++Inspirational Friday - 19/06/2015++

[Tenebris]

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And back again for another Inspirational Friday. First thing first, I apologize for the late hour but I was delayed at work, February is a big thing in the office, so well someone has to bring home bread and beans. The past week we were writing about the sword of the angels, of the first and the last roar on a Warhammer 40k battlefield, we were writing about a bolter. I am surprised of how many of you contributed this week and I am happy so see some quality penwork. This week's winner is right in the above post, Son of Carnelian, and this victory goes to his awesome daemonic bolter hidden in the depths of Medusa. I know, I know, the theme was not a daemonic weapon but we can all agree that Son of Carnelian did an amazing job with his post. 

 

 

Step forth Son of Carnelian and claim your reward!

 

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Inspirational Friday - 13/02/2015 - Chaos Assassin

 

 

For this Inspirational Friday we will venture in the realm of the bizarre, the sinister and the vicious, this week we will write about a Chaos Assassin. The art of murder is one of the most ancient arts of mankind, while mighty warriors fight each other on the blood soaked battlefields, behind their backs, lurking in the shadows the true hunters stalk. Mankind created its fair share of monsters but none are more lethal than the assassins employed by the legions of Chaos. 

 

The Imperium left a legacy for the traitor legions and the Dark Mechanicus to learn, the legacy of a clean kill, of absolute precision and art in the death dealing blow, the legacy of death and its myriad of applications and ministrations. Assassins were employed by the human societies throughout the history of mankind and in the past ten thousand years this art was perfected to a nigh superhuman degree. 

 

The infamous assassins of the Officio Assassinorum have been the bane of the lords of chaos time and again. It is rumored that even the mighty primarch of the VIIIth legion fell to an assassin's blade but it is also widespread knowledge that Horus himself employed assassins for his own gain. In the centuries that followed the exile of the traitors within the Eye of Terror countless forms of killer agents were developed. Of this agents, of this chaos assassins I want you to write. 

 

The assassins employed by the Chaos warbands come in many shapes and forms. Some are humans broken upon the altar of death and reforged into the specimens which equal the skill of an Officio Assassinorum operative, while on the other hand the Dark Mechanicus is infamous for its use of killer drones. Unbound by law or edict and free to explore the art of death to its wildest extent the Chaos Assassins are as much product of their warband culture as well as the creation of the countless warrior cults withing the Realm of the Eye, yet marked above all they are by the genius of the Chaos Lord which commissioned their creation. 

 

I want you to explore this agents of death, to try to express how do you envision a "Chaos Assassin" or how would you forge one of your own operatives into an instrument of death. Whether be it daemonic or organic, technological or psychic, the Chaos Assassin is the very pinnacle of the art of the killing blow. Each one of this operatives is the very sum of the sinister knowledge passed onto mankind, the knowledge of shadows, of death, of precision. Each one of this Chaos Assassins is an unique creature created for a single task, the delivery of the killing blow, the elimination of a target. I want you to tell us what manner of horror do you employ as your instrument of death, what creature is the one you call a Chaos Assassin. 

 

Let us be inspired!

 

Tenebris

[Son of Carnelian]

Aw shucks. Thanks gang! Glad you all liked it! I'll keep more strictly to the theme this time around though, I promise. Great entries by everyone and I cannot wait to see your takes on the assassins theme!

[Kierdale]

Congratulations, Son of (Zephro?) Carnelian.

 

I got started on my next entry this morning. Some familiar faces appearing, and some new.

[Carrack]

Creation of the Kleftiszoi

 

 

I. Selection

 

The first step is of course very important. The more care you take with selection, the greater the chance you will create a full fledged Kleftiszoi. The selection process is in many ways, similar to that of choosing aspirants to take the geneseed in the traditional fashion. You want to pick the strongest of youths, in mind, body, and spirit. Only you do not have to concern yourself with genetic compatibility with the subject and the geneseed. Indeed, you may even select those of the female gender, and there are often advantages to doing so. How you do this I leave to your imagination, but I will detail some of the successful methods I have seen. Dark Disciple Lavam chooses from both the most violent of the young underhive gangers, and young shield-maidens from the polar tribes. Champion Vinno lazily buys gladiator slaves. Black Legionnaire Harold holds hunts of the serfs that work his estates, and chooses the most resourceful of his prey. Lord Carrack himself, before he took command, would kidnap young wanderers in the Guelph Wastes on the Demon World of Malebodge. Whatever method you choose, honor the Blood God in selection and choose 8 youths, it is a manageable number to train and will typically produce one true Kleftiszoi from the process.

 

II. Conditioning

 

This is the most time consuming stage, but do not take short cuts, or you will not produce the desired result. Here is where you build the mental and physical strength of your selectees. A great emphasis should be placed on intelligence, endurance and agility training. Always include an element of real danger to condition the mind to overcome fear. For example; Dark Disciple Lavam does not merely send selectees on endurance runs, he has them chased by mutants. When Harald has selectees walk the balance beam, he has them traverse it over a pit of vipers. Vinno incorporates electro shock in the memory exercises. Lord Carrack, I am told, would cut a small incision into the heel of his selectees, prior to having them swim the shark infested Aximand Bay.

 

There is more to conditioning than mere exercise. You must also prepare them for the enhancements they will receive later, in order to increase the chances that they survive that stage. To this end, employ the services of an a herbalists and an alchemist to start introducing the potions, combat stims, and pain blockers they will later receive in much higher dosage. This team should also be able to report which concoctions will be most suitable to each selectee. Likewise, employ a thrall wizard to start placing the necessary mental damns and also make the selectee more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion later on in the process. Beware these thrall wizards, they are untrustworthy to the man.

 

As a general guideline, we have found the most success in creating Kleftiszoi, if two to three of the selectees die, or are permanently injured during this stage. If your results are different, adjust the intensity of the conditioning.

 

III. Specialization

 

This is also a long stage in the creation of a Kleftiszoi, but the stage blends in with the conditioning stage, so it is hard to determine which is longer. The Specialization stage is where you will determine which type of Kleftiszoi you will produce, a Hunter-Thief with her sniper rifle, or a Shadow-Killer who gets so close to his target that he stabs the mark from the victim's own shadow. As you slowly cut back on the conditioning regimes, incorporate marksmanship and sword drill into their training. By quickly making a decision on which direction each selectee will take, you can cut down the time it takes to complete this stage of the process. As your selectees progress, continue to cut back on the conditioning to incorporate more and more weapons training.

 

As an Astartes, you should have no difficulty conducting these drills yourself, however you need to bring in maestros of different fighting styles, to broaden their repertoire. Expert stalkers and survivalist from different environment should also be on hand to instruct on their areas of expertise.

 

This stage should be the most dangerous stage in the process. Sparring with blunted swords has its place, but does not teach lessons as completely as actual dueling with bladed weapons. Likewise, with enough time on the firing range, almost anyone can become a firing range sharpshooter, but having an opponent shooting back at them, will show you who is the marksmen that can perform under the stress of fire. It is recommended that more than half of the surviving selectees perish in this stage. Also, by the completion of this stage, you should have arranged where each selectee has killed one of their peers. This breaks down any bonds of loyalty to each other that have developed. Their loyalty, like that of all true Kleftiszoi, should only be to their master.

 

IV. Enhancement

 

This is the most costly stage of the process and includes many sub steps. By this point you should have one to two selectees left. You should continue the weapon training and conditioning from earlier, but can tone down the lethality somewhat to help protect your investment in time and money training them. The lethality of the previous stages has served its purpose. At this stage have an alchemist and a chirurgeon-tek implant the internal introduction glands for the potions, combat stims, and pain blockers. Any discrete augmetical weapons or optics you wish to install should be done so as well. I recommend a telescopic eye that can be slaved to a scope for the Hunter-Kleftiszoi, and advanced night vision implants for the Shadow-Kleftiszoi.

 

You also need to complete the psychic conditioning of the selectee at this stage as well. The selectees should have a memory damn built up to foil most beta grade psychers, and be completely susceptible to hypnotic control words. For this you can use thrall wizards, but watch them carefully, lest they subvert their subjects loyalty.

 

By the end of this stage, the selectee should bear the arms and equipment of a Kleftiszoi. This includes chamoline body glove, sidearm, flash pulse grenades and Apostate 2 sniper rifle with priest-killer, halo-breaker, and discarding sabot talon rounds for the Hunter. For the Shadow-Kleftiszoi it includes a shadow cloak and twinned power swords.

 

V. Kleftiszoi

 

What separates the Kleftiszoi from other assassins is the Ritual of the Life Stealer. This is a complex rite that summons power from the warp and feeds it to the Selectee. If the selectee survives eating the warp power, he or she will become a Kleftiszoi, a most lethal killer that must forever more feed on the life force, indeed the very souls, of those they are sent to kill.

 

The ritual circle must be carved into basalt and the carving filled with molten silver. The candles, of human tallow, must be lit in sequence along the cardinal points of the Chaos Star. The selectee must be anointed with tears of a witch and placed into a receptive meditative trance. Hallucinogens are recommended. The sacrifice will occur post-ritual, when the Kleftiszoi seeks to immediately feed, so have a slave on hand. You can find the most complete incantation in the sorcerer Ghannor's, library, but Lavam, and Vinno may possess fragmented copies as well. The warp power sometimes proves too much for the selectee, and he or she may explode in uncontrolled power.

 

Be forewarned, a daemon may use the ritual to attempt to possess the selectee. In particular, the entity known as Ugolino of the 9th, knows of this ritual and has attempted to gain entry into reality through its use. When it has breached the walls of reality in the past, it has proven unconquerable to the will of the ritualist, and will attempt to feed on as many souls as it can until it can be banished back to the warp.

 

[Tenebris]

Report fragment 274.12 C by Inquisitor Acolyte Sevin Denah

 

The subject is kept under sedatives though the Magos had to double the dose since it was observed that the assassin is highly resistant to the standard chemical treatments used for an interrogation. 

 

Subject Delta is the last of the so called "Tears" that we have managed to capture but the capture came at a great cost to the Inquisition. No less than two acolytes lie dead and the crew of "The Vigilant Son" had to be neutralized due to the side effects of the genophage unleashed by this servant of the Ruinous Powers. 

 

The method of infiltration aboard our frigate was achieved by using the so called "Sleeper Protocol", the agent was preconditioned and trained to operational standards before he was processed in order to become a "Slate Agent", his persona was of Midshipman Warwick Julen which later allowed to operative to bypass our security net and place himself on the bridge of the ship. Of his previous personas or of his past life the operative has no working knowledge, even advanced psychoharmonic probing did not achieve the desired results.

 

We suspect that the operative was active for several months before his attempt at the murder of Inqusitor Ross and we were all surprised when the execution was perfect, flawless. A micro needle imbued with a highly mutagenic phage was shot at the Inquisitor in the exact moment when he was in the blind spot of his Cyberneticum bodyguard, the shot reached the target and the Inqusitor was already undergoing a severe and rapid mutation before we were able to reach him. 

 

We have observed that Subject Delta did use an advanced form of needle, forged from an unknown, almost liquid, living bone, which was as much organic as it was sorcerous in its nature. The needle was able to pierce the Refractor Field used by the Inquisitor and easily went though his power armor. The mutagenic element was revealed to be as much part of the needle itself as it was its bonelike structure. Inquisitor Albezana speculates that the needle is in fact a stasis imbued quill of a Lord of Change though only when the results from Watch Station Saragusta will be delivered we would learn the truth on the matter.

 

Subject Delta himself is clearly human though he underwent through several organic and technological augmentations. The organic augmentation is seen it its bulked muscles, clearly enhanced by training and biological serums as well as in the augmentation of the eyes, the cornea clearly of advanced capacity, enhanced with the use of what we refer as "Daemonflesh". The mechanical augmentations are subtle but very potent. The bones of the operative were drilled and imbued with a liquid gel of unknown nature, which appears to harden instantly when broken, also the gel acts as an advanced conduit for steroid particles which increase the strength and resilience of the subject. Layers of microfiber muscles were grafted to the subject's natural musculature and a sheen of cartilage sheets could be glimpsed under the subject's skin. We speculate that this augmentations when combined allowed the subject to operate at peak efficiency even when shot and mauled, as the report on the confrontation with Subject Delta states. This incredible resilience and bodily stamina were enhanced by the so called "genophage" a viral solution running in the veins of the subject instead of his blood. 

 

The "genophage" is considered a weapon of last resort but we have observed its efficiency in battle with Subject Delta. Once his target was dead Subject Delta went on a sabotage mission and when cornered he cut his veins, unleashing an aggressive and highly viral solution in the air. As the "genophage" is considered without color and smell we were unaware of its action but in less than two hours after the release hundreds of the crew were already vomiting only to die in extreme agony hours later. The use of such a vicious weapon is not unheard of the Archenemy but to use it even after their main target of the assassination is dead speaks of a clear desire to maul and hamstring our efforts. Magos Voruna speculates that should the operative be left undiscovered the entire crew of the frigate would be dead within days, leaving the ship vacant of its defenders.

 

The method used for the assassination was the delivery of the micro needle via a digital weapon disguised as an earring bearing the stylized Eye of Hours. The earring was made of simple iron but within we suspect it was a highly effective device. Subject Delta did ate the ring which then dissolved in his highly acidic stomach, leaving no traces of the weapon bar the stylized Eye of Horus and the accent of a mounting. 

 

For the nature of this report we will begin with the amputation of the lower brain cortex of Subject Delta in the hope that the Magos will be able to divine more form the tissue with the help of their neurocortex vacuum actuator... See Ref. 97 D.

 

It is my conclusion that the employment of such "assassins" by the Archenemy is the result of a new and much more subtle plan. Operatives like Subject Delta are indeed highly efficient killers and they are augmented in such a way that they easily pass for a human yet their souls reek of Chaos. The advanced augmentation is clearly of high quality and superb execution but the direst threat is the "genophage" virus imbued into such an operative. Effectively Subject Delta is a carrier of a virus which has the power to kill silently and efficiently yet the question is how could the operative remain immune to the effect of the virus. We have found no marks linking Subject Delta to the Plague God nor any signs of mutation but we assume that the gel which formed the bones of the operative might be the answer to this question. Unfortunately the moment that the genophage was released the gel liquefied, leaving Subject Delta into complete agony and forcing us to sedate him in order to question his body since his mind is nigh dead from the experience. 

 

I suggest to filter this report to the authorities of Sector Fleet Saragusta and the deployment of Ordo Sicaris operatives in the area. We need assassins to hunt assassins.

 

End Report. 

[Kierdale]

Two or three character returning from previous entries and not one but two chaos assassins.

It is, however, rather long...

I promise to keep future entries shorter

(Except when we get to 'Interview with a Dark Apostle')

Reborn

“Your master is no longer what he once was.”

These words echoed in epistolary Holusiax’s mind as he slithered out of the hilltop rebel compound and looked out over the ruins of the Cypriusian city. His master, chief librarian Diarthet, was not dead but out there somewhere if his liberator was to be believed.

Behind him he left his captors and his prison. The former of which he had needed to slay but few; the bewitchments his liberator had taught him having granted him power over their senses. The ability to more than fulfill their desires, he could mentally bombard their perceptions, over stimulating them into deliciously excruciating pain. And the latter had been his prison only in form. The womb of his rebirth and enlightenment, in truth.

While he had never set eyes upon his liberator, that siren who had visited him in the small hours, he could smell her musk at the very limit of his olfactory senses. He could taste it on his elongated, bifurcated tongue.

And it was with these new senses that he set out to find his old master.

Needles and more pierced their bodies. Not the small adornments of slum gangers but large spikes and razors driven through meat. Many of these insertions were joined together by chains a few links too short, pulling at each other to keep the bearers in constant, exquisite pain. The cultists stood, dancing and gyrating in a circle about their sacrifice: two of their own, giving themselves willingly. His voice low and slow though steadily quickening, a magus stood upon a kneeling supplicant, reading from text tattooed into the flesh of another’s naked back.

Jinx watched from her perch within the shadow of a forgotten saint in an alcove of a desecrated church of the Imperial Cult. While such gatherings of cultists devoted to the Infernal Powers were common across the Imperium - far more common than the Lords of Terra would dare believe - those conducted their damned masses in secret. But not here; before her enhanced eyes two score devotees of the Prince of Darkness cavorted openly in what was once a square, a communal gathering place within the city. A life-sized statue of one of the Emperor’s angels of death stood at the center of the square (and the cultist’s circle), its head having been removed by turncoats with lascutters. The horned head of a bovine now sat upon the marine’s shoulders, its blood used to inscribe the circle within which they danced while a circumpunct had been daubed upon the right breast of its cuirass. An eight-pointed star adorned one shoulder pad and the icon representing the masculine and the feminine sat entwined upon its defaced left pauldron.

She knew little of the world she had been dispatched to by her masters, though its absolute corruption was indisputable. It was also, to her mission, irrelevant. Jinx watched and waited; her shredder in one hand, in the other a blade of dullest grey.

The magus’ doggerel verse rose in volume and was joined by the chanting of the dancers. Like the icon upon the statue’s shoulder, the two sacrificial offerings were entwined, moving with the rhythm of the diabolical hymn.

As the discordant chanting reached a crescendo: screams, cries and entreatments to their dark master echoing shamelessly throughout the husks of the surrounding buildings, the two offerings began to merge, their flesh flowing as candlewax.

