++Inspiration Friday (Chaos Icons. Until 12/18)++

Kierdale · July 3, 2015

Welcome to the latest incarnation of Inspiration Friday. I have been granted the blessings of the four Infernal Powers (Excessus, Flint13, Forte and Insane Psychopath) to continue this endeavour. I hereby swear a dark oath that I will strive to continue the good work started by Brother Nihm and Tenebris.

Inspiration Friday is a chance for members to write pieces of fiction on set Chaos-related subjects, with a winner chosen at the end of each period and awarded a medal. As in the previous Inspiration Fridays, images are also most welcome.

While previous incarnations were strictly weekly, I may give two weeks to work on some themes. I should also point out that, living in Tokyo, my Fridays start earlier than many of the Frater and so likely I will close and open themes on Saturdays, Tokyo-time. Likely still Friday for most of you.

Links to previous incarnations of Inspiration Friday, for reference:

Under Brother Nihm:

Aspiring Champion

Chaos Banner

Regarding the Legions

Favourite Model

Paint a CSM

Favourite Primarch

Why Chaos?

Under Tenebris:

Chaos Cults - Winner: Disease

Legacy Weapon - Winner: Xenith

Rank and File - Winner: Kol Saresk

Chaos Worlds - Winner: Marshal Sampson

Chaos Vehicle - Winner: Loesh

Call of Chaos Test model - Winner: Alan of Angels and Loesh

Chaos Battle - Winner: Cormac Airt

Minor Daemon - Winner: Tdf4638

Spooky Chaos - Winner: Dizzyeye

Chaos Stronghold - Winner: Carrack

Nemesis of Chaos - Winner: Kierdale

Chaos Navigator House - Winner: Marshal Sampson

Chaos Knight House - Winner: Kierdale

Chaos Santa - Winner: Castellan Cato

Chaos Dreadnought - Winner: none was chosen!

Chaos Warship - Winner: Conn Eremon

Interview with a Chaos Lord - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Interview with a Chaos Sorcerer - Winner: Kierdale

Chaos Space Marine Bolter - Winner: Son of Carnelian

Chaos Assassin - Winners: Carrack, Kierdale and Zhaharek

Intel Report on Warband - Winner: Kierdale

Betrayal - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Chaos Sword - Winner: Castellan Cato

Chaos Spawn - Winners: Carrack and Kierdale

Champion of Khorne - Winner: Slipknotzim

Chaos Heraldry - Winner: Teetengee

Equerry - Winner: Zhaharek

Chaos Tome - Winner: TDF

Chaos Crossover - Winner: Lord Pariah

Dark Mechanicus - Winners: Carrack and Kierdale

Daemon Forge - Winners: Zhaharek and Beachymike123

Battles of the Space Marines - Winners: Carrack, Warsmith Aznable and Tipper

Cult Leader - Winner: Zhaharek

Familiar - Winner: Kierdale

Nemesis of Chaos II - Winners: TDF and Conn Eremon

Ruination - Winner: Carrack

Chaos Sidekick - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Chaos Skirmish - Tactical Squads - Winner: Kierdale

Under Kierdale:
Interview With A Warpsmith - Winner: Carrack

ETL Background (care of Carrack) - Winner: Kierdale

Lair of the gods - Winner: Scourged

Signature Tactics - Winners: Scourged and Majorbookworm

Berserkers of every creed - Winner: none.

Chaos Geneseed - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Tales of... ...Chaos Glory - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

A Stolen Relic - Winner: Beachymike123

Summoning - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

Treadheads - Winner: Scourged

The Primordial Annihilator versus...the Greater Good - Winner: Warsmith Aznable

~~Replenishments~~ New Meat - Winner: Scourged

Chaos Halloween Horror - Winner: Dammeron, Scourged, Zhaharek and Teetengee

Interview with a dark apostle - Winner: Carrack

Chaos Power Armour - Winner: Scourged

Tales of Hubris - Winner: Teetengee

Chaos Titans - Winner: Scourged and Teetengee

Chaos Icons - Winners: MaliGn, Teetengee, Carrack and Scourged.

