++ Turpe Et Dicere ++

[DuskRaider]

Hyena, where in the nine hells did you get that Flamberge?! I'm guessing Fantasy, but it looks amazing in the hands of an Astartes.

[Fire Golem]

Hyena, where in the nine hells did you get that Flamberge?! I'm guessing Fantasy, but it looks amazing in the hands of an Astartes.

Is that the wiggly sword? From the Empire Greatswords kit (I assume anyway).

[DuskRaider]

Yup, that's a Flamberge. Germanic Bastard Sword of sorts.

[Hyaenidae]

Hyena, where in the nine hells did you get that Flamberge?! I'm guessing Fantasy, but it looks amazing in the hands of an Astartes.

 

Fire Golem had it, Empire greatswords. It's not easy swapping sword blades, but totally worth it.  :D

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

http://i.imgur.com/pa6OpEt.png

 

-- Chapter 2.2: Realizations --

 

 

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

 

 

    She couldn't sleep. The second chron on her wrist, set to a timer, read 31 hours, 2 minutes, and 14 seconds; the amount of time she'd been awake. The affliction had started when she was but a child, and from years of torturous experience, knew she could do another six or seven hours without much trouble. At forty hours, her cognitive faculties would become so impaired that it would no longer be worth continuing on her project. Fifty-one hours was when the monster took control, as if it were a beast in cage with a timer on the release catch. It would subsume her and she would be lost in the hallucinations, but she hadn't allowed that to happen in over twenty years - among the many perks of working on the Emperor's Legiones Astartes programme was access to some of the strongest tranquilizers on the planet.

    For all that the insomnia worked against her and had cost her in her life, she had also used it to further her own learning and career, requiring only a fraction of the sleep her fellows did. A chime pulled her from her reverie and she rubbed at her eyes before putting her spectacles back on.

    "Dr. Yora Lisbon, your projection is ready," said the digital voice of the workstation. The hololith hummed, vibrating the massive desk as it came to life, filling the air with a three dimensional rendering of the genome for the progenoid gland of the XV Legion. At this time of the night with most of the other team members sleeping, she had access to almost all of the massive data looms in the cavernous climate-controlled vaults beneath the labs, making the computations of her projections take only a handful of minutes.

    She started the projection and sat back in her chair, not realizing that she had covered her mouth with both hands. Great strides had been made with her help in stabilizing the progenoid of the VI, but for almost two years now, she had struggled with discovering and rooting out the mutation that seemed inherent in the XV. The instability had become so severe that the recruitment for Firstborn subjects had been halted - no one wanted a repeat of the disastrous XI.

    That thought had barely crossed her mind when her new projection unraveled with yet another mutation strain she had never seen before. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and pushed her spectacles on top of her head. Trembling fingers pressed against her closed eyes, trying to still the throbbing pain behind them. It had been months since she had cried in frustration, and now it was just the cold, empty acceptance of another failure.

    The door burst open with a bang, making her start and she let out a sharp little shriek as Dr. Goreth rushed in. He stopped short, trying not to laugh. "Sorry, Lisbon, I didn't mean to startle you."

    "Well, you did," she replied sharply. Her cheeks were warm and flushed, both in embarrassment for the unseemly sound she had made and because Lenshaw Goreth was a strikingly attractive man, physically and mentally, that she frequently had unprofessional thoughts of. She pulled her spectacles back onto her nose and tried to finger comb her short, mousy brown hair into something presentable. "What brings you here at this hour?"

    He came over to her desk, holding his dataslate in one hand. "I knew you'd be the only one up right now and I had to tell someone about the..." His excited smile faltered.  "You didn't get the addendum inload I sent you last night with the new results, did you?"

    No, of course she didn't. She hated using dataslates and preferred to print everything out to a hard copy. How many times would she have to remind him? "I've barely moved from this seat in over thirty hours. I've been busy with the-"

    "The Fifteenth, yeah, I know," he finished.

    With a few key strokes she pulled up her digital post, logged in, and saw two inloads from Goreth - the first was a twenty page summation and the other was a much larger file. She ordered the summation to be printed out and nearly fell over from the numbness in her legs when she tried to get up.

    "I'll get it, you just sit" Goreth said, motioning her back into her chair.  He went around the far end of the large workstation, picked up the printed sheets and brought them over. While she read over the first few pages, he moved to the bank of monitors on the front wall, detached the portable unit from his dataslate and plugged it into the inload slot.

    "Wait, wait," Lisbon said, flipping through the next few pages quickly. "I thought this subject wasn't a psyker."

    "He's not an active psyker," Goreth corrected.

    She looked up from the pages with wide eyes. "Is this accurate?"

    Goreth smiled and nodded. "The second inload is six hundred pages of test results to show that it is. His ability was so passive that we had to completely recalibrate everything to even pick it up."