Tearing her eyes from the transmogrification, Jinx zoomed in on the magus across the plaza from her. The distance was great but she was swift. If her target showed himself, she was confident she could reach him. Both she and her target operated best in close quarters, but she did not want to get caught between her quarry and its own target. The cultists themselves would pose no obstruction to one such as her.

In time the dark congregation looked on in awe at their twisted, communal child, a look of patriarchal pride upon the face of the magus.

Jinx turned away. The meager conjurings of the cultist leader evidently insufficient to draw out he whom she sought.

What had begun as a rescue mission - though none at the time would dare call it as such - had changed, drastically. The chapter with it, Talamar thought to himself as he trained his bolter upon the door to the cultist den. That he had had to adapt his weapon for scavenged belt-fed ammunition alluded to the fact that the mission, the war on Cyprius III, had gone on far longer than expected.

The Stygian Guard’s first company had accompanied an Ordo Hereticus inquisitor here years earlier. Overtly to investigate the governor’s tardiness in paying Terra’s Due but also to confirm rumours of corruption and worse. The chapter’s veterans were there to be the Emperor’s wrath.

And nothing had been heard of them for years.

Cyprius III was no fortress world. If a somewhat provincial and overlooked border world, it was safely bordering a nebula, conquered in ages past and forgotten by the wars which wracked the empire of Man. Perhaps that was when the rot had set in, the tactical marine mused. War kept one on one’s toes, kept one vigilant.

The rest of the chapter had assembled and set out from their homeworld of Fulcrum. Upon arrival they had been unable to find, let alone contact, captain Viphic and the 1st company. Eventually augurs had found Phlegyas: the first company’s battleship. A wreck broken across the back of mountains. Unresponding to hails, the flagship Charon had bombarded the native cities.

It was not the Stygian Guard’s way to express any emotion but a devotion to duty. Fear was, as with Astartes of any chapter, unknown to them. But they also suppressed pride and anger, two aspects fellow chapters made into badges of honour, weapons. But such was not the Guard way. Talamar himself had seen Holusiax of the librarius within the nerve glove, punished for going against the chapter’s ways decades before.

And yet chapter master Sophusar had ordered the surface bombarded...

The natives had not responded. It was Captain Viphic who had. Against all expectations, he and much of the first company lived. He had pleaded for his master to cease the bombardment and join them on the surface. Talamar, of the second company, had been there when they had stepped from their thunderhawks to be confronted by the marines of the first company.

Changed men. Their once alabaster terminator armour was streaked and splattered with crimson. Butchers, they had become. Their weapons were held in hands that shook with impatience and barely controlled rage.

Viphic had spouted madness. Talamar and the rest of the rank and file had been too far from where the chapter leadership had met, but of that he was sure. The shock of Sophusar, chief librarian Diarthet, master of sanctity Angra and chief apothecary Polus was evident in their body language.

He had hardly been able to believe it when lord Sophusar had given the order to open fire. It had been that hesitation by the Guard, along with the first company’s superior armour, which had enabled Viphic and the majority of the Bloody First to escape back into the ruined city. To continue their slaughter.

The signal was given; the squad was in place and Talamar’s sergeant checked the door. The scouts had ensured it was left open. The chapter had failed to purge the renegade populace in their usual manner: a spear thrust to the leadership, victory through firepower and an unrelenting advance, for the cults were numerous and their followers absolute in their zeal. It turned out that a great majority of the many cult magi were indeed warp-tainted conjurers and the Guard found themselves fighting nightmares from beyond the veil as much as crazed humans. Angra had said that they needed to understand their foe, their motivations, in order to overcome them, and so the scout company had been tasked with infiltrating the Cypriusian cults.

The sergeant nodded to the marine next to Talamar: master of sanctity Angra himself. His armour was as black as the portal before them. Talamar felt honoured to be in the chaplain’s presence. Overseer of the chapter’s discipline and rites, while Sophusar was their warlord, Angra was in many ways the heart of the chapter. It had been his counsel which had persuaded master Sophusar to veer from their ways, from tradition, and infiltrate the cults.

Raising his crozius Angra swept it toward the doorway and the tactical squad filed in, weapons up.

The cultist den was within a subterranean maglev station. The marines took the steps down three at a time, their weapons tracking side to side, each covering assigned angles, stacking at doorways, peering round corners before waving squadmates on. Comm silence was maintained as at least twice since their arrival on planet crazed members of the Bloody First had listened in and ambushed their former brethren, having grown tired of hunting the mortal populace.

The walls of the station were daubed with paint, blood and other liquids in lurid symbols the meanings of which the Guard were steadily learning. After the first scouts had taken down minor cult bands and brought back their apostate texts, Angra had, in the absence of chief librarian Diarthet (his deputy Holusiax too had been lost early in the offensive) lead the chapter in learning all they could of the powers which held sway over the Cypriusians. Prayers to powers that ought not to be named.

While one of their number covered with the heavy bolter the rest of the squad vaulted over ticket gates and made their way onto the station platform, where they then found the bodies.

Thirty three cultists, one magus, and their own two scouts, all clad in the garb of one of the heretical planet’s many cults. Some on the platform itself, some down on the track seemingly having tried to run.

Once the station was secure they began investigating the bodies, starting with the Stygian Guard scouts. Both were dressed, tattooed and pierced to blend in with the foe they had infiltrated, their muscular, Adonis-like bodies not yet possessed of the bulk and flatness of face of mature Astartes, they had been able to infiltrate the cults with ease. Armed with autopistols rather than their standard bolt pistols, both had died after expending all the rounds of their single magazines. But not into the cultists. Another of Talamar’s squad eventually found evidence of the impact of small arms in the outbound tunnel. That fit with the placement of some of the cultists: having died fleeing away from that tunnel.

Yet neither the scouts not the cultists bore any fresh wounds upon their bodies.

That alone ruled out them having fallen prey to one of the Blood First. Their victims were rarely found in one piece.

And the bodies were cold. Too cold for the freshness of the corpses.

That of the magus, however was remarkably different from his flock: he was curled up in a fetal position, hands curled like claws about his head, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his face frozen in a rictus of abject terror.

“Where is Ganusi?” came the sergeant’s voice in a whisper, looking up from the man’s corpse. With the only other sound being the low hum of the overhead lighting, which extended off into the darkness of the tunnel in both directions, his voice carried to all the squad. All but the missing member.

Talamar looked up to where his brother had last been: guarding the mouth of the inbound tunnel. As he looked, the lights at that end of the platform and tunnel mouth flickered and went out. The electric hum dropped to silence. For a moment his own vision swam and he blinked it away, shaking his head a little. Bolter up and auto senses scanning the darkness, he advanced toward the portal. His helmet’s automatic targeting reticule wandered and jiggled back and forth, seemingly chasing phantasms he could not see. As he stepped into the darkness, his helmet’s HUD picking out the struts and walls of the tunnel in a dull green, he felt the temperature drop sharply. Hoarfrost spread over his bolter’s black casing and beaded on the decorative chains he had torn from a cultist on his last mission.

“Sergean-“ he started and the big marine was bowled from his feet as something shot past him and into the tunnel.

Later analysis of his helmet’s sensors picked out a wizened humanoid form with an elongated head, seemingly far too thin for the strength it had exerted, but what stayed with Talamar was the unexplainable wrongness he had felt when it touched him.

Having recovered his backpack before leaving the cultist prison, Holusiax’s armour was no longer a burden.

He never did discover how they had blocked his psychic powers. The fact that once he had made his pact with his liberator the barrier around his mind had dissolved told him that it was she who had been responsible. She had freed him both mentally and physically, showing him subtle, undreamt of ways to manipulate the warp, and restored his body - nay, improve it. Had she, in him, found someone more worthy of her gifts compared to the Cypriusian cultists and their petty desires?

He was well aware that nothing was ever given without a price and that she was sure to return to extort a fee in good time, but all that mattered to him were the facts that he lived, he was more powerful than he had ever been before, and that he was free. And within him burned a desire to find his old comrade turned master. A reckoning.

Through lateral undulation, pushing his serpentine lower body as hard as he could, he made good speed through the ruined city. Twice he encountered small bands of cultists, and once a combat squad of his own chapter, all three times hiding himself in the ruins. Though he itched to apply his newfound powers, to test their limits (if they had any) upon the pathetic scum of the planet, he had to remain focused upon his quest. Likewise he avoided his brethren, with the additional fact that they would likely slay him on sight, recognised or not. While observing the cultists moving on he realised that he no longer saw them as heretics, but instead saw them as lesser beings, unworthy of the knowledge he himself had been granted. And his brother Astartes, could they ever welcome such enlightenment? Having never felt the raw power of the sea of souls, he was doubtful.

Opening his mind and his senses to the warp once more he felt rejuvenated. The changes that had restored his body were naught compared to the feeling of submerging one’s spirit once more in the winds of the warp. He loathed the fact that, once having shed his physical form he would have to return to it in time. Such passive techniques had been frowned upon by master Diarthet. Holusiax himself had been admonished for seeking such knowledge.

How his old friend had been wrong.

But where now was Diarthet? His liberator had told him his old master had not perished, but no matter how much Holusiax scoured the city with his warpsight he could find no trace of the master librarian. The magi of the Cypriusian cults burned like candles within the empyrean - cheap, flickering, stuttering candles - but the beacon of Diarthet’s might was nowhere to be seen.

It was then that he caught a glimpse -if such a thing as peripheral vision existed within the warp- of a figure shifting though the misted form of the realworld as he viewed it with his warpsight. In and out of the warp it seemed to hop, slithering its way betwixt dimensions, meandering like a half-blind man. It was no daemon, of that he was sure. Nor did its soul burn bright with power. No sorcerer was this, but seemingly a mortal clumsily wielding...

Could it be true?

He then heard the low whine of servos, back near his body. Separated from it as he was the sounds his body heard came to him distorted as if through water. Closing his eyes his astral form raced back to his physical form, and just in time. The whine of servoes was joined by the crackled of powered up blades as he opened his eyes and threw himself prone, a lightning claw splitting the air where he had coiled himself in a crouch.

Whipping his body around Holusiax came face to face with a hulking brute in armour: a terminator of his own chapter’s first company. The warrior’s ferocious panting came as a roar through the grill of his helmet. Several skulls hung from chains at its belt. Some were those of mortals, some unmistakably those of Astartes, service studs in their brows.

Holusiax cursed himself. He had been too focused on, nay too distracted by, the flitting figure, to notice the rage pouring off his attacker and had allowed himself to be ambushed. Against one of his sane brethren he would have been killed on sight; his additional pair of arms and his snake’s body unquestionably marking him as a mutant. Whatever gods now looked down upon him were worthy of a prayer, he swore, that one of the Bloody First had found him. Holusiax did not need to open his inner eyes and gaze upon the terminator’s seething soul to realise that the marine was under the sway of the Lord of Skulls. She had not lied to him.

“Witch!”

An epithet he had become accustomed to over the dozens of years, and not one which drew a reaction from him. Not anymore.

With but a scavenged autogun and a knife, the former librarian knew he was no match for a former brother in tactical dreadnought armour and so he fled, the muscled coils of his lower body propelling him rapidly through the debris-strewn buildings, the heavy footfalls of the terminator close behind.

Through a doorway here, then clambering through an open window there, his four arms allowing him great maneuverability as he appeared to climb across floors, walls and ceilings with equal ease. But while he, within his physical form, was constrained by the ferrocrete walls of the city’s buildings, his pursuer was clad in a suit of armour which effectively made him a walking tank. Holusiax heard, and could feel through the walls and floor, as the crazed Stygian Guard veteran simply charged through walls between them.

“Your skull! Your skull, mutant bastard! I want it!”

He called upon all his knowledge and training of escape and evasion but it was to no avail, so driven was his pursuer. And so he fell back on his other training, opening his mind once more to the warp. Slithering round a corner Holusiax cast out his arms - his original ones rather than the violet-skinned second pair which sprouted from his sides - to summon forth a blast of heat strong enough to melt through the terminator’s armour.

Nothing happened.

Cursing, he slid onto his belly and fled, lightning claws tearing deep grooves in the floor where he had just laid.

He found he could no longer use those powers he had exercised with such ease as a member of the librarius. He could summon neither flame nor arc of lightning nor blast of pure force.

He could not focus. He could not focus his mind on what he had learned from the siren either. It was as if the words were written on a veil before his eyes but the more he tried to focus on them, the more they blurred. He was as an acolyte once more.

They were fast. Stims pumped through Jinx’s veins in order for her to keep up with the terminator and his quarry. Fast and their chase wove wildly through the ruins. She could not use her blade lest she lose them.

Her neural shredder she held tight in her right hand, her left was empty, helping her clamber and dive at break-neck speed through doors, windows and holes blasted in walls. The schematics her mask’s HUD presented to her were of the city when had been intact. The rebels’ own in fighting, when the cults had first risen to prominence decades ago, and more recently the Stygian Guard’s orbital bombardment, had reshaped the cityscape drastically.

She caught a glimpse of the two as she ran along a parallel course, sprinting her way through a toppled building, the wall now the floor. She hadn’t lost them yet, but she knew she soon would if she did not take a chance.

Sliding into the far wall-floor she came to a stop and drew her blade, aware that every second the marine and once-marine got more than half a dozen meters further away.

Bolt shells and even autocannon rounds would bounce off tactical dreadnought armour. Only the high-energy bolts of lascannons, plasma weaponry and melta could reliably penetrate it. A neural shredder however, ignored it.

Holusiax threw himself belly to the floor once more and slithered as the lithe figure stepped out of the doorway ahead of him. Against the bright sunlight he could not make out much of their form, his eyes picking out the mysterious blue-green sheen of its bodysuit.

Jinx raised the shredder as she stepped out, and took aim at the terminator barrelling toward her. There was a term for the paralysing terror a mortal experienced when confronted by one of the Adeptus Astartes charging toward them. Even battle-hardened guardsmen could falter fatally. Lesser men collapsed, soiling themselves in terror. Jinx, psycho-conditioned and fitted with combat drugs by her Astarte masters, drew a calm bead on the terminator and fired, flooring him with one shot.

The 1st company veteran shook and spasmed even after he came to rest against the far wall, control of his body no longer his.

Whoever she was, for her form-fitting bodysuit gave away her gender, Holusiax had immediate respect for his saviour. He had for a moment thought that his liberator had come once more to his aid, but this woman smelled different. The cloying musk was not there. This woman smelled of sweat laced with chemicals. And the mask she wore, even if it were armoured, did not look like it could withstand several Astarte head-butts.

Once the terminator was down she had approached it once again while adjusting the settings of her shredder and, drawing a long knife with a blade of napped flint - confirming his suspicions - which she held between the terminator’s gorget and the base of his helmet, she pressed the barrel of the neural shredder against each of the giant’s limbs and fired it again and again until those extremities fell limp.

Her masked face, featureless but for the glowing red eye lenses and a fine grill over her mouth, all the blue-green sheen matching her bodysuit, turned to face the former librarian.

“I know who you are. I know who you seek,” her voice was calm but authoritative. “I seek him also. Can this one help us find him?”

Holusiax rose up on his tail and regarded the figure before him. A full-face mask blended into her stealthsuit dotted with armour plates in the same hue over vital areas. A utility belt of grenades, monofilament dispensers and pouches. A neural shredder - the weapon of the Callidus temple on Holy Terra...and then there was that blade. She turned a fraction, not quite raising the shredder in his direction, and he noticed an icon upon her shoulderpad.

A multi-headed serpent.

“Can this one help us find him?” she asked again, more intensely.

The terminator appeared to now be quadriplegic, though his helmet moved from the woman to Holusiax and back, grunt-growls and rasping breath emanating from his voice-grill.

“Perhaps,” Holusiax answered. Whoever she was and wherever her loyalties lied, she could have killed him with ease already. That told him that she needed him, at least for the next few minutes.

Locating the release catches with his fingers Holusiax removed the prone terminator’s helmet and the two were assaulted by the veteran’s foul invective, flecking them with spittle which hissed with acid.

The woman pushed her blade closer to the berserker’s neck, angling it so he could see she held it.

Holusiax shook his head, “He does not fear death, woman. He did not when he served the Golden Throne, and certainly does not now.”

Putting his four hands on the veteran’s face and head proved difficult for their captive would even try to bite at his fingers, so the woman carefully severed ligaments in the terminator’s neck until it hung slack, his mouth still spitting curses and promises of how he would disembowel them.

Holusiax then pushed into the marine’s mind. A backdraft of purest rage was released, causing the former librarian to reel backwards before steeling himself. He raised a strong mental aegis and probed deeper, pushing through images of meaningless, spiteful slaughter which should have shamed one of the Emperor’s Angels of Death. He focused his thoughts on Diarthet, his old master and chief librarian of the Stygian Guard. Perhaps this veteran had seen him, knew his location. Perhaps he, like Holusiax, had been captured by the Cypriusians.

But there was nothing. Nothing but the fragmented psyche of a madman. Skulls. Skulls and skulls and skulls. Fields of them. Towers of them, blood pouring from eye sockets and pooling at the foot of a great brass throne-

Holusiax withdrew and blinked until reality asserted itself once more.

He found the green crystaline barrel of the neural shredder now pointed at him, while blood flowed down from where the woman had just slit the terminator’s throat.

“You need me,” he hissed. “For whatever reason you seek Diarthet, you sought me out first.”

“And I should trust one who speaks quite literally with a forked tongue? Evidently you discovered nothing here.” She indicated the dead veteran.

“Why do you seek Diarthet?”