Bonus Challenge: Chaos Objectives - Winner: Carrack

While each topic will close (with respect to who can win the medal for that theme) after a set period, members who find themselves inspired to write about previous themes are most welcome to post these as and when they can, but I ask that you please title your entry accordingly (e.g. “Chaos Warship”).

Now, to kick off Inspiration Friday once more:

Interview with a Warpsmith

"Shackle the soul and forge the flesh. Bind the machine and butcher the rest.” - Codex Chaos Space Marines

We have had Interview with a Chaos Lord and Interview with a Chaos Sorcerer. I now ask you to turn your attention to the technological wizards of your war bands (be they warpsmiths, traitor techmarines, Dark Mechanicus enginseers/Magos, etc.) and tell us all about them. When and how they fell, how they reacted to no longer being shackled to the doctrine of Mars, and how they cope with being cut off from the supplies they once had. What fell new technologies they devised in their curious lairs. How they view (and are viewed by) their comrades and how they view the daemons the incorporate into their infernal contraptions. Their successes, their goals and their failings.

And if you have images (be they of minis or art) by all means post these too.

Please have your entries in by Friday the 10th of July.

Carrack · July 6, 2015

So begins a new era in Inspirational Friday. I hope I can kick this off with the quality it deserves.

The Chain Maker

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Hephaestus shuffled on to Assault Deck 4 under the burden of a heavy black tome and antiquated auto-quill. But then, Hephaestus shuffled everywhere, burden or not, due to one leg having one two many joints, and the other, shorter leg, having but one. Most scribes would dread the assignment given Hephaestus, but in spite of his near eidetic memory and keen intellect, Hephaestus's mind did not comprehend emotions like dread or fear. He should have, for he was to interview The Chain Maker, Warpsmith of the Black Maw Warband, and few tasks were as dangerous for a scribe.

Assault Bay 4 was abuzz with a cacophony of noises, tracks being reset on tanks, engines roaring in test runs, hisses of hydronic lifts, curses of techno-thralls, and a plethora of other noises, mostly the mundane sounds of armored vehicles being maintained, but not all the sounds were mundane in origin. There were screams from beyond that would curdle milk and fracture sanity, if there was any to be found. The subject of his interview was standing at a data-lectern upon a raised dais overlooking the assault bay. The Chain Maker was at the apex of the activity in the bay, which was fitting, for he was the apex predator of this peculiar environment. The Chain Maker had a slightly larger frame than the Astartes of the Black Maw, which meant he towered over the stunted Hephaestus. He was armored in black with bronze trim, the colors of the warband, but his armor was unique, in fact it wasn't truly armor at all, for most of the flesh of the warpsmith had been replaced by armored augmetics of his own design. The most striking feature of the Chain Maker was the snake nest of mechandrils writhing from his back and shoulders, each ending in a claw, tool, or weapon. The techno-thralls in the bay were careful to avoid the reach of these mechanical tentacles, probably for good reason. Hephaestus shuffled up to the dais and pressed his lopsided head to the deck in an obsequious gesture. The Chain Maker's voice, accompanied by beeps and static, blurted a command to proceed with the interview.

Hephaestus painfully rose from the grated deck and asked, "What is a warpsmith my lord?" The Chain Maker responded, "I am the master of the Three Forms. Where the apothecary knows the flesh, the tech marine knows the machine, and the sorcerer knows the daemon, I know them all. I blend the Three, I build the Three, and I bind the Three. Alone, each Form has its weaknesses, the flesh can die, the machine can break, the daemon banished, but together the Three are stronger than the sum of of their essences."