    "Then how did you know to look for it in the first place?"

    "The Emperor, of course."

    Lisbon stood, hands flat on the desk for support. "You spoke with him?"

    Goreth chuckled and shook his head. "I wish. The message was delivered by Valdor. Apparently, the Emperor was curious why this recruit's psyker eval was missing from his file. Valdor said that the Emperor was there when they opened the first of the prison sinks and their minds touched for an instant; that's how he knew."

    "Maybe he could have informed us of that fact," she grumbled.

    "Maybe he thought we should have been able to find it in the first place."

    Lisbon only grunted in reply and scanned over the remaining pages of the summation. "So... he passively affects the perception of everyone around him, constantly?"

    "Basically, yes. I'm sure you've known someone that was good at going unnoticed, right? They could be standing right beside you and you'd forget they were there?"

    She straightened her spectacles and wondered if he was making a jab at her. "Well, yes, of course."

    "This kid already does that because the environment he grew up in required it, but his passive ability essentially tells the brain of anyone around him to ignore any stimuli from him."

    "Your notes state that he can turn it off."

    "Yes," he said. "There are still more tests to run on that aspect of it, but it appears that he turns it off subconsciously only when he wants to be noticed. Otherwise, unless he's speaking or doing something to obviously garner attention, he's like a hole in the air. Invisible. That's why none of the other subjects even come close to him in the stealth scores, not even others from the VIII."

    "How have you tested it?"

    "I thought you'd never ask," Goreth said, flashing a wolf's grin. He indicated a monitor in front of him and loaded up a recorded pict feed. It was an overhead view of a reading room, one they both recognized from the Imperial Palace. In the green-tinted feed, a giant in a black robe sat a table, a book almost comically small for his hands open in front of him.

    Lisbon saw him carefully turning a page with a wand of some sort and wondered how old the manuscript was. "Why am I looking at a Custodes reading a book?"

    "Be patient," the man said. He pointed to the bottom right of the monitor a moment before a small, dark shape appeared. "That's the subject. He's wearing an inhibitor bracelet, but at this point, we haven't told him that he's a psyker, so he has no idea that's it's cutting off his abilities."

    She gasped in shock. "You sent him to attack a Custodes? This is outrageous! You-"

    "Easy, easy," he said, his hands coming up, palms out, in a peaceful gesture. "Not attacking. He's head and shoulders above any of the other recruits, and powerful as they are, Thunder Warriors don't have anything like the senses of a Custodes. He was told the test was simply to get as close to the target as possible without being detected."

    Lisbon pursed her lips in agitation. In her mind, this was still reckless and unprofessional; with a single flick of his wrist, too fast for the pict feed to even capture, the Custodes could snap the neck of one of their most promising candidates. "Who is that?" she said, nodding at the monitor.

    "Haedo. He's good, but he's not the best."

    The child crept closer, and with each step, the woman's awe began to grow. Not only was he inside the room with one of the Emperor's most powerful creations-

    "I hear you, little mouse," Haedo's deep voice sounded from the recording, interrupting her thoughts. The giant turned in his chair, sitting sideways and looping an arm around the back. "Who sent you? Quickly now, and don't lie."

    "He said his name was Valdor, sir."

    "That's Captain-General Valdor to you, little mouse. Why did he send you to me?"

    "I was told to test your senses, sir. To get as close as I could."

    Goreth paused the feed. "Impressive, wouldn't you say?"

    "Quite."

    He flashed that wolf's grin again and brought up a new pict feed of the same room. A different Custodes sat at the desk, and this one she recognized as Amon Tauromachian. "No inhibitor this time," he offered as an explanation.

    For the next three minutes, they watched as the child slowly crept forward, keeping to the cover of the large bookshelves and the shadows they provided. Several times, the child paused for long stretches, seeming to go as still as a statue while in cover, waiting to see if his prey sensed him, but Amon gave no outward sign.

    Only once, when the child had cleared the last bookshelf and had to step into open ground to cross the final few meters to his target did Amon's head come up slightly and tilt to the right. The child froze and Lisbon could swear that Amon should have seen him with his peripheral vision, but the Custodes went back to his reading. The last three steps seemed to take an eternity, and then the boy leaned forward, arm outstretched to touch Amon's shoulder. There was a blur from the giant and he was suddenly turned around, enclosing the child's hand and wrist in his massive fist.

    "You're very good, whoever you are," Amon said, releasing the boy's arm. There was surprise and amusement in his deep voice. "What is your name, candidate?"

    "Vall, sir. May I have yours?"

    "Names have power. If you had succeeded in touching me, you might have earned the right to know mine. That was the test, yes?"

    "Yessir," the boy said. "May I ask how you knew I was there?"

    "Your breathing and heart rate increased at the last instant. You lost your focus and it was then I sensed you. Now go back to whatever handler set you upon me. Test or no, this is a restricted area."