“Why do you?” she replied flatly.

“He is- he was my master.”

“You wish to kill him?”

This made him pause. Since adolescence and until his rebirth days earlier he had always known his purpose: the mission and his duty to his chapter. He now no longer felt such bonds of brotherhood, fully realising that his brethren would slay him on sight. This...independence...was alien to him. He found himself effectively without a mission, though he felt that his wandering was not entirely without direction, without guidance.

His liberator had made him rethink his feelings toward Diarthet but...to kill him?

“And why did your masters send you?” he replied, to which she cocked her head, feigning ignorance or questioning him, he could not tell.

“The weapon of the Callidus temple,” he nodded toward the shredder now pointed at him.

“Perhaps I killed one and took it.”

He smirked. A Callidus agent was no easy foe. “Or perhaps the Alpha legion,” his eyes moved to the emblem on her shoulderpad, then to the bloody blade, retracted from the terminator’s neck, “or the Bearers of the Word.”

Her masked warped. She was smiling. “Your master is not what he once was, and my masters have foreseen that he must be destroyed.”

“Why?”

“I am but the tool of a greater will,” she said, lowering the shredder and motioning off into the city with the knife, suggesting they move.

“I know how you feel,” he replied, slithering out the hole in the building ahead of her.

Jinx, for that is how she identified herself-

Jinx - a person, thing or influence supposed to bring bad luck...another synonym being `hydra`, he noted

-explained as much that Diarthet was now a reaver of souls, feasting on those who tapped the warp’s power. Sorcerers. How she knew this he did not ask for if she truly was an agent of the Alpha Legion their resources and knowledge was rumoured to be most expansive and almost prophetic in nature.

Thus they set about capturing and interrogating members of the populace of the city, starting with the lowest cultist dregs until they found one in a high enough position to know of the movements of the cult magi.

A convocation was to take place the following day, a massed gathering for the purpose of a summoning greater than any that had been performed on the planet to that point. Hundreds of magi were to be present, thousands of cultists.

“My chapter still fights the cults, doubtless they know of this meeting,” Holusiax told Jinx confidently.

“And you believe they will stop it?”

This time it was his turn to incline his head questioningly.

“Like your first company, your chapter is changed, sorcerer. You are not as different from them now as you believe. They are learning from the natives. Being enlightened. I am told this is the anvil upon which your chapter will be reforged.”

“Then how do you suggest we get into this dark mass, the two of us?”

Jinx raised her blade.

Diarthet barely remembered his time as one of the Emperor’s Angels of Death. His memories of his service within the Stygian Guard and its librarius, his assignment to the first company were but fragments. The installation of his implants. Transfer from the scout company. Action across a score of battlefields. Induction into the librarius. Rivalry. Thirst for knowledge. Power. Destructive power. Dispatch to Cyprius III. The inquisitor Tobias Fen. Discovering the Cypriusian corruption. The inquisitor’s fall. It had been Diarthet himself who exposed this to Viphic, who slew him. War with the cults. The bloodlust took them, exalted them. Empowered his brethren...but his powers had seemed belittled even as their prowess grew. He felt their scorn. All these memories and more were scattered fragments, withered and flaking autumn leaves within his mind. A fractured mind awash with the thoughts and recollections of all those whose souls he had consumed since his own transformation.

In the years to come some would suppose that facing the might of the Cypriusian sorcerers, he had found his own powers wanting and made a desperate, dark pact, receiving more than he bargained for…while others would claim he excelled in the moment, his clash against the vile magi, and went nova, and like such stars he was left a black hole hungering for the powers he once wielded, hunting those who could still feel the winds of the warp, and devouring them, turning their power back upon them yet unable to manipulate it himself. All would be naught but rumour and hearsay; those who were there, the Bloody First, would not tell their sensation-addicted kin. What would evident is that he had become the antithesis of what he once was: the embodiment of the Lord of Blood’s abhorring of sorcery.

Like his mind and his soul, Diarthet’s body had been wrought by Chaos. Having relied on his psychic potential for so long, it had been more than stripped from him. His body was a hunched, wretched husk, his fingers and toes now curved talons, his skin a dark crimson as his blood boiled within, and his face...no longer the handsome if gigantic features of a noble Astartes, but the visage of a rage-filled daemon.

He looked down upon the huddled throng of flesh; thousands of individual pressed into the cavernous arena to receive the twisted benediction of their so-called betters. Acid drool hung in thick ropes from his distended maw and his claws grasped the stone crenellations of his balcony-perch. As the six grand magi made their way onto the stage his eyes nostrils flared at their warp stench. Here was prey that could sate his appetite for the moment, and souls to be sent for eternal torment.

Jinx was evidently more skilled with the athame than she had initially appeared to be.

The woman was devious, as befitted an agent of the XX legion. Holusiax now fully suspected she had allowed him to glimpse her astrally; seeming to bumble her way about, cutting the fabric of reality as she made her way. She had orchestrated his ambush at the hands of the 1st company terminator - going as far as luring the berserker to him? - in order to make contact with him. But to what purpose? Did she really need him, the former pupil of chief librarian Diarthet, in order to get close to the monstrosity he had become?

As reality split at her knife’s edge once more and the two stepped into a shadowy alcove, a familiar musky odour teased Holusiax’s forked tongue. Jinx’s attention, however, was drawn to the mad chanting from the chamber within. She had guided them through the empyrean perfectly into the arena where the convocation was being held.

Holusiax opened his inner eye a fraction, just a fraction lest the dull talent of the magi spy him or worse Diarthet himself, and looked upon his adventitious accomplice. To wield an athame - to have been granted possession of such a treasure – with such skill surely one had to have psychic potential, but her soul burned no brighter than the mortals crowding the chamber beyond. No, that was not quite right. Her flame seemed old, too old for one who seemed so young.

She glanced at him and he returned his senses to the physical. Had she sensed his scrutiny?

There was then a rapturous cry from within the arena, one voice at first but the sound was soon taken up by the thousands of cultists.

Carefully the two infiltrators snuck closer to the arched portal and the chamber beyond.

By the time they reached the doorway from the atrium into the main arena, a vast chamber perhaps once used for entertainment, the orgiastic yells had turned to screams of terror and they could see why: a hunched, crimson beast stood on the stage atop the corpse of a Cypruisian magus. As they watched the creature turned its head toward another of the local conjurers and as it opened its jaw unnaturally widely the atmosphere between the two seemed to be drawn into its maw. The robed man screamed, clawing at his own face as tendrils of darkness emanated from his cranium and were drawn into the yawning, fanged gob. As soon as the man collapsed the beast turned its attention to another of the magi, the woman turning to flee.

The crowd did likewise, realizing that the daemonkin was no savior conjured by their betters to teach them more exquisite depravities. This one was here for their souls.

Holusiax looked on in consternation. Could that thing possibly be Diarthet? He opened his inner eye to gaze upon it through the warp and it vanished from his sight. All he saw was the woman magus’ power being rapidly siphoned from her toward a pit of the darkest black, a void, and suddenly vomited forth back at her, rending her spirit from her body. Like an insect that vomited upon its meals, the void then rapidly sucked up the soup of her existence.

Jinx pushed the serpentine sorcerer aside as a tide of bodies rushed toward the exit, toward them.

“We need to move. Now!”

He closed his inner eye, repulsed by what he had seen, and followed her up a staircase, narrowly escaping being swept away by the press of panicked cultists.

The engines of the ebony rhino purred beneath him as the vehicle came to a halt in the square before the arena building, a sound echoed by half a dozen more similar APCs and tanks.

Not the entire chapter, nor even a full company, these were Angra’s most trusted. Those he had exposed to the darkest secrets of what he had learned from the Cypriusians’ fell texts. All were as damned as was he.

His interrogation of captives and those few who had surrendered, bartering their secrets for their lives and swearing fealty to him, had revealed that the Cypriusian magi planned a great summoning here. The stars were coming into alignment and the bastards planned to sacrifice a thousand of their own people in order to bring forth a great servant of the higher power they worshipped. He cared not for the lives that would be lost; they were as worms to him. Angra planned to interlope. These base conjurers realized they had found a greater power, one more worthy of their worship than the corpse-Emperor, but Angra knew that he could wield that power far better than they could ever hope to. He would be the one to greet the envoy from beyond.

His brow creased at the sound of commotion from within the building. It was not yet the appointed time.

As hundreds of panicked Cypriusians poured from the arena entrance, many disrobed and all screaming in horror, he realized that something had gone wrong.

“Open fire! Clear a way to the building!”

“Here’s your cavalry,” Jinx shouted over the din of screams and gunfire from outside. The assassin and sorcerer had made their way onto a walkway which circled the arena and joined the stage at the far end.

Diarthet was feasting on the soul of the fifth magus, pinning the tattooed man to the floor with his talons, his jaws open unnaturally wide over the man’s face, black light streaming from his eyeballs, nose and mouth into the daemonic assassin.

As Holusiax raced toward the creature that had once been his superior within the librarius he realized that he was once more alone. The bitch assassin had vanished. It was no great surprise: she had clearly wanted him as a distraction so she could get to Diarthet herself. No doubt she would cut her way back from the warp when the time was right. Another, wilder, thought entered his head as he sidewindered as fast as he could: could she be working with Diarthet’s patron power?

He put such thoughts to one side as he reached the sixth and final magus, the fat man waddling as fast as he could toward the exit. He was hobbled by his jewelry: links of chain piercing the flesh of his legs and lower abdomen. Even a pair of gem-encrusted scabbards hung not from a belt but chains tied to the grotesque’s nipples. The leg rings pulled tight as he pumped his pudgy legs as fast as he could, swerving as he spotted the serpent-bodied Astarte. Holusiax took his head off with a single swing of his fist. He scooped up the two knives, flicking them from their sheathes and had but a moment to note the ancient symbols for Mars and Venus, one etched into each of the two blades.

The death of the sixth magus left only one remaining psyker within the building. Holusiax himself.

Diarthet hissed, acid dripping from his mouth, as he turned to face his former battle brother. There was no recollection in the burning coals of his eyes, only hunger.

As the daemonkin stalked toward him Holusiax felt the temperature drop and when it drew within a dozen meters of him he felt himself be severed from the influence of the warp. Just as he had been in the cultist prison weeks earlier, as a ship upon a calmed ocean. Powerless. But not entirely helpless, for he was Astartes. Built and bred for combat. He raised his post-human arms, for clad in powered armour they would help him to fend off the daemonkin’s physical blows, and he kept the two knives low in his newer, bare pair of arms to stab and slash at the beast’s guts.

For it was now to him no longer Diarthet, chief librarian of the Stygian Guard. That much was clear to him. That title was now his, for what it was worth.

Before he could put voice to a laconic challenge, the beast opened its maw and Holusiax charged only to collapse after a few meters. The pain was indescribable. On the few occasions when he had cast his astral body from his physical form the parting had been a release, like a drowning man breaking the water’s surface to breath deep of the precious air above. Yet now his soul was being forcefully torn from him. He could see the tendrils of his very existence being stripped from him coiling their way through the air toward the creature. He collapsed, shaking uncontrollably, the knives falling from his grip.

Lying prone he could do naught but watch as the transformed Diarthet’s clawed feet stalked closer and closer, the talons carving smoking grooves in the wooden planks of the floor.

A flint-grey blade then protruded from mid-air above the daemonic assassin, reality peeling wide as the green-blue figure of Jinx dropped through, angling her blade to stab downwards. But the beast was unnaturally fast, an arm whipping about to swat her from the air. She too was quick, and the beast lowered its arm to find the limb neatly severed from the elbow down, leaking yellow ichor. Strangely Holusiax felt a measure of his vigour return at the beast’s wounding.

Jinx landed in a crouch before leaping toward her foe once more, her lithe movements reminding him of the Eldar’s elite he had faced in combat years before.

Diarthet now turned his maw upon her, vomiting forth a stream of raw power he had devoured from Holusiax. The blast struck the Hydra assassin full in the face, flinging her back against the wall, burning away her mask and flaying the flesh and muscle beneath.

This time she did not rise.

Though his senses were dulled they were not entirely dead. At first he thought the sudden soporific odour which had teased him on their arrival in the arena was the Dark Prince come to devour his soul before his rival’s pawn did so, but recognition dawned as the fat magi’s body began to melt and run as if wax. In his drained state he could not tell how quickly or slowly things were happening but the reforming quickened and, like a flower blooming in time lapse, the corpulent occultist’s body rose, taking a new shape before his eyes, and soon behind the daemonkin’s back stood a figure svelter than Jinx. Tall and long of limb, she was clad in a basque as black as the almond eyes set within a mask of ghostly jade, the revealing garment at odds with the aura of danger emanating from her. One arm ended in a humanoid hand while the other terminated in a jagged-toothed claw Holusiax realized he had felt fastened about his own face at one point. She spared a coquettish glance at him before swinging her claw at Diarthet’s back, time suddenly accelerating once again as it carved into his twisted flesh.

Life flooded back into the former librarian’s limbs, his natural more than his otherworld-born arms and tail as the two daemons fought, hissing ichor spraying at each wound. The feat of merely raising himself to a coiled position taking much of his strength, he saw only snippets of their duel. The siren used her claw skillfully; slashing one way before backhanding crushing blows with the outside of the appendage, another time snipping off Diarthet’s clawed fingers. But the daemonic assassin, despite its withered appearance, possessed not only brute strength but also those terrible gaping jaws, the bolts of unlight shot forth from it erasing gobbets of her daemonic flesh from the material world, eliciting cries somewhere between agony and ecstasy, though as more and more bolts were vomited forth she began to slow.

Holusiax dragged himself forwards, his daemonic flesh still benumbed to a degree. He dare not call upon the warp, and in truth was not sure if he would be able to, but gritted his teeth as his hands found the two occult blades.

He raised his head just as that-which-was-once-Diarthet fastened its jaws about his liberator’s throat and with one final blast severed her head entirely. With a roar of exertion, vengeance and passion he threw himself forwards, crossing the runed blades before him and scything them apart as they touched the beast’s own neck.

“Master Angra. We have found something.”

“Brother Talamar,” the master of sanctity replied absently, making his way across the carpet of corpses before the arena. Here bodies had fallen in that way, there blood had sprayed in patterns reminiscent of words of the Dark Tongue, other times an outstretched finger had fallen atop the tattoo of another corpse in a particular way making clear patterns...Perhaps not all was lost. “You’ll need to be more specific.”

The tactical marine replied from the entrance to the arena, his bolter held across his body. “It’s epistolary Holusiax sir...I think.”

This got Angra’s attention and he vaulted up the steps, grinding bodies beneath his boots.

Brother marines formed a ring around the serpent-tailed librarian and the figure held in his arms. Their bolters were up in the aim, muzzles pointed at him, awaiting the order to fire. Unlike the alabaster white armour they had worn upon arrival on Cyprius III theirs was now daubed with damned symbols and twisting, vivid decorations.

“Under the circumstances...,” Talamar’s sergeant explained, motioning with his chainsword to the circle of marines as Angra entered the arena, his heavy footfalls echoing through the now quiet halls. He stepped over and on countless bodies crushed in the stampede of cultists fleeing some unknown terror and approached the circle, tapping two of the marines on their pauldrons. They parted.

Before him sat epistolary Holusiax in his blue armour, scratched and burned though it was, yet it was the marine’s lower half caused the chaplain’s eyes to widen in awe. His body from the belly down was a violet serpent, and a second pair of similarly-hued arms, far slimmer than those of a human yet terminating in humanoid hands, emanated from beneath his armoured human arms. He sat coiled upon his snake-like tail, a slim figure in a green-blue armoured bodysuit lying where a human’s lap would be. It appeared to be a human female, though the face had been stripped of meat down to the bone. Impossibly its chest still rose and fell, though falteringly.

To once side of the mutated librarian lay a pair of long knives, each inscribed with a rune upon the blades. Angra knew the significance of those runes combined, as did the marines of his coterie. To the other side, in a pool of mauve ichor lay what appeared to be a snarling mask of jade stone. Holusiax breathed heavily, seeming wounded though the chaplain could see no physical injuries. His two daemonic hands lay on the chest of the fallen human, and Angra realized the librarian was chanting in a low voice.

One of the marines shifted, his finger resting upon the trigger of his weapon, but Angra slowly raised a hand, waving at him and his squadmates to stand down.

Holusiax then reached out with one of his armoured arms and picked up the jade mask, fitting it over the wreckage of her face.

Her breathing deepened and finally Holusiax looked up.

Angra knelt and met the marine's slit-eyed gaze.

“We have much to talk about, brother Holusiax.”

[Zhaharek]

Chaos Assassin

 

Something slender, cruel and sleek slithered through the shifting awful of The Warp. A daemon. Tethered as it was to a weapon of equal description, which rested in the material realm. A weapon that sat in the belt of an Acolyte selected exclusively for this purpose. Bred for this. Born for this. Trained for this. The Acolyte probably wouldn't survive the night. The mortal shivered in the rain, and slipped his hand around the daemon-knife in his belt. The daemon felt a pulling sensation, then...

 

The material world CRACKED into existence around the daemon. It was night. He sucked in a breath through the hosts mouth. His ethereal mind flowed through the mortal creature like ink into water. A liquid was hitting the hosts, (no, this body was his now), HIS skin. The daemon peeled open his new eyes, and found himself staring down at his Vessel. The knife sat in his new hand, black, serrated, with a wire wrapped hilt. The weapon to which he was truly bonded. This mortal was a puppet, and this knife was the set of strings that kept him dancing to the daemons tune.

