Scars Episode XI Updated 16/10 (Spoilers)

[Greyall]

I thought Lorgar saw Argel die in 'Aurelian'. In the vision, Argel was a Daemon Prince and skewered an Imperial Fist on one of his horns. Pretty sure that was Lorgar's vision, shown by Ingethel.

[Kol Saresk]

Yeah, that's one of the visions where Lorgar saw Argel Tal at Terra. But he didn't see Argel Tal die, at least not that I can recall.

[Greyall]

True. Sanguinius lands in front of Argel and Ingethel turns off Chaosvision and states 'That's how your son dies'. Not that Lorgar wasn't aware of that already.

[Kol Saresk]

I forgot about that piece. Been a while since I read Aurelian, I admit. Well, I stand corrected.

[Greyall]

Actually, you were right, Lorgar doesn't get to see it. Not like Argel does.

 

Best part is, they were both deceived.

[Kol Saresk]

"When the truth is only what you choose to see, it isn't hard to be deceived."

[Greyall]

Wise words, oh psychopathic assassin who likes to jump on weaker prey from the shadows.

[Kol Saresk]

It's ironic. Wolves hunt by going after the stragglers and separating them from the pack and the only go after the strong when it stands alone and they can attack from multiple sides. So technically the Night Lords are more like wolves than even the Space Wolves are.

[Greyall]

Aye, good point. Space Wolves are more like bears or tigers (thankfully we're spared from a striped scheme).

 

Unlike Wolves, though, the Night Lords use ambushes, though they also tire their prey, in a certain way.

[Emperor's Furor]

Night Lords also run away when they are confronted by a tougher foe, as evidenced when they run away from Orks leaving Iron Warriors to die during a fleet engagement, however they return to nip away at the Orks. If you've seen The Grey with Liam Neeson, they act like the wolves in that.

[Kol Saresk]

lol, that's how wolves work Greyall. They attack as a pack, going after those weak enough that they can isolate. And in a manner that sends the rest of the prey-herd running away. To a wolf, a prey-herd that stands its ground is very dangerous.

 

The funny thing is, a true wolf pack is always fractious. The alpha is always having to put down challenges into he dies, either by a challenge, a bigger predator or a hunt gone wrong.

[Greyall]

'Night Wolves' would've sounded cool =p

[GhostMalone]

So who wants episode 10 summary?

[Conn Eremon]

EVERYONE

[GhostMalone]

 

okay quick run through, shiban is trying to bring the lodges actions to attention. The lodges are in control if the flagship sword storm and are me puckering through the fleet for the arrival of Horus. Shiban hunts down another nyon khan trying to prove that there is a war about to break loose, said khan is also part of the lodge. Shiban rallies the brotherhood of the storm to go renegade and take the sword storm and rally the other loyalists.

 

Arvada States that they need to leave prospero and wants the scars to take him. The khan gets the whole story from Magnus. When Magnus technically died he split in two one part is currently on the planet of sorcerers and the other is trapped on prospero waiting for an event to occur so he can move on. He tells the truth of the warp and the chaos gods wishing them to war eternally, how Horus is corrupted and that he repents for his actions and wishes forgiveness he is melancholy accepting he was wrong but the emp and malcadore also aren't blameless. A big shpeal on choosing sides and that loyalty to the imperium has honour but the emp is a dictator and that if you turn to horus and see him for what he use to be that there are perks, jaghati then goes I'll take them all on like a boss! Magnus says he has no choice and needs to decide or next time they will be allies or enemies. Magnus himself hasn't decided if he will stay loyal or turn to horus as he sees a path to redemption if the emperor survives

 

[GhostMalone]

 

“Shiban strode to the balcony overlooking the Kaljian’s main crew assembly chamber. His armour shone from the overhead lumens. The tech-priests and armoury servitors had restored it to perfection after Phemus, and it no longer bore any of the marks of that cursed world. His glaive felt light in his hand.

‘Brothers!’ he said, addressing the near-five hundred warriors arranged before him. They stood in their squads, each one arrayed in ivory battleplate, each one silently expectant. ‘You have all heard the rumours running around the Legion. You have all heard that we are now adrift, that the Emperor has turned tyrant, that Horus is a traitor and that all allegiances are now suspect. Some of you will have made your own minds up. You may have fought over it, or you may have kept your counsel to yourself.’

Shiban scanned the ranks of warriors. As he did so, he felt a quiet surge of pride. Chogorian runes, engraved starkly upon the bone-white plate, gazed back at him, each one a masterpiece of calligraphy. Above them hung the battle standards of the brotherhood – the lightning sigil of the khans, the storm-motif, the long lists of past engagements.

‘Everything we thought we knew has been shown to be false. Brother now fights against brother. You can see through the viewports where this has taken us – Prospero is a burned wasteland, and there can be no going back from that.’