    "Thank you, sir. I shall not lose my focus next time."

    There was something cold and dark in the child's voice that sent an icy hand of fear down Lisbon's spine.

    "Imagine what he'll be like once his transformation is complete," Goreth said, beaming.

    She already was, and it terrified her.

[Slips]

Is how I feel right now :o...

[Daemon2027]

That was an enjoyable read. Vall's abilities sound similar to that of Severian as well as Corax and his Mor Deythan.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Thanks, Slips. More coming soon. :)

 

Hydra, I honestly didn't know that about the Mor Deythan because I had heard from quite a few people that all of the RG Heresy books were awful, and I never read their entire entry in Extermination. I'll let you in on a little secret though - the inspiration for his ability is much older than that.

 

http://i.imgur.com/123IcQY.png

 

 

I'm also wondering about what is a comfortable length for a story segment. I cut down the first Dusk Raiders one quite a bit, and even cut this one down some, because I don't want people to be turned off by a wall of text, so what's the attention span limit for these kinds of things?

[Fire Golem]

So what is he then, because my first thought was Raven Guard too haha.

 

In terms of length, I mean your first one was pretty long and honestly when I saw the big block of text I was a bit 'eh really...' But when I started reading, I didn't even notice how long it was.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I imagined that his power was something that evolved from the survival needs of a psyker child born into those lightless depths. There's no weird RG crossover thing going on, because I didn't know about the powers of their elite unit.

 

In terms of length, I mean your first one was pretty long and honestly when I saw the big block of text I was a bit 'eh really...' But when I started reading, I didn't even notice how long it was.

 

See, that's what worries me because the formatting on this web page makes it look like a huge wall of text, when I can read through the whole thing in a matter of minutes. But that's me - I read very fast and enjoy reading, so it's not a bother to me in the least and I realize that won't be the same for everyone.

[GrandMagnus]

Do you have any plans for a unification era VIIth legion marine? I would love to see that scheme on a marine.

Keep up with the good stuff.

[Slips]

I can read 700+ page novels in 3-4 days if I want to so giant blocks of text never scared me; then again...I'm probably the exception not the rule...

[Daemon2027]

BCK the Mor Deythan can only do it if they are shaddow s or darkness so its not that similiar. Corax can do it whenever he wants but electronic devices still pick him up. I don't think it crosses into RG territory but even if it did I don't think it matters because this is the development of a Legion. Severain, a Luna Wolf, gas the same ability for example. It makes sense your reasing, a passive power. The characters in your story might not have known how the XIX is developing. Also its a talent associated with the gene seed so its probably only something the Emperor would have details about.

 

I found the story length OK because I enjoyed the subject. As long as its engaging its ofine.

[Skalpynock]

Small nitpick: the second scientist's name seems to switch from Goreth to Goran after two paragraphs.

Excellent writing as always, I'd even say better than the usual because we get to see the civilian side of the Imperium, and its technological edge against Old Night. Not the constant warfare of a future-medieval universe, but two scientists talking about experimental results, in what could as well be a near-future cyberpunk setting. And the rational, prototypal beginnings of the Astartes project, rather than the ritualised, mystic indoctrination of M41.

(Incidentally, I was listening to a couse about DNA replication while reading that.)

[Conn Eremon]

Hydra beat me to it. What you are on the path to creating is essentially Corax's gift, which manifests in his sons to varying effect, the greatest of which are inducted into the Mor Deythan.

 

This then means that for the XIXth it is a genetic gift, derived from their gene-seed.

 

However, Severian of the XVIth shows that the XIXth's genetic legacy does not preclude the existence of those who have come by a similar gift on their own.

 

Konrad Curze's own talents aren't entirely dissimilar either, so that there is this child, soon to be inducted into the VIIIth, does not seem to me to be all that much of a stretch.

[Daemon2027]

You said it far more elegantly then I did Conn.

[Hyaenidae]

Hydra beat me to it. What you are on the path to creating is essentially Corax's gift, which manifests in his sons to varying effect, the greatest of which are inducted into the Mor Deythan.

 

This then means that for the XIXth it is a genetic gift, derived from their gene-seed.

 

However, Severian of the XVIth shows that the XIXth's genetic legacy does not preclude the existence of those who have come by a similar gift on their own.

 

Konrad Curze's own talents aren't entirely dissimilar either, so that there is this child, soon to be inducted into the VIIIth, does not seem to me to be all that much of a stretch.

 

 

Alright, so, there's some things that need to be explained about the Firstborn, something I  haven't yet touched upon in Phelan's story yet, but was going to be covered in his next story anyway.

 

The Firstborn were not just my concept of a proto-legionaire, a rough draft of what an Astartes would one day become, written in the scars and stitches of a mad scientist. Their boundaries of their physical and mental limits were stretched past acceptable limits, to learn breaking points of the future Astartes. In some ways, aspects of their physical form are boons, but with a vicious price. Each Firstborn was a unique design, but were poor ones at that.