 

It was raining. A tongue that was slowly turning black with taint crept from between his mouth. Tasted the rain. It was composed of hydrogen, oxygen, and hints of sulphur from smog stained its molecular makeup. The daemon observed its movement through his new digestive system: sustained ingestion by a human mortal would result in eventual failure of vital organs. The daemon toughened these organs to resist the pollution with an errant whim. He noticed his bodies bladder and bowels threatening to release The Acolytes last meal, and quickly tensed the surrounding muscle. Other mortals would notice that sort of thing.

 

The daemons influence reached The Acolytes brain exactly 4.283 seconds after the hilt had been touched. Mine, thought the daemon. A flash of identity crashed against it, loaded with regret. The remnants of The Acolyte. It shattered against the daemon. The warp spawned fiend revelled in the fools internal death, plundering the mortals memories. He flicked through days of life, like a book, searching for his objective. The last pieces of the mortal writhed and screamed. The daemon exploded his mid-brain and the mortal was gone. The mission objective was clear now. The daemon plucked a coveted little morsel from the catalogue. A name. Karai-bor. The daemon liked it. He'd never had a name before. "Karai-bor." spilled from his new mouth, lips and tongue twitching behind clacking teeth. "...Yes." Corruption turned speech into an awful whisper. That was unacceptable. The daemon, (no, Karai-bor was his name), Karai-bor, rebuilt the twisted parts of the mortal shell.

 

Then, craning his neck, Karai-bor lifted from the foetal position into which he had curled. His spine rippled with moist clicks and cracks. The assassin sighed. Rain slick marble stretched out around him. It stank, the moist earth smell of tin and dirt that accompanied this rain. His olfactory perception was functioning optimally. Excellent. He poured power into his senses. Olfactory increased. Auditory increased. Visual was at maximum capacity. Tactile increased.

 

He panned his head around to see mortals, mortals he recognised as servants of the cursed Imperium. Approximately 16 males, ranging from 32 to 67 of their years of age. Approximately 17 females, ranging from 19 to 39 of their years of age.

They were dressed in finery and many of the males, and a few of the females carried concealed weaponry. They laughed and talked as they walked through the rain, protected by primitive energy fields. The Acolyte, his body now slave to Karai-bor, the assassin, looked like them. They passed him, with a few odd looks in response to his piercing stare, and previous foetal position. But none had noticed the daemon within. They simply carried on to the building before them. A vast, baroque testament to Imperial architecture. The Estamen Rex.

 

The mission: Karai-bor was to infiltrate The Estamen Rex, where the Planetary Governor was holding an exuberant celebration of a recent victory against a Dark Eldar raiding party. The Chaos Dragon warband, Astartes all, had deigned that Planetary Governor Merea Tenjes would not see another morning. They had employed an agent of The White Hand assassin cult to make that a reality. Not for the first time, and Karai-bor heard that the warriors paid a handsome sum of squalling Eldar souls to successful assassins.

A sum that Karai-bor dearly desired.

The daemon had a sneaking suspicion that this... Would be fun. Karai-bor smiled.

 

One does not simply break into The Estamen Rex, as the saying goes. And how apt that saying is. The immense structure was at least 3 miles high, and three quarters that in width. Marble, identical to the plaza that surrounded it, coated its walls, as if it had grown from the ground, rather than being a structure made by mortal hands. The majority of construction was owed to rockrete and ceramite however, and it could survive the blows of mad Battle Titan. Teleport bafflers strutted from the roof and there were no external doors or windows, bar the main entrance: a 10 foot door ringed by gargoyles. The only way in or out.

The entire building bristled with heavily armed Arbites guards. One does not simply break into The Estamen Rex. So Karai-bor didn't.

He strolled right through the entrance.

 

Karai-bor walked up to the doors in the shadow of the others guest and socialites. His limited psychic abilities had allowed him determine that this was a celebration for the social elite exclusively, hence his hosts attire. Two intensely muscular Arbites were checking some sort of pass at the doors. Karai-bor didn't need his staggering intellect to determine what would happen when they realised he didn't have a pass. Autoguns gleamed, full of threat in impact toughened fists. The Arbites appeared to possess 150% the strength of his current host. Statistically, he could kill them easily, but would have to forgo the stealth element of the mission to do so, decreasing his chance of success by 32%.

May all of the curses of the warp fall upon the fool who chose this weakling as my host, thought Karai-bor.

He'd have to this the hard way.

 

Karai-bor reached the Arbiter. The glided name signet on the mortals chest reminded him that they called themselves Judges. The Judge had just assured a laughing couple in good and silver through the doors. Karai-bor could literally see the lust, pride and joy leaching off the two mortals, the emotion spilling into The Empyrean. Karai-bor knew a Herald of the Youngest God who would delight in the taste of the females soul.

 

"Pass!", more of a grunt than speech from the Judge. The mortal was a fair, unshaven thing, with a cruel resemblance to the human genetic ancestor.

Karai-bor turned to the Judge, pulling a grin across his face. "Ah, I do not have a pass, but I'm sure we can come to mutually beneficial agreement as long as you don't do..."

A gun barrel swept up to his face. "...that." He sighed. Well, it was worth the attempt.

Karai-bor blurred into motion before the other Judge had even released that his partner was in any danger. He struck the barrel of the gun away from his face, right hand, open palm, impact ringing up his arm. The Judge dropped his gun, deftly switching to hand to hand stance. Karai-bor ignored this. He flicked out his left hand, a curled fist. Remade the mortal bones in the hand to resist the impact. Sharpened them. And broke the Judges jaw. Shattered the mandible bone. An insult died on his bleeding lips.

 

A hand came up to the shattered jaw. Karai-bor pressed the knife handle into it and....

 

Seize the bowels and bladder, prevent voiding. Attain control of the heart muscle, hyperactivity invariably leads to mortal death. This mortals soul was not going The Empyrean yet. Karai-bor took an experimental breath, carrying the air to his new lungs. Yes, this will do. He reached the Judges brain in 3.657 seconds, record time. A flicker of bravery and will stood on his way. As the Judge assailed him valiantly, trying his hardest to cast out the invader, the daemon rooted around for his innermost thoughts, specifically those in relation to the bare neck, arms and back of the girl who had just walked past. He found them, ripped them from their place, and used them to show the Judge just what that Herald would do to a pretty little thing like that. The mortal blanched for a moment, and Karai-bor crushed him. The mid-brain ruptured.

The mortal shell was his now. He blinked a few times. The guests stood back agape, having seen the fight, but not the possession. Fortunately.

 

BANG.

 

The Acolytes vacant body hit the ground. The other Judges gun was smoking. Karai-bor smiled, and felt blood flow down his new mouth. The broken jaw. He quickly stowed the knife away in the his belt. The other Judge waved some more guests in as stepped over the corpse, as if it was a piece of debris, rather than the remains of a person.

 

Karai-bor failed to hear the start of the mortals sentence, (what was he saying?), and pushed his will into his shells hearing, and.... "-damn hive gangers, you need to get quicker on the draw mate. Go down to the med-bay, get your ugly mug patched up, would you." The other Judge was grinning, the badge announcing him as Judge Catin. "Go on, you're scaring the girls. You look worse than an Ogryn mate." Karai-bor gave him an awkward nod, and headed off towards the med-bay, picking its location from his hosts memory.

 

Karai-bor smiled and it sent blood trickling down the front of his carapace armour. He was in The Estamen Rex. He quick stepped through the main hall, filled as it was with guests. A man in red squawked at the sight of a Judge with a hideously broken jaw. The mortal hurried away, pulling his partner away with him. Karai-bor ignored them. The main hall was a vast space, filling the majority of The Estamen. The space expanded as it went up, in a reverse pyramid within the rectangular Estamen. Balconies lined the sloping walls, and the highest level, immense screens glared down at the amassed guests.

 

A glass and iron box sat among the screens, a pinprick of a thing from this distance, but it was, in reality, easily large enough to hold several people: that is where the Governor will be. At the apex of the celebration, Merea Tenjes would give a victorious speech. And then, she will die, thought Karai-bor. He could almost taste those Eldar souls.

 

The daemon rounded the corner to the med-bay, the pneumatic door hissing open automatically. He stepped through, manually shutting and locking the door behind him, the moment he was through, and stepped further into the room, panning his broken head around, taking in a clinical room, 4 beds lining the white wall opposite him, empty, a pair of shelves filled with medical supplies, syringes, bandages, and gleaming sharp edges. A red alarm button on the far wall. He was one of two occupants in the room, the other a male nurse, a white medical uniform encompassing a slight frame, topped by a youthful, unshaven face. The nurse turned to him. Opened his mouth to greet what he thought was an Adeptus Arbites Judge. A flicker of fear at the sight of the cracked smile.

 

Then the flesh began to twist. More teeth. Black tongue. A red-hot light at the back of the throat. Karai-bor rebuilt the mortal jaw in his own image, and it was horrific. The nurse stuttered with fear for a second. Then ran for the alarm. Karai-bor spurred into his own motion. Closed the distance. Closed his hand around the nurses wrist, skin discolouring at the tightness of his grip. Stopped. Inches from the alarm.

 

The nurse writhed and twisted. Struck Karai-bor across the face, to no avail. Sobbing: "Monster, heretic!" "Assassin" corrected Karai-bor. The nurse went for the daemons eyes. Karai-bor flicked him across the room by the wrist. He slammed into a bed, toppled over in a tangle of limbs. Karai-bor watched him straining to get up, and let him get to his knees. He waited until the nurse tensed his legs to dive away, then opened his mouth, and spoke in a language that he was more accustomed to. The language of daemons. The words inscribed in the earth of countless doomed worlds. Enuncia.

 

The words tasted of burnt sugar, rotten meat, blood and ozone on the mortal tongue. It was a relief for Karai-bor to speak his own language rather than mortal gargling sounds.

 

"Keoth'a'tol bar teth'a-gok, ki-arth li xem'ril'ath fngly'kfletg."

 

The first sentence felled the nurse, and blood began to beed at the corner of his eyes. The mortals neck craned he was forced to make eye contact with Karai-bor. The daemon assumed his eyes were glowing. He liked it when his eyes glowed.

 

"Bael'ftheth uil Mol'ftheth. Isk'ri'gllan kol Artor'wth."

 

Karai-bors voice was raising now, his shadow crawling up the wall opposite. One of the light strips popped. Static began to raise their hair. The nurse was convulsing. The blood was flowing freely from his eyes now, joined by streams from his nose and mouth. The hair and his temples started to crisp and curl, as if burning.

 

"Tael-batarwth mol Ytt'ri'gth. FYLGNLIA HU DAEL'GORATH...."

 

Karai-bor was shouting by now, leaving out the last command, letting the incantation go unfinished. Veins stood out like cables in the nurses neck, and he was pale from the amount of blood that flowed from his face. A pool of blood and waste had formed around the nurse. A moment of eerie silence, then...

 

The nurses name was Jaret, and his life was laid bare to Karai-bor, the Enuncia incantation allowing him to read the mortal like a book. He could see the boys smiling mother as he obtained a place on the medical schola, he could see the moments he had shared with the girl he loved and he could see the terror filled haze that the last few moments had been for Jaret, and more. The daemon plucked out what he needed. The quickest route to the Governors box and the guards he would find on the way. More Judges and... Something else. Something so bad the nurse didn't want to remember it. Karai-bor couldn't wait.

 

The daemon went for the door, his jaw returning to mortal shape, his path clear to him know. He decided to leave the nurse alive. Crippled, he wouldn't raise the alarm, but he'd tell stories of Karai-bor, and the daemon liked that. He was at the door when the mortal made a mistake. His voice wet with blood, the nurse whimpered: "God-Emperor protect me..."

Karai-bor snarled. That corpse, on his burning bright throne, was not a god. He turned, growling, and he knew his eyes were glowing with the heat. The words were difficult to form through the anger, "He... Is... Not... A... God!"

Karai-bor's hand snapped up, and he finished the incantation:

 

"Rael'tal'maktath!"

 

He spat the Enuncia with enough force that cracks spidered across the ground at his feet. The nurse twitched.

 

Then his heart exploded from his chest, staining his nice white medical uniform.

 

The organ drifted away from what was rapidly becoming a cadaver. Karai-bor let it float. The daemon turned back to the door, and it hissed open as he deactivated the lock.

The other Judge from the door stood there. Shock slowly seeped across his face. Karai-bor smiled.

 

********************

 

By the Throne on Terra, and all the Saints, did Judge Namus hate this job, all the standing in corridors, doing nothing, what was the point in having guards in an impenetrable fortress anyway, it was just a waste of time.

 

He clicked the safety on his autogun off and on again a few times, yeah, that's just how damn bored he was, what he'd give for some entertainment. Seriously, just one person to Throne damned shoot. One of the nobles downstairs was probably a little mutated. They were all inbred anyway, so it was likely, and if one of them was, he would actually have something to do with this autogun rather than fiddle with the safety. He missed las weapons. Literally the only thing that anyone would ever miss about the Guard, those weapons were the Swords of Angels compared to autoguns. But then, he'd seen an officer with a bolt pistol once, and that thing had made his lasgun look like a Throne damned flashlight in comparison, Holy Terra, had it been powerful. Yeah, to hell with his autogun and to hell with las-weapons, he wanted a bolt pistol!

 

Then there was the thing that was carried by the Governors personal guard.

 

The personal guard herself was bad enough, Throne was she a monster, you couldn't look at her without feeling guilty, the "repent or die" motif didn't help. But Holy God-Emperor her weapon made Namus want to cry, it was like hate made into a gun. He shivered. Best not not think about... Her. Especially since, at the end of the corridor, the corridor he was supposed to guarding, curse this job, was the entrance to the Governors quarters. And in there was, well the Governor, Miss Tenjes, and... Her. Namus shivered again.

 

He looked over at his partner, Tarek. The ginger, stoic, stubborn, Throne damned po-faced waste of skin was staring dead ahead into the middle distance, boring as ever. Let's mess with him, thought Namus. "Oi, Tarek." He was ignored. Try again.

"Tarek, why don't we shoot one of a' guests?"

The other Judge looked at him, slowly squinting in disbelief: "What?"

Namus grinned. "You heard me. Come on, tell me you ain't bored? They're all inbred, I reckon one of 'em has jus' gotta be a mutant. We go down an-"

"No, Throne, no, Namus." His partner was equally parts done with the Judge and disgusted. "You've got serious issues."

Namus snorted, "Oh I got issues 'ave I? I saw what you did to tha' hive ganger tart in the holdin' cells you freak." He grinned, pretty pleased with himself. Tarek just shook his head in disbelief, adding to the gesture with a tired and used: "Shut up, Namus."

Namus just grinned and turned away from his partner, the boring waste of skin, couldn't have fun if you handed to him.

 

As he turned away, looking down the damn boring corridor, with its flat marble walls, and boring grey floor, he saw Judge Catin, who should be stationed at the main doors, what was he doing here? Ah, well he's good for a laugh thought Namus, waving at him. Tarek rolled his eyes. Namus ignored him, the boring waste of skin. "Oi Catin!" He called out, and this guy would like the noble killing thing, Namus just knew it. Not that he'd actually shoot one of the prissy things, that'd get him free ticket to the other side, but it was still a funny idea. "Hello Namus." The other Judge waved back, a touch blocky, odd. "Tarek." Catin nodded at the Namus's partner. Tarek saluted, stuck up waste of skin. Namus wasn't going to salute anyone but an Imperial Guard officer again till the day he died. Tarek saw that Namus was about to start talking again, so took up the conversation, turning to Catin: "My partner here was just suggesting that we shoot one of the most important people on the planet. Now, I know that he's an idiot, but this, this is a new level of stupidity. Eh?"

"No. Actually, I think it's a great idea. In fact. Why not kill the Governor?" Catin looked blank as all hell as he said it, so he had to be joking, but for some reason it wasn't funny. Namus tried to lighten the tension, as Tarek's jaw started to drop, and started to laugh. "You know, Catin," Tarek joined in the nervous laughter. "You know, you are riot, but there a line." Namus continued. Catin stared at them, and said, vacant as ever: "Amazing."

"What's amazing?" Tarek asked, genuine fear creeping into his voice.

 

"It's amazing how blind you both are." There was something wrong with Catin's shadow. His smile seemed too wide. Namus realised that he hadn't blinked for the whole conversation. "But I suppose that's the thing about mortals." said the thing that wasn't Catin, oh Throne on Terra that's not Catin!

 

"That's not Catin!" Namus yelled, his autogun swinging up, safety clicked off.

 

Not-Catin smiled: "Clever boy."

 

They opened fire, the corridor lighting up. But Not-Catin wasn't there anymore. He was moving fast, too fast, much too fast for Namus too see. Marble exploded with stray shots. The autogun pumped in his hands.

"HHGURK"

Something red sailed past Namus. He flicked his head around. It was Tarek. Part of him. With a wordless cry Namus whipped his head at around to face...

 

CRACK.

 

The butt of a knife, broke his nose, a splinter right across the bridge, so much the pain. Shattered the nasal bone.

 

WHAM.

 

A boot, right in the centre of mass, broke two lower ribs. Sent Namus moaning to the floor.