Jochi stood at his shoulder, dependable as granite. Shiban was glad of his presence – Jochi had never queried anything, never questioned an order. He was the epitome of loyalty.

‘There will be vengeance for this,’ he said, ‘and we will be a part of it. But until the “Khagan rules, there can be no fresh hunt. All of you, when you ascended, when you gave yourself the scar that marks you, accepted this. We are not fighters, ripe to murder when the whim take us – we are legionaries. We are warriors of the ordu of Jaghatai.’

The assembly chamber rang with his vox-amplified words. Polished walls of marble and jet glimmered dully, reflecting the armour within. From far below came the clunk and whine of hangar lifters preparing the brotherhood’s speeders.

‘Not all of our battle-brothers feel this way,’ Shiban went on. ‘Some are seeking to pre-empt the order. They have been working for a long time, fed by information from beyond the Legion, encouraged to believe the word of outsiders who have no understanding of our ways or our culture.’

He remembered Torghun’s enthusiasm, his trust. Not for the first time, Shiban wondered why the Terran had taken the risk of inviting him in – he must have known the likelihood of rejection. Was it arrogance? Or had he been searching, somehow, for con“firmation?

‘They may be right, brothers. They may be right when they claim that the Warmaster has been betrayed and now demands our fealty. They may speak the truth when they proclaim the Emperor’s hand in the holocaust on the world below us. I do not know. And that is the core of it – none of us do. Only one in this Legion has the authority to order us to war. He remains silent, and so we must wait.’

Shiban felt his pulse pick up. He was coming to the turning point.

‘Time has now run out. The lodges have called the Warmaster, and he has answered. The fleet is already half pledged to his cause. Many others are ignorant, knowledge is guarded by the few.’

Shiban’s voice remained quiet as he spoke – the soft, subtle tones he had learned as an aspirant in Khum Karta – but he infused them with solidity. They would need to believe in him. They would need to follow him, just as they had on Chondax, on Phemus, on Ullanor, and this time it would “not be easy.

‘It is left to us, brothers. The time for arguments has passed – they have made their move, so we are compelled to make ours. We are hemmed in, and our space is diminishing. We must act. We must defy our orders to ensure that the Legion remains free.’

He took a long breath. Now it came.

‘Brothers, Hasik Noyan-Khan has control of the Swordstorm. From there he controls the Legion in the Khagan’s absence. He must not be allowed to make the decision for us. That is why I have called you here. It means assuming the mantle of renegades, at least in the eyes of those who now seek to subvert us. It means taking up arms against our own brothers. You do not need me to tell you that no such rebellion has ever occurred inside the White Scars. We risk our honour, and may pay for it with our lives.’

Shiban clutched the hilt of his glaive tightly.

‘I cannot demand this of you. We will not be fighting xenos – these are our own people. All I can do is ask you to trust me. I “have led you across the arc of the galaxy in the cause of the Great Crusade. We have brought compliance to hundreds of worlds and given honour to the name “White Scar”. You followed me then. Brothers, you have heard what I judge to be true.’

He paused for a heartbeat.

‘Will you follow me now?’

There was no hesitation. There were no sidelong glances or mutterings of discontent. As one, the Brotherhood of the Storm raised their blades. Five hundred glaives, tulwars and power mauls rose into the air. With a crackle, disruptor fields snapped into blue-edged life.

‘Khagan!’ they roared in unison, and the sound of it resounded from the high, vaulted ceiling of the chamber.

Shiban raised his own weapon in salute, his hearts beating hard. The moment had come, the choice had been made. There could be no going back now.

‘Khagan!’ the warriors roared again, brandishing their weapons in ritual tribute. Shiban stood before them, his glaive angled “over them, relishing their unshakeable loyalty.

‘So there you have it, khan,’ said Jochi over the vox, sounding both impressed and wary. ‘You have started your war.’

‘We did not start it,’ replied Shiban grimly. ‘But we will make it ours yet.”

 

 

[GhostMalone]

 

“The Khan did not believe the evidence of his senses for a long time. He kept his dao raised, poised to strike, as it had done against the psychneuein.

The spectre before him was just as they had been – translucent, glowing with faint light, flickering and broken as if filtered by a faulty hololith projector.

‘What are you?’ the Khan asked warily.

The shade looked thoughtful. ‘A remnant,’ he said slowly. ‘A dream of something destroyed.’ He raised an insubstantial hand and held it up before an insubstantial face. ‘Matter. Thought. Energy. We have learned that there is not much difference, in the end, “between them all.’

The Khan held his ground. Magnus’s voice was the same, exactly the same – sonorous, a little mournful, rich with the accumulated cadences of a hundred dialects. His baroque armour was cracked open, hanging from his frame in slivers. His cloak was ripped, and his robes were stained with old blood.