 

Vall was chosen because of a passing sensitivity to spatial awareness, and this gift was magnified a hundredfold. The price for this gift, though, will be severe as age and time take their toll. You'll find out how bad it gets a little later.

 

Like the predecessors before them, the Firstborn wern't supposed to survive. But, they did. The life they live, though, is akin to living in a Hell wrapped in your own skin.

 

And as the Stigmata  takes hold of their wracked and wrecked bodies, and the pain increases, the true price of their abilities will become known.

[Scribe]

Stigmata gets a grim nod from me!

[Conn Eremon]

 

 

Hydra beat me to it. What you are on the path to creating is essentially Corax's gift, which manifests in his sons to varying effect, the greatest of which are inducted into the Mor Deythan.

 

This then means that for the XIXth it is a genetic gift, derived from their gene-seed.

 

However, Severian of the XVIth shows that the XIXth's genetic legacy does not preclude the existence of those who have come by a similar gift on their own.

 

Konrad Curze's own talents aren't entirely dissimilar either, so that there is this child, soon to be inducted into the VIIIth, does not seem to me to be all that much of a stretch.

 

Alright, so, there's some things that need to be explained about the Firstborn, something I haven't yet touched upon in Phelan's story yet, but was going to be covered in his next story anyway.

 

The Firstborn were not just my concept of a proto-legionaire, a rough draft of what an Astartes would one day become, written in the scars and stitches of a mad scientist. Their boundaries of their physical and mental limits were stretched past acceptable limits, to learn breaking points of the future Astartes. In some ways, aspects of their physical form are boons, but with a vicious price. Each Firstborn was a unique design, but were poor ones at that.

 

Vall was chosen because of a passing sensitivity to spatial awareness, and this gift was magnified a hundredfold. The price for this gift, though, will be severe as age and time take their toll. You'll find out how bad it gets a little later.

 

Like the predecessors before them, the Firstborn wern't supposed to survive. But, they did. The life they live, though, is akin to living in a Hell wrapped in your own skin.

 

And as the Stigmata takes hold of their wracked and wrecked bodies, and the pain increases, the true price of their abilities will become known.

Oh, you don't have to worry that I'll call mary sue or anything (as I think that's why this was as a reply to me), I was just trying to provide some context to what people are mentioning, this familiarity with the gift, while pointing out that this setting is wide open for such a gift to be shared across genelines, or that it is of the sole domain of the XIXth.

[Tyrannicide]

But... but how did you craft a good story with no one dying and no bolters discharging? What the hell kind of Space Marine fiction is this?

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Small nitpick: the second scientist's name seems to switch from Goreth to Goran after two paragraphs.

Excellent writing as always, I'd even say better than the usual because we get to see the civilian side of the Imperium, and its technological edge against Old Night. Not the constant warfare of a future-medieval universe, but two scientists talking about experimental results, in what could as well be a near-future cyberpunk setting. And the rational, prototypal beginnings of the Astartes project, rather than the ritualised, mystic indoctrination of M41.

(Incidentally, I was listening to a couse about DNA replication while reading that.)

Ah, I originally had the male scientist named Goran, but I thought it sounded too close to Lisbon, so I changed it and missed a few spots. Thanks, got it fixed now.

You touched on exactly what I was going for with this piece, how I imagine the Emperor pulled in every resource he could get his hands on to make his new army, and there was a lot of gene tampering going on out in the world with many of the other warlords, so I figure there had to be some scientists out there that he recruited. That, and it's something that you might could only see early in the Unification process.

But... but how did you craft a good story with no one dying and no bolters discharging?

Warpcraft. Shhh.

[paz]

Absolutely fantastic stuff guys!

 

kage- love the subtle cues for the description of lisbon, very cool.

 

Great atmosphere, love it!

 

Only small crit- scientists seem a bit offhand talking about the emperor. I imagine a god-psyker boss would mean one talks with a bit more reverence about him.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Thanks, Paz! I was trying to give the impression that they had never actually met the Big E himself so they haven't had that mind blowing experience and are more nonchalant about how they refer to him in private.

[Augustus b'Raass]

Good read, kbc. It drew me in very quickly. Your writing is truly great. Please do more.

[Hyaenidae]

 

Oh, you don't have to worry that I'll call mary sue or anything (as I think that's why this was as a reply to me), I was just trying to provide some context to what people are mentioning, this familiarity with the gift, while pointing out that this setting is wide open for such a gift to be shared across genelines, or that it is of the sole domain of the XIXth.

 

Oh, no, just trying to clarify that his gift, though passingly similar to the XIX's elite, is functionally different.

 

Don't want peeps thinking he's a half-breed, or something.  :P