 

The floor was wet with what could only be blood. Namus rolled rapidly. Something slammed into the ground next to him, bouncing him off the ground, Holy Throne, what could do that to marble?!? Namus kicked out and felt something solid. It staggered away. Namus scrambled back. Not-Catin was a foot away, a dent in the marble between them. The cruellest knife that Namus has ever seen was held in a hand that was quickly melting into a claw. It spilled fear into his heart to see his friends flesh twist. He picked himself up, took a step then ran at the Throne damned thing, autogun coming up and...

 

Karai-bor kicked the autogun out of the mortals hands. Grabbed him by his hair, the second he was in range. Slammed his knife into the jugular five times. On the first time he screamed, on the second, third and fourth he choked and spat. On the fifth stab, there was no sound, bar the wet slide of the blade going in and out. Dead. The guards in this place were either completely inept, or Karai-bor was better than he had previously thought. The daemon decided on the latter.

 

Karai-bor strode through the bloody corridor, the entire space stinking of weapon fire and the coppery tang of blood. He wasn't bothering with stealth anymore, there were no guards left to hear, and the guests were all far downstairs. He reached the door to the Governors box, and entered, the door hissing open.

 

The space within was dark. It's sole occupant was presently Karai-bor. One of the walls was glass, and through that he could see the main hall, far below. This is where the Governor should be. But she wasn't. A camera sat in the centre of the room, presumably to broadcast the Governor to the hall screens. Karai-bor snarled: "Where are you..." There was no reply. At first. Then something moved behind him.

 

It, no she, towered over him. She was mortal, but by the Ruinous Powers, her armour was huge.

Ornate, curling thorny vines, each terminating in a viciously barbed Fleur du Lis, stretched across the trim, cast iron, over layers of ceramite. She was un-helmed, and her face was a mass of scar tissue. One of her eyes had been replaced by a gilded augmetic. Another Fleur du Lis was tattooed on her cheek.

A Melta-gun sat in her gauntleted fists. A chainsword across her back.

 

An Adeptus Sororitas, one who would appear to be the Governors personal guard.

 

Karai-bor, in a surprisingly mortal display, swore viciously.

 

They stood opposite each other, The Sororitas running a hand along the top of her Melta, snarling. She could wield it one handed if she wanted, Karai-bor had seen it before. But two-handed, at this range, she couldn't miss. That gun could rip a tank apart in a single shot. He was an assassin, it would turn him to ash, sending him screaming back to The Empyrean. He wouldn't win in a straight up fight. He was going to have to cheat.

He was, bar the knife, unarmed. She was encased in ceramite, and wielding a weapon with the power of a sun, and she hated every ounce of his existence. There was no hiding his daemon nature now, black tongue, glowing eyes, sharp claws.

"You're going to die here, you filthy creature." The Sororitas was grinning, the words coming out as a snarl from her rictus grin.

Karai-bor returned it with a smile of his own: "That's my line, mortal." The knife snapped out of his belt, spinning across the back of his right claw, before rolling into his grip. The Sororitas almost laughed, "There's a mortal expression, don't bring a knife-"

"-To a gunfight," Karai-bor finished, before adding, with a tilt of his head: "but I'm not mortal am I?"

 

His shell's heart beat once.

 

The Sororitas dropped her smile, and lifted her gun.

 

Karai-bor was already in motion by the time "mortal" had left his lips. His right arm stretched and distorted. Muscle split the skin. Veins stood out like cables. Levering his arm towards the Sororitas, the knife glinting in his claw.

 

White hot heat built up in the barrel of the gun.

 

He threw himself to the left, as he cast the knife forth.

 

The air screamed as the Melta spat impossible heat into the room.

 

Pain lanced through him. The Melta had glanced him. The pain was unbearable. His left hand was... Gone. The stump was cauterised, and black with heat. Molten fat ripped from the limb. The Sororitas laughed now. She unharmed. "You missed, daemon," she seemed surprised, "Looks like the forces of Chaos are lacking in assassins of quality." she said. Now that, though Karai-bor, is past the line. The Sororitas stalked forwards, recharging her Melta, preparing to finishing him. She began talking, but Karai-bor wasn't listening. "I am going to send you back to the unholy hell from whence you came, liberating the innocent that you have invaded, in The Emperor's Name, I shall enact this." Karai-bor stood, ignoring her sermon. She pointed the Melta right at his face. "Any last words, monster?"

"Just a few." He smiled, fangs twisting. "The Assassins of Chaos are fair better than you think. Why, you ask? Well..." He made a 'come here gesture' with his remaining claw.

 

And the tip of the knife punched through her mouth. The Sororitas gurgled, dropping her gun.

 

"Well... That would be because we always strike from behind." The knife pulled its way through her face, severing her head above the jaw, and sending her still warm corpse toppling to the ground. The weapon floated into his hand. He licked the blood from its edge, and saw, through the eyes of The Sororitas, the escape route the Governor was taking.

Karai-bor turned to the glass wall, broken by the Melta. The crowd below were parting to allow a running figure through. He could sense the panic.

He crooked his arm back.

Tensed the muscle.

And threw his knife.

 

He smiled as it sailed through the air. Those Eldar souls would be delicious. Oh, how he loved being an assassin.

 

He didn't miss.

 

 

+++ Request for Imperial Aid.+++

+++Tamus 892 has fallen into civil disorder, after The Planetary Governor was assassinated on the eve of celebrations. The culprit is believed to be a high ranking noble, and the planet has fallen into disorder as a result of the ensuing distrust. The murder weapon is currently in the possession of High Magos Katok, who has been reported to exhibit odd behaviour, but will be reliably safe-keeping the weapon for the foreseeable future. A Chaos Dragon fleet has been spotted at the far edge of the system. S.O.S. Send help ASAP.+++

 

[Extract found on the ruined world of Tamus 892]

[Kierdale]

Carrack, I like how yours read as a manual for the creation of assassins. I also like that it recommends pitting the potential assassins against each other. :D

 

Tenebris, I liked the technical nature of yours, and particularly the genophage! Scary stuff.

 

Zhaharek, that was particularly good! I liked the body-hopping. I reminded me of an old Denzel Washington film with a demon that could hop by touch...only yours was better. The knife as its focus was a nice touch.

[Tenebris]

http://shrani.si/f/1a/o3/bgHYhQ/2/gallery2900410383202531.png

 

Now what an Inspirational Friday that was. You people got me fair and square and I had to read for almost an entire hour your awesome contributions and I DO mean awesome, from the first word to the last. This Inspirational Friday will be a special one since all the posts from this week get the reward, THAT GOOD your contributions are. I have read about the creation of a Chaos assassin, then I have read about an infiltrator and assassin sent by the Alpha Legion and finally I was rewarded for my reading with a daemonic shapeshifter assassin. That is why I love my job here on the Chaos Boards, because I get to read great fan-fiction, and through it learn how many different interpretations are of Chaos. I think that the frater Carrack, Kierdale and the amazing new entry Zhaharek all deserve the reward. Great job people, I cant wait to see what you will cook up next week. Keep the good work!

 

 

Step forth brothers Carrack, Kierdale and Zhaharek and claim your reward!

 

http://shrani.si/f/e/r4/KG83M5z/15/friday-award.png

 

 

Inspirational Friday - 20/02/2015 - Chaos Recon Observation - Protocol 72-B

 

To the esteemed Ordo Malleus, Watch Station Arbalest, Inquisition eyes only. Our observation of the Chaos forces in the region has yielded a greater understanding of the Archenemy. We were able to determine the modus operandi of the Chaos forces present in the region and our strategos have formulated the first observations on the war disposition and capacity of the enemy. 

 

Under the scrutiny protocol 72-B our operatives have compiled the following document where the revelations of the recent covert operations will be disclosed and the provisional threat assessment is established. Herein you will find the compilation of the main traits and idiosyncrasies of the observed Chaos forces as well as the tactical preferences employed by their leading elements and most important than all their speculated weaknesses, all to be exploited by the Holy Ordos. With knowledge we prevail, with faith we triumph!

 

In the addendum you will find a presentation of the methods of infiltration used by our field agents and a brief summary of the tactics and strategies that the Inquisition should employ when facing the observed Chaos warbands.

 

In darkness, He is our light! Ave Imperator. 

 

Inspiratori Frater!

 

Inquisitor Tenebris

[Kierdale]

As much as Carrack, Zhaharek and/or myself deserve to wear the Octed, you too Tenebris deserve it.

[Carrack]

Agreed

[Kierdale]

Here's my entry

Thought for the day:

To err is to invite retribution

The following investigation by the Holy Orders of the Emperor’s Inquisition into the planet Fulcrum and the Adeptus Astartes chapter designated `Stygian Guard` was launched based on the grounds of grievances filed to the Adeptus Administratum by a crusade of the Black Templars Adeptus Astartes chapter, intercepted by Ordo Scriptorum agents, and by reports by acolytes of a colleague (inquisitor Chonei) within the Ordo Hereticus investigating the remarkable rise and spread of the Exalted Fecund sect of the Imperial Cult in the sector within which the planet Fulcrum is located.

Praise be to Scriptorum lord inquisitor Anansi for recognizing the correlation of these events.

Thus I, inquisitor Cas Ashtun of the Ordo Hereticus, dispatched my acolytes to the homeworld of the Stygian Guard with the following remit:

I. The infiltration of Fulcrumese society, to wit, to investigate the Exalted Fecund (henceforth EF) sect: its rise, spread, influence and relations with peer sects. Also to investigate the relationship between the resident Adeptus Astartes chapter and the populace’s various strata.

-addendum: if the EF is judged a threat, I reserve the right to have my acolytes contact rival sects of the Imperial Cult and supply them as necessary to combat the EF’s influence.

II. The interaction with Fulcrumese society from outside. The purpose being to compare what could be discovered internally (I) and externally (II), and thus to judge if secrets are being withheld and the nature of those secrets. These interactions will take the form of import/export businesses and sanctioned criminal activities.

III. The investigation of the Stygian Guard. While the infiltration of Astartes chapters via recruitment has been attempted in the past with conditioned youth-acolytes it has, to my knowledge, never been reliably successful: the Astartes’ own psychoconditioning, training and the changes wrought by their geneseed overcoming our best efforts. Thus I have tasked agent Epsilon with the covert infiltration of the Stygian Guard fortress monastery. Should aspect `I` of this investigation present other means of contact with the Astartes, these will be followed as and when.

I make a final note that I support the lord inquisitor’s denial of inquisitor Chonei’s request to continue the investigation by sending his agents to Fulcrum. Their investigations thus far have been extensive and, if I may be so bold, brazen. I believe the possibility of his acolytes being known or at least conspicuous to the EF to be too great and pose a threat of compromise to further investigations.

Grounds for investigation

- Of Fulcrum and the EF

The planet Fulcrum is a cosmopolitan world in its sector, a hub for both trade and worship. The former being both offworld goods from neighbouring systems and the artwork of its natives. Artistic expression is second only to worship on Fulcrum, and those who possess no artistic bent are considered somewhat persona non grata in Fulcrumese society, the vast majority finding their place within the ecclesiarchy. The strongest are inducted into the Stygian Guard.

While the planet was brought into the Imperial fold during the Great Crusade, the Imperial Creed was officially introduced during M32, a company of the VII legion aiding the elimination of renegade cults.

As the populace of Fulcrum are divided in their artistic pursuits, so too are they in their worship, for there are many sects of the Imperial Cult now on the planet. A sample follows:

Egisians, followers of The Emperor’s Egis, worship the Emperor as protector.

The Imperator Afflatus seek His knowledge and divine inspiration

The Exalted Fecund see the production of offspring: the future of the human race, as the best way to glorify the Emperor.

It is this last sect which has aroused the suspicion of my Order. Tertiary accounts note the sect’s rise above its equals since the Stygian Guard’s return from their mission to the planet Cyprius III.

Query: Factors [stygian Guard, Cyprius III]

Administratum Logs.

- Ordo Hereticus inquisitor Tobias Fen `requests` the 1^st company of the Stygian Guard chapter accompany him to investigate rumours of corruption on the planet Cyprius III. The task force transmits astropathic confirmation of their arrival and his henceforth unheard from.

- Chapter master Sophusar convenes all available remaining companies and sets out for Cyprius III to investigate.

- After battle reports detail the total destruction of the captain Viphic’s first company, the loss of chief librarian Diarthet and the murder of inquisitor Fen at the hands of the Chaos-worshipping populace of Cyprius III. The planet is cleansed by the Stygian Guard though suffers many losses and injuries (e.g. it is noted that epistolary Holusiax - next in line to be chief librarian - is heavily injured and does not feature in future reports).

- Further follow-up reports were postponed indefinitely by the chapter encountering Eldar raiders in orbit over their homeworld upon their return, and subsequent missions undertaken.

The EF has, in the years since the Cyprius III mission, apparently came to dominate worship upon Fulcrum and has spread conspicuously to neighbouring worlds. Beyond fanes to the Golden Throne, these tendrils of the sect have been associated with orgiastic gatherings, houses of ill repute, slavery and kidnapping on several worlds.

The similarities between the reports which sparked inquisitor Fen’s mission to Cyprius III and the dealings of the EF cannot go uninvestigated. I propose that a rot took root in the Stygian Guard during their mission there, and it returned with them to corrupt their own homeworld.

- Of the Stygian Guard

In addition to the possibility of some form of warp-taint having contaminated the Astartes and they having been the vector for its transference to Fulcrum, it is now known to our Ordos that the Black Templar chapter hold a grudge against the Stygian Guard.

While the two chapters have prosecuted missions successfully together on several occasions previously [such as the Nantesi Insurrection], Ordo Scriptorum agents intercepted communiques to the Adeptus Administratum from a Black Templar crusade tasked with cooperating with Stygian Guard forces in the elimination of Eldar raiders responsible for preying upon Imperial colonies to the galactic south. I understand that Ordo agents are currently trying to determine the details of these raids for verification purposes. The Templar communique states that the Stygian Guard’s 4th and 8th companies (those forces assigned to the joint operation) disobeyed orders from their Black Templar allies and, counter to both mission parameters and more surprisingly their own modus operandi, took Eldar captives. The objections of the Templar command were met with hostility and though reports are unclear, it appears blood was spilt.

While such fratricide is not unknown, it is usually due to miscommunication, poor interpretation of astropathic messages or the vagaries of warp travel and time dilation. This does not seem to have been such a case

Thought for the day:

Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise.

I hereby present the results of my acolytes’ investigations into the planet Fulcrum and the Stygian Guard Adeptus Astartes, and request immediate and decisive action to be taken. I strongly advise for Ordo Malleus operatives to be assigned, and for the Black Templar chapter to be called upon. If Tempestus Scion pathfinders can be deployed too, it would be most advantageous. My reasons are thus:

- Infiltration of the EF gathered evidence proving the worst rumours and suspicions. The worship of He upon the Golden Throne has been twisted and corrupted. The EF is no mere pleasure cult but fully worships - I dare not commit the Power’s name to this file for reasons you must understand - the Infernal Power which governs such activities. Members are regularly sacrificed in rites producing warpspawn and worse.

Those of rival cults were initially recruited, later pressured and eventually forced into joining. Those strong enough of will and spirit to resist appear to have been eliminated in a pogrom which took place not half a year past. Few remain, and these have been driven underground. As noted in my initial report, my agents are now organizing these remnants as a resistance. Our fifth column when retribution is delivered.

As an aside, two of my acolytes were forced to eliminate operatives known to be loyal to inquisitor Chonei they identified on Fulcrum. They had either been corrupted by their own investigations or were following unsanctioned orders by Chonei. I recommend investigation into inquisitor Chonei on charges of heresy.

- The Stygian Guard are responsible for the corrupting of the Fulcrumese populace, via EF. My warp-sighted acolytes report that the veil wears thin in the vicinity of the fortress and that daemonkin reside within its walls. Agent Epsilon was able to determine that the first company was not destroyed on Cyprius III but a good number of them are held imprisoned within the fortress-monastery dungeons (recommend efforts to liberate these loyalists). Epsilon furnished us with a kill-list before his disappearance:

Chapter master Sophusar

Master of sanctity Angra

Chief librarian Holusiax - apparently recovered from injuries sustained on Cyprius III, though Epsilon’s reports were...confusing with regards to details.

Master of the forge Zenelaius

Chief apothecary Polus.

It must be noted that the Stygian Guard powered armour is no longer bare white ceramite with a white skull over back-to-back scythes on a shoulder pad of black. Those Astartes sighted - and they were sighted far more openly than reports indicate they were previous to the Cyprius III mission – wore armour of vivid and pastel shades. Pink largely, with contrasting blues, greens and purples, decorated with bedeviling iconography.

- OpFor Strengths

The Stygian Guard do not appear to have replaced the imprisoned veteran first company, though this does not necessarily mean there is no chapter elite. My agents observed Guard with non-Codex weaponry of unknown designs [pics attached]. These may well be the chapter’s new vanguard. Numerically we believe the chapter to be equivalent to seven companies in strength, having neither replaced the 1^st nor fully recuperated losses sustained at Cyprius III and in battles since. Few scouts have been seen. The chapter is known to make good use of bike-mounted squads for rapid response. The chapter also possesses a full complement of armoured vehicles in accordance with Codex Astartes standards for their current battle strength.

No dreadnoughts were sighted though previous [pre-Cyprius III] reports detailed the presence of six.

While before the Cyprius III mission the Astartes were not known to venture far from their fortress monastery, it is evident that the Guard now -for want of a better term- mix with Fulcrumese society, often leading the mortals in their diabolical acts.