‘You are not Magnus,’ said the Khan.

‘Maybe not entirely,’ mused the shade. ‘Maybe not. But we share a soul. That is the important thing – the soul. I see yours before me, much as it ever was. Impatient. Burning with resentment. I did not think to see it again.’

The Khan’s eyes narrowed. The likeness was uncanny – almost seductively so. The way the shade moved, the aura it projected, they were all the same. The phantasm picked its way through the dust before sitting heavily upon the shell of the great bronze Occullum scope. The metal flexed beneath his weight. In some sense, then, the spectre influenced the world of matter.

‘Put your sword down,’ said Magnus. ‘You “couldn’t hurt me with it, and I have no intention of hurting you.’

The Khan lowered the point but did not sheathe it. ‘What happened here?’

Magnus smiled wearily. ‘The Wolves happened. Our father’s vengeance, sent from Fenris. They brought the Sisters with them too, and Valdor. Such violence. Valdor is a machine. Russ, for all his theatricality, is little different. It happened rather quickly in the end.’

The Khan felt hollow. Despite all that he had seen, to hear confirmation of it was still hard.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why did they do it?’

Magnus drew in a long breath. As he did so, the dust around him stirred. ‘Don’t blame them. They were doing what they were bred to do, like dogs trained on a scent. And they were right to bring me to heel, in a way. I made mistakes. You warned me of some of them, back before I went to Nikaea. You remember when we spoke on Ullanor? I should have listened then. But I never did “listen well. Happier to be listened to, more’s the pity.’

The Khan watched Magnus carefully as he spoke. The old flamboyance had gone, replaced by a kind of grim resignation. Every so often his outline would flicker out almost completely, then restore itself weakly. The ghostly presence looked on the verge of guttering out, as if sustained by some damaged power source.

‘Magnus,’ said the Khan, controlling his impatience badly. ‘Tell me plainly.’

‘You were right,’ said Magnus. ‘You were right, and that is all there is to say. I should have restrained my sons. You never made the bargains I had to, so your Legion was never compromised. But here’s the truth – we were all deceived. All of us. The Ocean was never benign, and it was conspiring against us even as we stepped into its shallows. The greater the soul, the greater the jeopardy. Horus was the greatest soul of them all, and so his was the furthest fall. Tell you plainly? Very well. Horus has been eaten by the warp. His body is bursting with “it, corroding him, gnawing at him from the inside. There were others – Erebus, Lorgar – but it was his decision in the end. He can’t hide behind them, for they were only shadows compared to him.’

The Khan drew closer, never taking his eyes from Magnus’s face. It was hard to follow his train of thought – the Crimson King’s mind had always worked in strange, roundabout ways.

‘I tried to warn our father,’ said Magnus. ‘That was my crime, and this is the punishment.’ He looked around the dust-caked caves. ‘It was pride, that was all. Pride that swallowed Horus, too. You see, Jaghatai, here’s the problem – we were made too well. Nothing in the galaxy could stand against us. We learned that we, and only we, held the destiny of a billion worlds in our own hands. So the gods waited and they watched, and they realised what we did not – that only the primarchs could destroy the primarchs. Only we could bring down the eternal Imperium, because everything else had been annihilated. That’s what Lorgar “called it. The Primordial Annihilator.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Save me, but Lorgar can be tedious. He might grasp the deeper truths, but he’s as much of a slave to his gene-coding as the rest of us.’

The Khan squatted down, bringing his eyes into line with Magnus’s. He rested his dao tip-down on the rock floor.

‘Russ did this?’ he asked.

Magnus nodded. ‘As completely as he does everything.’

‘And Horus?’

‘No, brother. No.’ Magnus shook his head a little impatiently. ‘Do you not see yet? We are all just two sides of the same coin. Most of us have cast our lots, and only a few remain. Then the game begins. I have come to see it like this – the gods demand entertainment. They demand contest and trial. We could not be allowed to defeat our own daemons, for that would be boring, and boredom is the only thing the eternals fear. We are being lined up, one by one, to tear at one another’s throats. I do not think they wish to see a victor. I think they wish us to fight “forever, locked in madness until the universe’s end.’

Magnus smiled again at the Khan. It used to be a warmer smile; now it was condescending, self-aware, cynical.

‘I see much, from my new home,’ he said. ‘I see how things are lining up. You’re one of the last, Jaghatai. They don’t know which way you will go. None of them do, and that’s why you have the eyes of the galaxy on you at last.’

‘Do not talk like this,’ said the Khan, coldly. ‘I have never taken sides.’