The auto-quill scribbled the answer into the black book, bound in human skin and embossed in bronze. Hephaestus continued, "How did you become the Chain Master?" The subject spoke, but this time there was a faint echo accompanying the words emanating from his vox grill. But the echo was not from anything The Chain Master said, it was of a completely different conversation in an alien tongue, just barely perceptible to the scribe. The Chain Master answered, "I was once a tech marine, trained on pre-schism Mars. I mastered every weapon and engine of war in our arsenal, but it was not enough. I learned of the running of this ship by communing with its spirit for months on end. Yet I thirsted for more knowledge. When we sought refuge in the Eye, I studied the effects it had on our ship and arsenal. Some of these effects were beneficial, yet some were hinderances. I was determined to find ways to manipulate the changes to our benefit, to my benefit. I observed how the warp twisted our Forms, and sought to harness the changes it wrought. I learned of the daemon, and how they could be bound to our will. I experimented on our thralls. Some I even expanded their memories at the cost of crippling their bodies. Such primitive measures as I first delved into the mysteries of the warp." The bottom dropped out of Hephaestus's stomach as he heard the last revelation, and his mind made connections to personal questions thousands of years old.

Hephaestus was brought back to the present as a loud clang announced a rhino slipping from its docking clamps to crash onto the deck after a short drop. The rhino was the honored Carratuge L'ull, known among the thralls as "The Beast". Both arms of the pit boss were crushed beneath the left track, he was in too much shock to scream, he merely asked his crew if it was bad. It was. Without looking up from his data-lectern, one of the Chain Maker's mechandrils whipped out like a striking serpent and a round object launched from its mouth via pneumatic pressure. The assault bay echoed with the explosion of the grenade as fragments scythed through the remaining pit crew. Moments later a door opened and a new crew quickly began repairing the rhino, ignoring the carnage at the docking clamps. In fact the only things to take notice of the casual slaughter was the scribe, and the mustelid scavengers that lived beneath the grating, which were calling their pack mates with eerie cackles that sounded disturbingly like laughter.

Hephaestus continued with his task at hand, "What are your most prized creations, my lord?" The Chain Maker answered, "The Helbrute Kharfus has stood the test of time through battles innumerable. I must also confess that I take personal satisfaction from his suffering. He was an insufferable dice cheat, but he won't be rolling bones ever again." More beeps and static punctuated his answer, Hephaestus assumed it was what passed for laughter from the monstrosity. The warpsmith went on, "More recently I infected three Astartes with a strain of the Obliterator Virus, the strain had sat idle for to long in the Eye, and had mutated into a disease marked by Nurgle, but I am still pleased with the results, as is Lord Carrack. The Astartes infected were once my brothers, scribe. But health records indicated that they were the most suitable subjects." The Chain Maker's statement, that he knew was being recorded for posterity, was made matter-of-fact, without even the hint of contrition.

One final question, before I must begin transcribing your logs, Hephaestus began, "What are your personal goals, where do you see your future in the Black Maw?" For the first time in the interview, The Chain Maker paused and visibly contemplated his response before saying, "I was unaware that my logs were to be opened, much lest copied. This must be Carrack's purpose for this interview. Must he continually test my loyalty? Very well, my goal is, and always has been, to search out knowledge, no matter how dark the knowledge is. I will, as I always have, use this knowledge to amplify the power of the Black Maw. As long as Lord Carrack continues to indulge my quest for knowledge, I will provide its fruits to his Warband. By gaining power for myself, I gain power for the Black Maw. I have no desire to wrest command from Lord Carrack, as the leadership of the Warband will undoubtedly interfere with my calling. I have no other goals than that, save the one goal shared by all in the Warband, and the Black Legion at large, and that is to see Terra burn and throw the Corpse-God from his throne. I WILL walk on the birthplace of humanity again and shout, We are Returned!"

Excessus · July 6, 2015

Good job with the new topic Kierdale, I'll be joining in when my story is done later this week! :)

Teetengee · July 7, 2015

Ooh, this should be good.

Also, Carrack, I enjoy the tension at the end of your piece as well as the little scavengers.

Carrack · July 9, 2015

On 7/7/2015 at 8:59 PM, Teetengee said:

Ooh, this should be good.

Also, Carrack, I enjoy the tension at the end of your piece as well as the little scavengers.