Fulcrum is also home to several Imperial Guard regiments [75% line infantry, 10% dragoon/mounted infantry, 10% armour, 5% other], totaling over 1 million combatants spread over the planet, some 100,000 of these in the capital city.

Details of the chapter’s fleet are in attached files.

I repeat: the Stygian Guard no longer pay fealty to Holy Terra and the Golden Throne.

They are servants of Chaos.

I write this as my own vessel is bound for Fulcrum. I intend to make an overt visit to their fortress monastery while my acolytes continue their covert work. We will delay and distract them as best I can until your arrival.

Your most loyal servant,

Inquisitor Cas Ashtun

Ordo Hereticus

To be unclean

-That is the mark of the mutant

To be impure

-That is the mark of the mutant

To be abhorred

-That is the mark of the mutant

To be reviled

-That is the mark of the mutant

To be hunted

-That is the mark of the mutant

To be purged

-That is the fate of the mutant

To be cleansed

-For that is the fate of all mutants

From: High Marshal Galarius, Black Templars

To: Lord inquisitor #####, Ordo Malleus

Consider your plea granted. I will lead the assault personally.

The heretics will burn.

Fulcrum will burn.

Autarch Qarasion held the blocky, inelegant human dataslate in her slender fingers as she read the reports on the screen, her finely sculpted features bathed in a baleful green glow.

She finally turned to Emrana, the farseer at her side.

“Your spy - what is the human phrase? - `delivered the goods?`” he asked.

She nodded curtly, “The council will be most happy. The mon keigh will deal with their own.”

The farseer inclined his head to one side. Even an Ork could see the displeasure and unease on her face.

EDIT: edited to add in OpFor estimates.

[Tenebris]

Report 121 - Inquisitor Eyes Only - "The wolf is at his deadliest when he wears the skin of a sheep."

 

With much effort our enclave was able to infiltrate the "Black Tears" warband. This particular group of traitor astartes was not hard to infiltrate given their peculiar traits and modus operandi but while some information was filtered down from our agents and is considered credible we advise caution for it is the particularity of this Black Legion warband combined with their unusual activity which can easily lead to contradictory observations. 

 

The method of infiltration was achieved by using several Inquisition acolytes disguised as a medicus detachment aboard a lone listening station, the kind of target usually raided by the forces of the Archenemy. We suspected that sooner or later the observation post would be hit by the forces of Chaos, considering their heightened activity in the area, but when the Black Tears appeared we did our best to infiltrate as many our agents as we could, spreading them across the enemy fleet.

 

The initial reports, the most credible ones, are quite clear in their assessment of the Archenemy. The Black Tears are a Chaos warband, vassal to the Black Legion and composed of several minor warbands from different stripes and genotypes. This warbands are in turn bonded to a former Reserve Company of the traitorous XVIth legion. It is confirmed, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Black Tears are indeed the get of Horus the Archenemy. 

 

The Black Tears are a warband which is centered around a strong fleet composed by the great battleship Arrogance, supported by a battlecruiser and a squadron of escort ships. It is speculated that the ships predate the Horus Heresy and still bear the cursed iconography of the Warmaster. Agent 09 did manage to scan the rearmost section of the gun batteries and with much hatred in our heart the archives confirm that the Arrogance has indeed fired upon Holy Terra and the Imperial Palace. The Black Tears are thus confirmed traitoris extremis and are a true get of the Archenemy. The destruction of this warband is paramount for all loyal servants of the Imperium.

 

Agent 72 has managed to coerce several information from the gun clans employed by the Black Tears as fearsome auxiliaries and the findings are as dire as surprising. The Black Tears are indeed singular in their modus operandi, often plying with their fleet the remote and dangerous warp routes of the Imperium. It is speculated that the telepaths of the warband prey upon the dreams of our Astropaths, listening to the calls of distress and plight. This behavior is not unknown of the Archenemy but the revelation that the warband actively seeks the summons for Throne astartes is a surprise. 

 

Armed with the knowledge that imperial worlds are in such a distress that they require an astartes intervention, the warband of the Black Tears has often posed itself as the last hope for a populace of a beleaguered imperial world. This modus operandi is highly unusual yet the surprises do not stop here. The Black Tears have often shouldered many a defense of an imperial world, acting sometimes even as guardians, asking only a harvest of the world's youth and enough supplies to recover their losses. Given no other option, and often in clear ignorance of the devious Archenemy among them, many a populace has become an unknowing ally to the forces of Chaos, thus damning their soul for eternity. 

 

This tactic seems to have yielded many a result and the Black Tears have been observed to act as protectors for all those willing to sell their souls to Chaos. The wolf at its devious indeed, the Black Tears often wear the faces of angels and even play the part, but they are indeed servants of the Ruinous Powers. How many planetary governors owe allegiance to this Black Legion warband, or how many imperial worlds have been "rescued" by this traitors, we have no knowledge, but this is still quite a singular behavior for a Chaos warband, singular not because of the deceit in their actions, but singular because the Black Tears have been observed to honor the deal to the end. A most unusual aspect for a Chaos warband.

 

Agent 21 has managed to send a report on the battlefield capacity of the Black Tears warband before he was killed in a fire engulfing vast portions of the lower decks on the ship where he was stationed. The Black Tears are a motley collection of warbands, some formed by recent converts to Chaos or renegade astartes, but some also come from the first legions which have betrayed the Emperor. Agent 21 reports that during his service as a battlefield medicus he has observed a bewildering array of tactics and strategies employed by the Black Tears. The warband was seen practicing swift planetstrike missions, the hallmark of the astartes; wage a trench war with the Astra Militarum and winning it; fighting a tank battle with the Eldar and even conducting a deadly space hulk clearance mission. All the while the forces on the ground and in the void were supported by the warband's fleet in orbit. 

 

No clear preference for a method of war or strategy was observed, but Agent 21 reports that the majority of the missions undertaken by his gun clan have seen the Black Tears triumphant and their losses contained. Raids on lone observation post, like the one set as a lure, are considered "blooding" missions for newly inducted gun clans and as a training ground for the astartes. The important factor here, as Agent 21 stated in his last report, is that the Black Tears pursue their campaigns with a singular focus and favor a quick persecution of war, avoiding needless risks or staggering losses when they are confronted with a superior enemy. An aspect that recurred in the past three missions undertaken by the gun clans, was the daring strike by the warband's terminator elite which decapitated or badly mauled the enemy leadership. Of this decapitation strikes Agent 21 reports of a thorough elimination of all living force. No enemies are spared, no witnesses are left alive, the head is effectively cut off, leaving the enemy in doubt and panic as its leadership is dead. 

 

Said that it is clear that the Black Tears are a deadly foe and it must become the mission of this Inquisitorial enclave to eradicate this Chaos warband from existence. Our tactical advisers among the astartes suggested the use of a full battlefleet and an astartes chapter to hunt down and kill this singular foe yet every time we have tried to corner the Black Tears the warband managed to escape. One thing is certain, we speak of the get of Horus the Archenemy, there is no direst foe, and surely where the Black Tears walk, the Black Legion follows. Unfortunately most of our agents are confirmed to be dead, the last report from Agent 69 came with a dire admonishment: "We are the wolves of the moon, the sons of the eye, the tears of black. Weep for we are returned!"

 

We know not how the Black Tears have managed to discover our agents, but I have taken the liberty to call upon Watch Station Arbalest and the Chamber Militant of our Ordo. Unless we strike with our hammer first, we will indeed weep tears of black. There is no denying the nature of our foe. The get of Horus has returned to hound our dreams. This Black Tears were among the first betrayers of our species, they are not a mongrel breed, they are traitoris extremis, let there be no denial of this fact.

 

The Emperor protects!

[Carrack]

Protocol 72B Inquisitorial Station Arbalest. Ave Imperitor.

 

 

Precursor A: Inquisitorial Sanctioned Psyker Juan del Yaga was found dead in his cell. He was slumped over his desk bleeding from his eyes, and had apparently been consulting the Emperor's Tarot. Cards showing were; The Despoiler, The Eye of Horus (prime position), and 4 of ships (reversed). Juan del Yaga had written in his own blood across the desk and cards the words "blackness" and "Maw". The phrase, "16 angels guide the path that dooms red Siliquastrum" was scratched into the desk with his fingernails.

 

 

Target Indicator B: Sub sector command has been reporting on a series of worlds suffering assaults from the Black Legion. The report tracks the route the enemy is taking and post battle analysis of its raids.

 

Three main points from sub sector command.

1. The Arch-Enemy came not from the Eye of Terror, as usual, but from the former Imperial world of Frederic III, now in control of the Black Legion Warband known as the Black Maw, lead by the infamous Lord Carrack.

2. This is a major incursion. They are bringing a large fleet, at least hundreds of Chaos Marines, and hoards of human and mutant warriors and their machines of war. They have conquered and held worlds that rightly belong to Him on Terra, and may try to do so again.

3. The route of their advance appears to lead to our seat at Simiquastrum. The Emperor

 

Heriticus Missive from Inquisitor Ignacio: (presumed to have access to the same sub sector reports) The Emperor provides. I have been working for years to break the back of the Black Maw and now have been given the chance. Keep them away from Frederic III, and the combined forces of Cardinal Weaver, myself, and the zealous might of Lord Marshall Clarence of the famed Black Templars will take the world back from the enemy and clean the stain it has dirtied this sector with righteous fire!

 

Tangential Report, Interrogator Phan: Interrogator Phan lead a team of acolytes inside the Red Hive of Simiquastrum. His purpose was to uncover the source of a discreet dealer in text declared Heriticus Diabalus. The source was linked to the infamous Zanazar Network. During the course of the investigation, Phan had agents sent to the lower hive to appraise the muscle frequently used by the source for wet-work. His report as follows.

These goons are hard core cultist, not from Similquastum, or any other imperial world. Their tattoos, ritual scars, and brands are consistent with the Tanari clans of the Demon World Vaska. The number of observed mutations is also consistent with the damned souls from the Eye of Terror. They concealed themselves in greatcoats and cloaks and did not interact with the locals other than to drive off other gangers. They fought well, for scum, but had no formal training. No military background either, because as Haydon says, "No man that can call himself a soldier spends more money on his shirt than on his boots." I trust Haydon in these things. They did work for -------, but identified their allegiance to Lavam, Carrack's, and the Black Maw under psychic interrogation. I understand the importance of my mission, but let me reiterate to you master, Demon World bred cultist in the sub sector capital.

I await your orders to change the target of our investigation.

 

Plan of Action: Shield of Faith / Sword of Zeal

First, I want agents of the throne inside this Black Maw now! I do not care if a hundred of you fail and only one succeeds, I will have intelligence beyond what the Sub Sector Commander feeds me and the vague interpretations of psykers. Second, notify Marshal Clarence of the Black Templars immediately. He has the only fleet in the area, save the one at the Cadian Gate, that can defeat these heretics. He must be convinced that slaying the beast, not destroying its den, is the Emperor's will. Thirdly, have the Sub Sector Commander mass his regiments in his own system. If we can fix these heretics on our guns and bayonets, Lord Marshal and his crusade forces will destroy them once and for all. When he arrives to blindside the treacherous bastards.

 

By the hand of Inquisitor Tenebris

May I Burn for the Emperor, either heretics or myself.

 

[Dragonlover]

I have been embedded amongst the work crews of the Bone Walkers for six years sidereal. They operate as most warbands dedicated to the Blood God, with a focus on trophy collection to stave off the bite of the Nails. Serjius himself has a truly blasphemous collection of Astartes skulls, and it is that which concerns me.

 

To honour his god, he is harvesting a skull from every Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes to have ever existed. This includes Chapters that have been wiped out before he gets to them. To this end, he has hired a sorcerer who claims to have power over the warp to such a degree he can choose when to emerge to within a ten year error margin. The warband has also stepped up raids on the necrontyr, in an effort to capture their blasphemous technology. Thus far they have been unsuccessful, but it is only a matter of time.

 

In addition to these more esoteric methods, the warband will salvage any data they find on captured ships and scrub it for any mention of the Chapters Adeptus Astartes, so that the hunt may continue.

 

Inquisitor Serafina Absalom, Ordo Chronus

[Tenebris]

http://shrani.si/f/1a/o3/bgHYhQ/2/gallery2900410383202531.png

 

The Inquisition desperately sent its operatives to die, all to claim lost lore, knowledge and secrets of the Archenemy. This week's winner is Kierdale. His "Protocol 72B" is well written and quite illustrative of how a report should look like but I have especially liked the very last paragraph, the implication of the Eldar reading the report. That was an awesome twist for an already awesome report. A honorable mention goes also to Carrack and boy oh boy, the Tanari clans, you sir made my day (I am a D&D enthusiast). 

 

 

Step forth brother Kierdale and claim your reward!

 

http://shrani.si/f/e/r4/KG83M5z/15/friday-award.png

 

 

Inspirational Friday - 27/02/2015 - Betrayal!

 

Betrayal, the essence of the traitor, the nature of Chaos, the turning point for a loyal soul, now cast adrift, betrayer and betrayed both. This week's Inspirational Friday will be a deep one, we will write about betrayal. Each warband passed this turning point for it is the nature of the traitor to betray what he stood for, what he bled for. This turning point is the most pivotal event in the background of a Chaos warban, the moment that defines a Chaos Space Marine, the moment when the fate of the warband is sealed for eternity.

 

I want you to write of this moment, of this betrayal. What happened when your marines fired upon their loyalist brothers, when their oaths were broken, when their lot was cast with the traitors. This moment was a moment of great emotional upheaval, even for an astartes, more so for a brotherhood, now broken and reshaped by this vile act. Write about this act of betrayal, why it led to it, how it felt, what followed it. Betrayal, the betrayal perpetuated by your warband, touched every single marine in your brotherhood so explain what ramifications it had, what conflicts it revealed, who was the betrayed, who was the betrayer. 

 

As in all things no emotion is singular and pure. Conflicted emotions, orders, chaos, we can assume all those followed in the wake of the betrayal and in those few moments the fate of your warband was sealed, no longer loyal, but betrayers and betrayed in kind.

 

Let us be inspired!

 

 

Tenebris

[Carrack]

Thanks for the mention. Tenebris, you must be a true enthusiast to catch that reference.

Congradulations Kierdale, I am continually blown away with your writing and modeling.

[Tenebris]

The 97th Reserve Company of the Sons of Horus were stationed on board the mighty battleship Arrogance, the flagship of their host. Consuls from three different cohorts were spread across the remaining ships seconded to the "Black Tears", tasked with the overseeing of the escort and cruiser squadron, securing or to better say, enforcing their loyalty to Horus, the Warmaster.

 

In the Hall of Recollection the host stood assembled, storm green armored legionaries divided in neat lines, the banners of the cohorts lowered, lowered in remembrance, lowered perhaps in the shame of the act that would follow.

 

Below the wracked skies of Istvaan III brothers were fighting against an uprising, a devious cult corrupted the imperial institutions on the planet and the might of four astartes legions was assembled to punish the rebels. An unprecedented might concentrated on a single planet, thousands of brothers and cousins were locked in deadly combat with the enemy, unaware of their own fleet moving into position to bombard the planet below.

 

The Arrogance sailed at the head of its fleet of escorts, the 97th Reserve Company was ordered to reach the predetermined coordinates for the bombing plan. Thousands of menials were toiling in the weapon decks, loading sinister looking containers in the missiles. Augurs where chiming, tech-adepts were singing the code cant, the whips of the taskmasters were crackling and a dozen of decks above the echo of the astartes lock step could be heard. As one more than five hundred ceramite boots stepped to attention as the words of Horus, the beloved primarch of the XVIth legion, of their father, could be heard from the loudhailers. The officers barked orders, the standards of the company were lowered, horns bellowed and a dirge begun to raise from the Chorus, the choir temple on the Arrogance.

 

The 97th was often called to act as a reserve for the battle companies, their warriors never given tasks worthy of glory, never deserving the attention of their father Horus, but now, all Sons of Horus felt a strange tingle in their two hearts. For some it was guilt, for some it felt like anger, for the 97th it was vindication. They were spared the purge, they were true sons of the XVIth, they were judged loyal, despite never being allowed to shine in the eyes of their primarch. The 97th will be vindicated, no more faceless grunts in a legion of heroes, but heroes themselves.

 

The speech of the primarch ended, the sirens were clarion in their judgement, the weapon hatches opened, revealing the mighty teeth of the Arrogance and her sister ships. Helmets adorned with a black tear under the left eye lenses raised, looking at the vast viewport in the Hall of Recollection, the standards lowered still. 

 

"Aebathan" the officers cried. "Aebathan" answered the gathered marines, in unison presenting their weapons. Warning klaxons blared and the first tongues of fire could be seen engulfing the maws of the fleet's cannons. What followed was a marvel of astartes coordination to behold. Screaming missiles poured down to the planet surface, blossoms of fire could be seen from Istvaan III and the ballet of the ships dancing at Horus's tune was marvelous. First fired the battleships, then followed the cruisers, finishing in a crescendo of incendiaries unleashed by the entire fleet, the last cannonade, the one which sealed the fate of the loyalists, the last word of the judgement orchestrated by Horus and his brothers, echoed and then silence fell. The silence of the guilty. 

