You can expect the full text to be up by the end of the week-end. In the meantime, any comments and/or criticism are appreciated.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

EDIT: Added the excerpt to the first post for continuity's sake.

[deathspectersgt7]

Like it ,pictured myself in his place and the the only image that came across was deathspectre smash !!!! But I still like so would like to read more or you know the other guy takes over.