Thanks, I had a friend growing up who had a vicious little pet ferret, I figured that something similar belonged on a Chaos Warship. :)

Kierdale · July 9, 2015

Thenaros of the Psychopomps

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Thenaros, once apprentice to forgemaster Zenelaius. The techmarine had learned much from his late master and had come to loath the elder warrior as Zenelaius had become more and more distracted from his work and more and more obsessed. With her.

After the chapter’s corruption on the planet Cyprius III they had withdrawn to their homeworld of Fulcrum, there to contemplate and explore their corruption. And to prepare for when the inevitable retribution would fall.

It had fallen, and fallen hard. Inquisitorial agents and Tempestus Scions paving the way for the Black Templars. The Psychopomps - their treachery discovered, they no longer went by the name Stygian Guard - unleashed their cults and the flesh golems lovingly crafted from those most devoted, their new sonic weaponry, their captive veteran company - those maddened butchers of the Bloody First - and their daemonic allies.

Their oaths to the priesthood of Mars broken as soon as they had returned from Cyprius III, Zenelaius had taken the techmarines of the Stygian Guard in new directions, encouraging his apprentices to let their imaginations run wild. It had been Thenaros - not Zenelaius as his superiors believed, the master had merely set his seal upon the project much to the apprentice’s chagrin - who had devised the sonic weapons they now employed, harnessing the screams of their Eldar captives, amplified to cut through reality to destructive effect with the power of the Empyrean itself. And as Thenaros and the other techmarines had forged greater and greater wonders, his master had drifted from their supervision and his own works. The master had been tempted away from the purity of the machine form, and into physical pleasures. Her. The caress of the daemon supposedly assigned to aid them in uniting neverborn and mechanical construct. Over the years Zenelaius had spent less and less time in the forge, more and more strung up within the pain glove, entwined with the daemon, staggering out hours later, his face and body wracked with tics, muttering doggerel verse about the palace of Slaanesh.

Thenaros had grown to loathe him and the daemons.

When, preparing to retreat from Fulcrum in the face of Imperial retribution, Thenaros had found his master strung up in the glove all but incinerated by the Templars and left for dead, his paramour no more than a smear of ichor on his armour, the techmarine had been consumed with spite. Rather than putting Zenelaius out of his mystery as requested, Thenaros had cut down and dragged his charred body to the shuttles. He had taken great satisfaction in installing the other within a dreadnought sarcophagus; Zenelaius’ hoarse cries for release, for reunion with his mistress at the gates of the Palace, turning to bass roars broken with static as his robotic tomb was sealed. And Thenaros took particular care in ensuring that Zenelaius did not fall in combat, was forced to fight using the weapons of Thenaros’ own devising, and stood all but powered down within the forge when it was not time for battle. He who was once master and lost his way, would watch the new master forge at work.

As senior techmarine Thenaros had rightly become the new master of the forge though soon, with chaplain Angra’s preaching and instruction from chief librarian Holusiax, he had come to work no longer with mere metal but to forge the flesh of the neverborn into contraptions of his own design, and thus had been titled `Warpsmith`.

“Master Thenaros.”

It was Jocris, one of the newer recruits to the forge. The chapter had lost a great number of not only battlebrothers but also specialists during the retreat from Fulcrum. Apothecaries, chaplains and tech marines. Jocris had been drawn from the ranks due to his technical expertise. A former Devastator, he now studied under warpsmith Thenaros.

Overtly a harsh master: Thenaros had given Jocris a dataslate of plans for one of his latest creations, access to one of the larger workshops, a coterie of servitors and had left him to it, telling Jocris not to disturb him until the mechanical beast was complete. And from his workshop Thenaros had observed. Construction had gone easily enough and soon the hulking quadrupedal monster was complete.

He had a good eye for enginseering.