‘You’d take them all on?’ laughed Magnus. ‘I believe you would at that. But come, there are only two paths here – you can hunker down in what remains of our father’s Imperium and try to keep the moon-wolf from beating down the door, or you can remember how Horus used to be, and stand at his side as he brings terror to the complacent. The first would be the more loyal course, but the other has its merits.’

‘What of you?’

Magnus paused then, as if the question “had only just occurred to him. ‘Me? What of me?’ His one eye creased under a lone eyebrow. ‘My choices are constrained. I know more than anyone what awaits us on the other side. Do you think I welcome that? It is the ruin I worked for centuries to avoid, but our father is not the forgiving sort. My bridges are burned with him. They were burned when I broke the wards over his little project.’

Magnus looked sidelong at the Khan.

‘He’s been up to all sorts of things, our beloved father. Consorting with xenos, resurrecting ancient technology. Don’t believe that he is blameless in this, nor that old conspirator Malcador. Every choice is tainted now, and we’re all dancing down the same path of decay. The only question is which herd to follow, and which doom is less disagreeable.’

‘No.’ The Khan stood up again. ‘Whatever you are, you are not Magnus. You don’t even sound like him.’

Magnus shrugged. ‘Believe what you want. Perhaps I am not Magnus. I used to be, that “is certain, but maybe what counts as my self is not what it was. Part of me dwells elsewhere, on a barren rock halfway across the cosmos. Part of me is here, lingering like a stench over carrion. I can’t quite leave, not yet. I think something has to happen first. Maybe you are it, or maybe you were never meant to be here. I favour the latter – you were always unpredictable.’

‘I came to find a friend,’ said the Khan distastefully. ‘Whatever else had happened, I thought, I could come to you for counsel.’

Magnus looked hurt. ‘Do not be harsh, Khagan. Only a part of me resides here, slinking in the shadows. The better part is elsewhere, pondering loftier things. Soon he – or I, or we – will come to a judgement.’

‘What will that be?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. Lorgar sends me pleas almost daily, reminding me what Russ did here. He thinks we are kindred spirits. Touching, really.’ Magnus paused, and stared down at his flickering hands. ‘Sometimes, though, I still think there might be some way back. I see it as a maze, one in “which all I have to do is find the route through. Perhaps the Emperor will forgive. If He survives what I have unleashed, perhaps He will.’ Then Magnus’s spectral eye flicked up at the Khan again. ‘But you, Jaghatai? What is your choice?’

The Khan shook his head. ‘We are who we are – no one’s slaves.’

Magnus laughed. ‘That’s not good enough. You have to choose.’

‘If what you say is true, then the dream is over. It will be each Legion alone.’

‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘Horus is corrupted, the Emperor is a tyrant.’

‘True enough.’

‘Then I choose neither.’

Magnus laughed again, though the sound was bitter. ‘This thing is a like a great dark star, ringed by fire. It will draw you in, bit by bit, until you are orbiting it with the rest of us. Even you do not have ships fast enough to escape it, Jaghatai. Even your White Scars will not get out.’

The Khan felt sick from the stink of death “and ashes. His blade glittered coldly in the near-perfect dark. ‘We can outrun anything that lives.’

‘But they do not live, not like we do. I do not lie, brother. Choose. We will meet again, either as allies or foes, so you may as well decide now.’

The Khan stared down at Magnus, his mind in turmoil.

‘What have you become?’ he asked, no longer able to keep the horror from his voice.

‘What I was always destined to be,’ said Magnus, looking at him sadly. ‘But you still have a choice, brother. Make the right one.”

 

[Conn Eremon]

Wait, what?

 

 

Magnus is split in two?

 

 

That sounds like an odd place to take the story, but okay.

[GhostMalone]

Well I think horus has set up a trap and once he arrives the loyal part of Magnus may be lost and were left with angry traitor magnus

[Kol Saresk]

Wait, what?

 

 

Magnus is split in two?

 

 

That sounds like an odd place to take the story, but okay.

Not entirely.

 

 

Once upon a time, people believed the Night Haunter and Konrad Curze were two different entities living within the same Primarch. It's possible that they're maybe pulling something up that one eye is Chaos Magnus(the one he gave up forever and a half ago) and the other isn't.

 

[depthcharge12]

That would be quite tragic to lose the better half

[GhostMalone]

It explains the battle of the fang and why one as loyal as Magnus turned

[Greyall]

So now the Khan is planning to take on any aligned forces? Goddamit, the man is crazy about being 'independent'. Even the ghost of a traitor has a more lucid head than him.

 

Any hints on who's coming to Prospero, after all? It must be tied to what needs to happen for ghost-Magnus to fade.

[Kol Saresk]

Technically it's the Loyalist Ghost

[Greyall]

Oh, right. I'm wondering if all it'll take for Magnus to definitely turn traitor is for the loyalist ghost to fade or if there's a confrontation brewing.