 

For hours the 97th Company stood in grim silence, observing the deed, observing and judging, remembering, evaluating, crying. The Black Tears earned their name for they were said to be soulless, their spirit a grim one, their brotherhood undeserving of glory. But in truth every single Black Tear knew why they were spared and their brothers were not. Each of their battle brothers did not share a single drop of Terran blood, they never beheld the rays of Sol nor ever questioned their role in the legion. Every Black Tear knew that their primarch needed both warriors who fight for glory as well as the warriors who die for glory, the 97th was of the second stripe, expendable, disposable, unremarkable. Yet in the past century the Black Tears did indeed prove to their father that they were worthy sons, often by carrying the glorious dead on their shoulders, acting as the guardians of those who died in their service to the XVIth legion, and guarding their ships when the still living were fighting for Horus. 

 

As the skies of Istvaan III burned and the dirge echoed from the Chorus the 97th removed their helmets and begun to sing...

 

A'tlan, a'tlan, du val mal a'tlan

deru'van neru zar moran

karu dan jrek ler nan

zeran, aebathan

 

Dead, dead, forever and ever dead

remembered and never forgotten

a crown without a king, ashen note

emptied, a cut throat

 

A thousand voices picked the ancient Cthonian dirge, their eyes sunken, tears steaming down their faces as they prepared the legion for planetary invasion. Some dared to looked their astartes masters in the eye, a single word upon their minds, "betrayal". The 97th sung on as death's scythe fell upon Istvaan III. 

[Lord Pariah]

hey, now is as good a time as any... may not be the grandest, may not be what your looking for... but I thought to cook it up In the time I had free, so expect rough edges

 

 

 

Captain Avaton crashed through the hulk, his mind set on the mongrel that over stepped his mark. Bearing a shield forged of adamantium with the wolf of Luna snarling ever so proudly, letting his power maul rest in his servo-assisted hands as sparks of starved-life dance.

His brothers hunted down the rest of the Jackals as he broke away, intent on finishing what should have ended so long ago. He should never had allowed the mongrel to live, never allowed them to even conceive of their treacheries…And yet here he was , ignoring his brothers, his fellow Outcast Wolves, chasing the one who was set on defying them and fracturing them in the name of some unknown nightmare.

He found the traitor in the only observation blister that remained aboard the hulk, staring out to the planet below… Deja Vu is seldom as pleasant as one would believe, as he stood exactly as the last traitor, the last one who would have sold his soul for the chance to rule.

Avaton was a different man in the great betrayal; younger, clearer and naive. Back in that lost time, he had approached the usurper in front of the whole rank and file that remained, he had believed it was simply a misunderstanding. The usurper had talked about corruption in the roots of the imperium, how entities from the beyond were our allies, and how the great Captain Alyxander was nothing but a bloody handed, weakling tyrant.

Avaton had drawn his sword, his lowly officer issue sword, with fear that a mind sickness had set in, but the company was too silent...

“Throne of Earth! you're talking about betrayal!” Avaton had once exclaimed. “You're talking about Betraying the Captain, the very man who has saved this company more times than I dare count, who took all of us in, who saw all of us as his sons!”. In this naive time, reason was believed to hold sway.

“You follow a dead man..” the Usurper had spoke cryptically.

Befor Avaton could have claimed madness, Isstvan III ignited with a brilliance that can only be matched by a star… The one man he would follow to hell and back now believed dead, he stayed, taking the radiance of the personification of death, stunned in both awe and grief.

“Now, we are free!” the usurper broke the silence, with a feral grin.

A great duel followed, while the company was divided, between those that saw the love of their surrogate father and commander, and those that saw only a bloody handed tyrant. That duel was the single most intense hour in Avaton’s life, with rage that burned brighter than the firestorm below--

“The oh-so-holy Captain holds us all in chains!” screamed the new usurper, the mongrel, the Jakyl. Eldritch lightning recided dark contracts that the fool had made, the same as the last usurper.

“You know nothing! He looks upon us as his beloved sons; saved us from our self-pity, but you, Jakyl, never saw that as you were the bastard and deserve none of his love.” Avaton spoke as his maul sparked to life, burning the air itself.

“Love? This is about respect! the Black Legion would never give us the respect we deserve, you are nothing but fodder to them!” Jakyl yelled  as he moved around Avaton’s guard.

“And you think daemons will give you that ‘respect’?” Avaton spat. “No. Daemons will claim your soul, but you tried to kill Issac and for that, I will have your skull for that. You should never have been created, mongrel, and That is a mistake I intend to fix!”

Both had charged Avaton in the same way, both had screamed the same warcry for freedom, both had hunger in their eyes.

Thousands of years separate the Usurpers. Two bastards for different eras, two power hungry champions, two who commanded respect and love without once earning it.. Both tempered the Wolves of moonlight, First as the 19th company of the XVI, then as the traitor Pariah Wolves

[Carrack]

I was aboard the Vengeful Spirit, above Terra, when the so called Heresy reached me. These events that the bootlicks of the Corpsegod falsely lay down as their foundational myths changed everything for us, for me. I was late to the end, we all were, the companies that would form the Black Maw were not at Istavaan, or indeed any battle of the so called Heresy save the end one. We were brought in from campaign along the far reaches of Segmentum Obscuras, in order to bolster the Astartes forces aboard our father's flagship.

 

Our father always amazed me when he spoke. Some say other Primarchs could orate more eloquently, I find that unlikely. He had gathered his children to him as we were brought aboard and spoke to us in the landing bay. He spoke of the abandonment and betrayal by his father, he spoke of us righteous warriors paving the way for incompetent bureaucrats who would push us aside like obsolete tools. He spoke of the lies of secularity. He spoke of Gods. He spoke of true power. His words alone amazed me, but all the while he spoke he coordinated fleet movements, received and transmitted reports to his captains and seemed to be doing eight things at once. Yet we had his focus and seemed to have his undivided attention the entire time. My father was like that. He was that capable of a commander, that is why he was Warmaster. I marvel at how he failed.

 

I once saw a Night Lord and a World Eater fight to the death over whose Legion entered the palace first. That they fought was unsurprising, but fighting over pride in a battle that they lost confounded me. Our place in the defeat was to wait aboard the Vengeful Spirit until a breech in the walls was made, and then make the drop to the surface and secure a foothold inside the palace. For what little it is worth, we failed in this mission, requiring assistance from the Sons of the VX.

 

As for me, My ignoble defeat came when my drop pod was shot out from under me. That is what I remember of our first betrayal, failure. Our father's, our Legion's, our warband's, my own. But we will have vengeance for our loss, we will make the Galaxy burn!

 

-Aspiring Champion Vinno - During the Siege of Terra, Vinno was stationed aboard the Vengeful Spirit. His squad was held in reserve till a certain objective was secured and then sent to earth via drop pod. Unfortunately a grazing shot from an AA battery sent his pod wildly off course and caused a crash landing in the numerological data sinks of Western Anatolia. Vinno, the pod’s only survivor, enraged by his misfortune slaughtered as many numerologists as he could. Such was the atrocity that to this day the workers of these data sinks are forbidden from counting, recording, or otherwise using Vinno’s designated squad number which was painted across his chest plate and pauldron. This taboo has, over the millennia, lead to more deaths than Vinno’s initial mass killing. If Vinno was to find out about this he would at first be pleased, but then would be enraged at the reminder of his misfortune.

[Warsmith Aznable]

My entry for the "betrayal" theme, spoilered for length:
 

The Iron Warriors huddled behind the hasty breastwork, red and green tracers streaking through the air just over their heads. Sand, dirt, and hot fragments of metal sprayed over their armour in regular intervals as rounds gouged at the top of the makeshift barricades. Now and then one of the Iron Warriors raised his bolter over the top and rattled off a burst, and every now and then a bolter or a hand or even rarely a helmet would shatter under the heavy fire before it could be withdrawn to safety.

 

"Where in this living hell is my artillery!" The Warsmith attempted to wipe the blood from his face, succeding only in smearing the sticky, grit-filled vitae across his eyes.

 

"Axle deep in the mud." The newcomer who answered wore Terminator armour. He plodded up toward the barricade, power axe and combi-bolter at the ready, followed up by a squad of Terminators bearing blocky missile launchers on their upper carapaces. "I have formulated an alternative plan, my lord."

 

"By all means, First-Captain." The Warsmith unlimbered his own power axe and then raised his voice to the line of Iron Warriors stalled at the wall. "First Company going over the top, make ready to support and exploit!"

 

"Climbing is not in my plans." The First-Captain did not duck or slow his pace when he finally made it to the Warsmith's position. He raised one heavily armoured foot and knocked the man-portable aegis section flat and scattering the sandbags and vehicle wreckage piled before it. As the heavy stubbers and autocannons of the cultists began to track toward this new breach, the terminators following on hesitated in their pace just long enough to loose a flight of missiles.

 

"Dammit!" The Warsmith growled, but did not allow himself even a second of indulgent frustration. He arose with a battle yell, his Iron Warriors immediately responding to his example. The tide of iron surged forward, disciplined even in the face of the crescendo of lead.

 

The cultists were themselves behind hasty barricades. Sandbags, the twisted hulks of vehicles, great slabs of crude metal, and the broken masonry and defiled statues of the xenos temple they had chosen to make their stand around all formed their suprisingly sturdy protection. Their III Legion masters had not directly engaged in the fight since they had heavily opposed the landing, days before. But these cultists fought with tenacious devotion, and many were so heavily mutated that they required far more killing than a normal mortal.

 

"There!" The First-Captain paused, pointing with his axe. Immediately another flight of missiles streaked forward, smashing open a fortified bunker and silencing the nest of stubbers it protected. Through the dirty, swirling smoke a reinforced door offered a method of entry into the temple complex. The smooth, bone-like slabs were crudely braced with bands of iron and brass, and the delicate, age-worn carvings had been smeared with gaudy, coloured sigils. The First-Captain shrugged aside the bullets and shrapnel the remaining cultists were desperately pouring into his sturdy terminator armour. "Chain-fists to the front!"

 

***

 

The strange, bone-like material gave off a subtle glow. Whereever the terminators stood the ambient light was low, with the strange effect that there seemed to always be light emanating from just around the corner. The First-Captain led his terminators through the flowing, organic styled halls and chambers of the ancient temple. He walked at a slow, purposeful pace, his combi-bolter rattling at regular intervals as the frantic cultists alternated between attacking with suicidal hatred and fleeing with crazed panic. When he ran out of bolter shells he caved in skulls with swift, chopping motions of his bolter and cleaved bodies in two with brutal swipes of his axe.

 

"Nikolas. Damastor." The First-Captain indicated two larger hallways, and his squad split into combat teams and trundled off without further comment. He wasn't sure why he didn't go with one of them, and hesitated. An errant thought fluttered in the back of his mind, and he realized a sense of unease. He stood motionless, trying to seize the loose thought with concentration, to understand what it was he was feeling. The steady sounds of battle faded, becoming eery echoes, more like a memory of battle than evidence of the ongoing battle he knew he should be pursuing.

 

"I missed something." The First-Captain removed his helmet, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the unaugmented reality around him. He turned slowly and began to retrace his steps.

 

It wasn't long before he found it.

 

At the previous junction he was able to discern a slightly ajar door. It was so delicately crafted that if closed would appear seamlessly a part of the wall. Even ajar he had not consciously been aware of it the first time he passed, but coming at it from the opposite direction could make out the dark outline. He approached and casually pushed it the rest of the way open with the barrels of his combi-bolter. The strange lighting effect of the xenos temple did not seem to be in effect, and the cramped hallway beyond the secret door was very dark.

 

"Nikolas." He keyed the vox. "I'm exploring a side passage just before our separation point. There was a hidden door. Come find me in thirty minutes."

 

"Understood, my lord."

 

***

 

It was dark, but his gene-engineered eyes adjusted easily. It was not pitch black, but the ambient glow of the alien materials was very weak in the side passage. The echoes and background noise of the rest of the temple were completely absent, and the terminator suit seemed the only source of noise. The hum of the fusion plant, the whine of the gears, the solid metallic thunk of each footfall. The First-Captain could hear his own breath as it fanned over the connecting ring for his helmet, and the steady pump of blood through the outer flesh of his ears.

 

He felt as if there were someone walking along beside him, but his suit's sensors provided no feedback to support the notion. He certainly did not see anyone, and did not feel the prickly, electric animal sensation of being watched. He dismissed the feeling as the result of the alien architecture, and pressed deeper into the dark.

 

***

 

At first he thought it was some kind of artwork. Emeralds and sapphires and amethysts, polished to perfection and set into the walls in a display pleasing to whatever strange minds had built this place aeons ago. But they were eyes.

 

Eldar, but he had never seen the creatures in such a state before. Undoubtedly bizarre and inhuman, but just as undoubtedly graceful of motion and elegant of form. But not these. These were dirty, hiding bruised and scratched faces behind stringy, filthy hair. Hair that only grew in clumps, with scabrous, wounded patches of flesh showing through here and there. Most wore only ragged scraps, many were naked, and some were criss crossed with straps of leather and metal affixed with painfully cruel spikes too wicked to remove without a surgeon's skill. All of them were scarred and bruised, each body a history of sadistic abuse, many with grotesque, ritual sigils carved or burned into their flesh. Only their eyes showed any life, like shining jewels littered amongst offal.

 

***

 

"First-Captain!" The Warsmith stood in the middle of the large passage with Nikolas and his squad of terminators arranged around him. Fresh splashes of dark blood and other, more brightly coloured liquids of unobvious origin covered their armour and dripped from their blades. "We were preparing to come after you. What did you find in there?"

 

"Nothing." The First-Captain hesitated for a moment, emerging from the concealed side passage. "It was just some ragged Eldar slaves. The III Legion is as depraved as ever."

 

"You should have seen their leader." The Warsmith wrinkled his nose in disgust at the memory. "Some kind of four-armed mongrel snake mutant. It did not die well."

 

"Or easy." The terminator sergeant agreed, raising a broken power sword covered in greasey, bright pink blood.

 

"Casualties?" The First-Captain turned to his sergeant.

 

"Several among the line troopers, my lord. Hylas lost an arm and even worse, the chainfist attached to it, but he is otherwise operational."

 

"You were out of contact for nearly two hours," The Warsmith clapped the First-Captain on a blood-stained shoulder plate in a familiar manner as he jokingly chided him. "How is it you took so long to exterminate a handful of wretched slaves, leaving us to fight monsters?"

 

"Two hours? Only a quarter of that time passed for me, I believed." The First-Captain said, at the same time querying his suit's chronometer and finding it unresponsive. He hesitated again. " I left the Eldar intact, such as they were."

 

The Warsmith frowned at the First-Captain, and an uneasy silence descended on the group. After a long moment the Warsmith turned to the sergeant of the terminator squad. "Nikolas, take Patrobas and go slaughter the xenos slaves."

 

The terminators moved to obey, but a single word from their First-Captain and they stopped instantly, as still as statues.

"Why?"

 

"First-Captain?" The Warsmith wore a mask of calm control, but his eyes fixed upon his second in command with dangerous fury. "You are not questioning my orders. Not now. Not ever. This is your one and only warning."

 

The terminators of the First Company looked to their captain, who stood unmoving before their Warsmith, and then uncertainly at one another.

 

"I gave an order, sergeant." The Warsmith said in a low, level voice. He never took his eyes of the First-Captain.

 

"Planet 2-13." The First-Captain said. He did not take his eyes of the Warsmith, and as he spoke his voice rose with an anger he did not know he had been harboring.

 

"Do not do this NOW..." The Warsmith clenched his fists, but made no move forward.

 

"Planet 2-13 we butchered 8 BILLION of our own kind after their army surrendered.

 

At the Hyperion Gate on 62-50 we CRUCIFIED the children of the Maganautek Dynasty in their HUNDREDS for the sins of a SINGLE arrogant tyrant.

 

At the Ananke Waypoint we pumped nerve gas into the cylinders of the Erectheus Confederacy's generation ships, walked over their bloated corpses, and declared the compliance of an empty shell bound for nowhere and good for NOTHING to us.

We made the Crusade great with the slaughter of billions. I never asked why.

 

"Sergeant Nikolas, execute the xenos. Sergeant Damastor, take the First-Captain into custody..." The Warsmith scrolled through the Grand Company's battle net, searching through the names of captains and sergeants and discovering he trusted none of them.

 

The terminators of the First Company looked on while their captain continued:

 

"At Istvaan V we ended the Great Crusade with slaughter among the Legions.

 

Pandion Primus..."

 

"First-Captain that is ENOUGH!" The Warsmith shook with fury, but closed his eyes and turned his face away.

 

"Pandion Primus... Honoured Linnaeus of the XIIIth Legion... Our sworn blood brother, who earned his dreadnought honours exchanging his life for OURS... I tore him from his tomb and crushed his head with my bare hands.

 

Olympia. Our own home world, the sacred soil of the IV Legion. Ashes and dust.

 

Terra. The birthplace of our species. A charnel house of fire and hate, a living hell. We tore down the Palace walls only to watch the Warmaster fall, and I never asked why."

 

The Warsmith was aware that more of his Iron Warriors were gathering, but could not feel comforted by their presence. A circle was forming as the captains and sergeants of the Grand Company pushed into the chamber, with the halls beyond filling with line troopers standing in silent ranks. There were none to speak against the First-Captain. There were none to speak for the Warsmith.

 

"The Eternal Fortress." The First-Captain took a step forward, raising a fist before opening his fingers, palm up, showing his empty hand for emphasis.

 

The hope of the Great Crusade, the righteousness of the Warmaster's rebellion become empty wrath and bitter hate. I watched my Primarch abandon sanity and become something inhuman, and I never asked why.

 

Our home is the warp stained wreckage of an alien empire. This is the glorious fate of the IV Legion and the reward for our unswerving devotion. But that was not ENOUGH! Medrengard was no home for us, you said, and so we left behind even that wretched reward. Our home, our Legion, all that was left to us, such as it was, we left it for YOU!

 

The Emperor? Thrown down! The Warmaster? Destroyed! The Primarch? Enthralled! Our reward? A literal hell! This is our reward for all the blood spilled, all the flesh burned, all the bones ground into the dust. We wander this nightmare without purpose, and still we slaughter as if we had a purity of purpose, as if there was some end-game in sight."

 

The First-Captain took four slow steps and stood before the Warsmith, towering over the Warsmith in his brutal terminator armour. Gears whined as he lowered his head so that he could look the Warsmith directly into the eyes, nose to nose.

"Why?"

 

***

 

"BETRAYERS! I am your WARSMITH!" There were no arms to flail, no legs to kick. The head whipped back and forth, gnashing at the tubes that pulled and tore at the corners of his mouth. The flesh of the forehead strained, but there were no eyes to frame the muscles into a proper scowl, only metal tubes and wires that violated his brain. Those wires, along with the forest of cybernetic spikes and cables protruding from his spine, were bundled in the hands of tech-servitors, waiting to be plugged into the struggling creature's nearby tomb.

 

"You are the OLD Warsmith." The former First-Captain said without passion. He stood before the detached dreadnought tomb in his freshly cleaned terminator armour. The deadnought tomb sat before the xenos temple, the Stormbird that brought it idling nearby among the scattered debris of the battle. The entire Grand Company stood in silent ranks, witness to the change of command.

 

"Accept it. Endorse it. Confirm it." The former First-Captain regarded the wretched being that lay in the dust before him. "Do this and you will remain with the Grand Company, exiled to the Armoury. Refuse, and you remain here."

 

The deposed Warsmith struggled to contain his rage, writhing on the ground. When his rage fueled struggling looked as if it would not cease, the former First-Captain nodded to the tech adepts, who gently lifted the struggling body and lowered it into the dreadnought coffin. The spikes, wires, and cables were ritually connected one by one, with all due reverence and ceremony. Still the creature thrashed and howled. The heavy adamantium cover was brought to finish the installation, and the presiding tech-priest gunned his air ratchet to test its movement.

 

"Wait!" The voice emitted both from the pathetic creature's mouth and the vox grill at the front of the coffin.

 

"I will hear him first." The former First-Captain motioned for the tech-servitors to hold off installing the coffin lid.

 

"You have a mind to work evil." The strange double voice of the creature sighed, the body finally relaxing into its welcoming technological nest. The vox grill buzzed and hummed as the newly connected mind worked to control the volume to address the assembly. "I am nothing without the Grand Company. I accept this. If this is the only way I may remain, I accept this. Hail the new Warsmith."

 

***

 

"Why?"

 

The Iron Warrior line trooper asked this of the Warsmith without a trace of irony.

 

"We are the 49th still. We are of the IV Legion still." The Warsmith took the paint brush from the stalling space marine's hand. "But we are more than that now, too. Understand?"

 

"Yes, Warsmith." The trooper nodded, watching with a strange fascination as the Warsmith made the first few strokes, laying the orange paint over the burnished iron.

[Kierdale]

I find myself out of Likes.
That was fantastic, Warsmith Aznable!
I'm glad to hear the four-armed snake mongrel did not die well. I have a soft spot for such types

Here's my entry for this week.

Charon’s Obol
The wires sang a beautiful melody bringing a smile to the torturer’s scarred face as his captive struggled; suspended from the ceiling, fine hooks piercing his flesh at a dozen points each chosen to inflict the maximum agony possible. Not a drop of blood was spilled; the torturer took pride in his work. Now was not the time for exsanguination. That came later.
The tormentor’s smile split into a grin like a recently closed wound teased back open as the Imperial navy officer let out the scream he had been bitterly holding back.

Some years after the corruption of the Stygian Guard on Cyprius III, while the chapter externally still wore the mask of loyalty yet plumbed new depths of depravity within the confines of their fortress monastery, a band of Xenos reavers preyed upon Imperial shipping and colonies in the Gantel sector. While they seized what supplies they could it was in truth souls they sought, for these were not the haughty Eldar of craftworlds nor their hardy exodite kin but rather the dark wretches of Commorragh.
It was easy work for the acolytes of an Ordo Xenos inquisitor to plant tracking beacons upon several vessels plying the spacelanes the raiders preyed upon, and once their current hideaway - for they were known to be nomadic and maddeningly elusive - was located the Emperor’s angels of death were called upon to strike the killing blow.
Chapter master Sophusar of the Stygian Guard dispatched squads from his fourth and eighth companies commanded by the hot headed 8^th captain Dophesia, to join with marines from the crusade of Black Templar high marshal Galarius headed by chaplain Caedmon. Amongst the assault squads of the Guard’s 8^th company was brother Physes, late of the 10^th company. He had earned his laurels and his powered armour on Cyprius III, though the changes the chapter had undergone on that planet sat ill with the young marine. Master of Sanctity Angra had ordered captain Dophesia to keep an eye on Physes. The captain of the 8^th had also seen Angra speaking with Physes upon their return to their homeworld of Fulcrum. The head chaplain had handed the assault marine something. Upon questioning, Physes had not shown it, but had called it an `obol`, keeping it hidden within his hand.
The joint assault on the base of the Xenos reavers brought many of the Stygian Guard together again with Templar brothers they had fought alongside during the Nantesi Insurrection. While old ties were renewed, the zealous and just knights in black looked in scorn upon the new gaudy colours and decorations of the Guard armour.

“Such colours on armour ill-befit a warrior, and you wear it badly,” Hastings looked down at the gaudily-clad assault marine whose path he blocked. When the younger warrior looked up, brow creasing under his helm and a scornful reply upon his lips, the tall Sword Brethren’s craggy old face split into a grin.
“Congratulations, brother Physes.”
Physes’ vitriol drained away and he pulled his helmet off to grin back at the veteran Templar blocking his way out of the briefing chamber. The young marine’s face was scarred, but nothing that could not be excused as the souvenirs of battle.
“Not dead yet, brother Hastings? Wonders never cease.”
A couple of Physes’ squadmates pushed past but he paid them no heed.
“The Enslavers on Nantesi could not end me, and I have yet to find a warrior fit for the job.”
“Perhaps one of these Eldar reavers then.”
Hastings rested one hand upon the hilt of his huge powersword, the leather of its fastenings and his belt creaking. On his left pauldron was the Templar cross, sable upon argent. His right displayed a gilt Aquila, an award for his victories on Nantesi.
“Unlikely. You boys of the Stygian 8^th will be watching the Templars’ lecture on the proper way to bring the Emperor’s holy retribution to these Xenos filth, I understand?”
Physes bowed his head, smiling. “We are your backup, aye.”
The sword brethren grunted, “Then watch carefully and learn, young one. Learn that ornamentation means little.” He motioned to Physes’ gaudy armour. “You will see that all that is needed is a good blade, a strong spirit...and zeal.”
Unnoticed by brother Hastings, Physes toyed with something in his bare left hand, turning it over and over, pricking himself.

Captain Dophesia had been ordered to carry out the mission as if the Stygian Guard were loyal servant of the Golden Throne - for Sophusar did not want the chapter’s true fealty revealed. Dophesia, formerly the 8^th company’s first sergeant - a position he had earned through skill in battle despite an unending tendency to break with Guard ascetic tenets - he had become its captain with the death of his predecessor on Cyprius III. Now the Guard were enlightened it was as if Dophesia had finally been unfettered.
Thus, as was his way, he reinterpreted his orders.
The Guard under his command would capture as many of the Eldar as they could, and the Templars be damned.

Deployed to the surface of the icy planet Berolar XII both the black and white Templars and the pastel hues of the Stygian Guard were at odds with the white sastrugi they strode across. Smoke rose in thick columns from wreckage on the prefab landing pads, the main generator building and several other points about the Xenos base, nestled in the terminus of a valley. The architecture was a strange mix of angles and hooked protrusions with no evident purpose except to catch the eye. The base consisted of over a dozen interlocking buildings, the majority spike-like towers, all of a dark material, black but for a greenish tinge where light struck its razor-like edges.
While the Black Templars, their sword brethren leading their brethren in their landraider, had the honour of the charge, the Stygian 4^th’s devastators had taken out key targets beforehand with their heavy weapons. The Stygian 8^th‘s assault squads were to wait in the wings to reinforce the Templars as necessary. Dophesia however, had them infiltrate the base from a different direction as soon as the Templars engaged the Xenos reavers, hails of toxic shards pitter-pattering against their fine black plate. Every so often a poisoned sliver found a chink in their armour and a Templar was downed, screaming as esoteric toxins coursed through his body.
Dophesia, Physes and the rest of the assault squads, acting on accurate intel rather than that which had been doctored and passed on to the Templars, breached the pirates’ hab facilities. They were there for captives. Not the poor crews of Imperial ships hit by the reavers, nor colonists seized from their homes. The Stygian Guard were there for the Xenos themselves. While those trained and able of body had immediately answered the call to arms as explosions shook their base and the Templar armoured column was spotted, that left plenty more for those who in truth went by the name of Psychopomps. The young and the infirm, all who could not fight back, were taken, and those who did fight back - reaver sentries and rearguard - were overpowered and taken too.

Dophesia looked down at the Xenos warrior impaled upon his lightning claw. The gaunt, pale bastard grinned at him as his vitality drained out, hissing and spitting upon the blades penetrating his chest.
The 8^th captain grinned back.
“We know about you wretches. All you know is pain. Agony,” he shook his head contemptuously. “There is so, so much more. So much you miss. We were once like you. Worse, even. Denied everything. But no longer. Now we embrace the full spectrum of sensation! All that She can offer.”
He looked across to where his troops were herding the captives. They were a rambunctious yet sullen breed, even the young needed beating and seemed to enjoy it.
“You, you are finished,” he said, turning back to the pirate speared on his claw. “But your people...we will show them so much,” his face split into a wicked grin, “It will be unbearable...and then we will send them on. To Her. To Slaanesh.”
The alien spat a curse as Dophesia let him slip from the blades of his gauntlet.
The frigate would soon be in position.
“Brothers Physes, Oreneus, Creusia, patrol the perimeter.”

Once the Templars had breached the base the fighting had changed to bitter close-quarters combat. A struggle from room to room, corridor to corridor, later evolving into a hunt through the alien structures, never knowing if one were truly the hunter or the prey.
The Black Templars who returned from Berolar XII reported that one of their number picked up power spikes analogous to teleport signatures on his auspex and had broken off from the main assault to investigate.
Brother Hastings’ corpse was later found by his brethren in what appeared to be the habitation facilities of the base. The area was devoid of life though showed indications of struggles having taken place throughout.

Brother Hastings stalked through the alien corridors, his storm shield out before him, his sword low and parallel to the floor. Anyone who surprised him would get the shield thrust into them shortly before the blade entered their guts. The schematica the Stygian Guard had furnished them with had not indicated any teleport mechanisms. Then again the recon had underestimated the strength of the raiders - an underestimation which had cost him several brothers already - and the layout of the base. He cursed sotto voce as he remembered the Xenos turrets traversing to target his men’s Rhinos upon their approach. That flash bastard Dophesia, captain or no (how did such a man gain such a rank within a staid chapter like the Stygians? What had come over them?), would have to have some bloody good answers when next they met.
The sound of heavy footfalls ahead - too heavy for Eldar - brought him from his bitter reverie. He eschewed his comm lest the raiders or this new unknown be eavesdropping. He then cursed himself for venturing off alone; he was no longer the tireless initiate he had once been, and his side ached with a growing pain where one of the alien projectiles had found its mark.
He stopped in his tracks as a familiar, brightly coloured figure came round the corner of the corridor ahead.
“Brother Physes?”
The Guard assault marine turned quickly at the sound, raising his bolt pistol and steadying it against the blade of his chainsword held horizontally before him.
Hastings grinned, raising his shield and sword out to the sides, though his frown remained.
“Friend.”
The pistol did not waiver for a moment, but was finally turned aside.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask likewise,” Hastings said, lowering his own arms and looking about as he approached the younger warrior. “We did not call in the 8^th.”
“We detected life signs here. Previously shielded, it seems,” Physes replied. There was something rote about the answer.
Hastings filed the information away as something else to confront Dophesia about when the time presented itself. “Then where are they? My blade is not yet slaked.”
“Leave these to the Guard, brother Hastings. Let us have a little glory at least,” Physes replied quickly and with humour, putting a hand on the old knight’s shoulder to turn him about.
“Another one for the teleporter!” announced brother Oreneus, exiting a doorway not five meters before them, pushing a bound reaver before him.
Hastings’ eyes hardened at the sight of the Xenos and he raised his sword, taking a quick stride toward the captive. Before he could get any closer Oreneus’ own bolt pistol was aimed at his unhelmed face. The sword brethren froze.
“What is the meaning of this?” the old Astartes hissed, his eyes moving from the pistol’s huge barrel to Oreneus’ mismatched eye lenses, to the kneeling, bloodied alien.
Physes quickly stepped to his side, holstering his chainsword as he had his pistol.
“Vengeance, brother,” he began to quickly explain. “As they took and tortured our own, so shall we theirs.”
“Heresy!” the sword brethren spat, raising his power sword, “The fate of the alien is death!”
Oreneus’ pistol went off shortly after Physes began to pull the Templar aside, the bolt shell detonating against the Aquila engraved on Hastings’ right shoulder guard, and he and Physes went down to the ground.
The old warrior noticed the obol then. He had thought it naught but one of the pretentious ornaments the Guard now decorated themselves with. Physes had incessantly toyed with it: a metal ring almost encircled by the arms of a crescent with a forked spike protruding radially from the ring. It appeared as if a brooch or an amulet to be strung about one’s neck but now, the ring upon Physes’ gauntleted finger, it became a weapon, slashing deep into the old knight’s neck.

[TDF]

The floor of the training arena was covered in the dismembered remains of five or six combat-servitors. Only eleven remained intact in the storage niches around the room, leaving more than twenty unaccounted for.

 

“Must you always create such destruction?” asked Gar Nalen.

 

Mihaelo Antanus turned his head away from the control unit he was repairing and smiled ruefully. “You know I cannot help it, brother. I was made to kill and that is not something I can switch on and off. I’ve never possessed your control.”

 

“Perhaps that speaks of a great void in your spirit, brother. One that you must fill with violence.”

 

Mihaelo barked a laugh and turned back to the control unit. “You sound like the Chaplain when say that.”

 

Gar Nalen hesitated for a moment. “He sent me to speak to you,” he said.

 

There was a long pause. Mihaelo activated a rune on the control unit and it sputtered into mechanical life.

 

“He’s concerned that you are rejecting the truth. He thinks that your unbelief is unhealthy.”

 

Mihaelo sighed. “There have been so many truths, brother. As a child in the Pirrennians I was taught one truth. Then the Thunder Legions came and I was taught another truth, the Imperial Truth. I spread this truth across the stars until I finally met our father and he taught me another truth. I spread that truth also, until Monarchia came and that truth was exposed as a lie. And now Kanan Raam wants me to believe yet another truth. I am a weapon, Gar Nalen. The truth is not for me to know.”

 

“I understand your perspective, brother,” Gar Nalen said gently. “I only knew one truth until Monarchia, but even so I did not wish to learn another. When Kanan Raam showed me the new truth our father has uncovered I did not want to believe. But I cannot deny it.”

 

The control unit whirred and moaned as Mihaelo replaced the outer panelling. “I am content in my ignorance. Whatever this new truth is, I want no part in it,” he said.

 

Gar Nalen stared sadly at his brother’s back and then silently drew his blade from its sheath. “I am sorry you feel that way, brother,” he said.

 

Mihaelo typed a series of commands on the control unit’s keypad, his attention still firmly diverted away from Gar Nalen. “I wish things could be different. I am sorry that they cannot be.”

 

Gar Nalen raised the combat blade. He mouthed a silent prayer that Kanan Raam had taught him that very day. “Forgi–”

 

Mihaelo punched a rune on the control unit and four steel spears erupted from Gar Nalen’s chest. The Terran turned around with an expression of raw grief on his face.

 

“I suspected this, but I hoped they would send another. Thank you for giving me time to reprogram the combat servitors. I did not want to fight you.”

 

“You... would have... lost.” Gar Nalen tried to smile, but his mouth was filling with blood.

 

Mihaelo laughed once. “That is probably true.” He stooped and picked up the combat blade from where Gar Nalen had dropped it. “You were the greatest brother I could have wished for,” he said.

 

“Like... wise...”

 

The blade sank deep into Gar Nalen’s throat and out the other side. Mihaelo withdrew it and examined it distastefully, then he wiped it clean on Gar Nalen’s robe. He would need every weapon available if he was to escape the Light of Colchis alive.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I find myself out of Likes.

That was fantastic, Warsmith Aznable!

I'm glad to hear the four-armed snake mongrel did not die well. I have a soft spot for such types

I will admit to that description being inspired by a certain Daemonic Pact conversion!

[Carrack]

I find myself out of Likes.

That was fantastic, Warsmith Aznable!

I'm glad to hear the four-armed snake mongrel did not die well. I have a soft spot for such types

I will admit to that description being inspired by a certain Daemonic Pact conversion!

To be honest I expected Iron Warriors to start dropping when I read Kierdale's story.