Jocris had followed the warpsmith’s instructions to the letter with regard to its anointing and blessing. Devotees of the Exalted Fecund had been drawn from the cult’s dens aboard the flagship. Thus the workshop had been suitably desecrated: the mortals squirmed and writhed like languid snakes in a circle about the platform, moaning gently, Zenelaius watching from his ceramite tomb against one wall, unmoving and silent. Jocris likewise dedicated to his work despite the licentious acts being committed about them.

He did not shy from the path the chapter had taken, and could follow orders.

He had sought the aid of master Holusiax of the librarius, the serpentine sorcerer aiding the would-be warpsmith in the summoning of one of the neverborn in order to occupy - nay, possess - the contraption. Holusiax had duly departed, as Thenaros had requested in advance, as soon as the lithe creature had made the transition from the Empyrean.

Thenaros had then watched with mixed mirth and vexation as Jocris’ efforts came to an abrupt halt.

“Master Thenaros.”

The warpsmith turned in his cog-decorated throne to regard his apprentice. How many decades ago had it been he who knelt before Zenelaius, requesting his mentor’s expertise?

“I cannot get the machine to work, master.”

Thenaros toyed with a brass spirit level in his hands. It was plain, unadorned. Ugly by the standards of the ornamentation the Psychopomps now enjoyed. A relic of their time as the Stygian Guard when they had held asceticism as perfection, but the simple design served to remind him of key tenets of enginseering. Balance, function over form. Concepts which he still strived to mesh with the chapter’s chosen path and the wild desires and ambitions which had been ignited within them.

“What is the nature of the problem?” Thenaros asked, full well knowing the answer, not taking his eyes from the bubble as he raised one end of the spirit level, letting the bubble gently move to one extreme then the other, then guiding it back to the middle once more.

“The neverborn, master. She will not enter the machine. Should I request master Holusiax summon ano-“

“Did you order it?”

“I did master, much to he- its amusement.”

“Did you try bargaining with it?”

“I did, master. To no avail.”

“Pleaded?”

“Master, I- I tried all I can.”

Thenaros rose from his throne before the bank of monitors and looked down at the tech marine.

“I see no blood, or whatever it is they have, upon your fists, Jocris.”

“Mas-“

“What are we, Jocris?”

“Astartes of the Psychopomps. Masters of our own destiny. The ferrymen of the Corpse Emperor no more.”

“We are warriors, Jocris, first and foremost.”

Thenaros strode out of the forge and turned toward the workshop, Jocris at his heels.

“These creatures cannot be bargained with. You must show them no weakness,” The warpsmith spoke sternly as he marched, his eyes front yet visions of his old master floating through his mind. “We summon them. We control them.”

He stopped abruptly and spun to face his apprentice, raising a finger toward the other’s face.

“Neverlet them control you. Never let them get their claws into you or your will -that which we fought so hard for - is no longer your own.”

The door irised open and the two ex-tech marines found the pale green haired, deep-purple skinned nymph cavorting about the workshop, running her hands - one humanoid, the other a claw reminiscent of a crustacean’s - over the servitors who attempted to turn and futilely chase her like some absurd courtly dance.

“Ah! The son of the master!” she exclaimed as she spotted the warpsmith striding purposefully toward her, and pointed her claw at the powered-down dreadnought against the wall.

“I am the master now,” Thenaros said through gritted teeth as he advanced inexorably, exuding an air of violence.

“My sister awaits her lover’s release,” the daemonette cackled as she slalomed around cranes, crates, servitors and the legs of the motionless mechanical beast.

“Then she’ll have a long wait. Zenelaius serves the chapter once more. As will you.”

“I?” she tittered. “I? The very definition of a free spiri-!”

The daemon was cut off as one of the warpsmith’s servo arms snaked out and took her ankles from beneath her as she spoke. And then he was upon her.

“You talk too much,” he spat as he hammered his armoured fist into the daemon again and again, at first eliciting shrill laughter, slamming her head against the deckplates until the laughter died and pale ichor flew, splattering the floor, his fists, face and armour.

When she was beaten senseless Thenaros pulled out a coil of something dark brown from a pouch as he knelt over the broken, battered form. He stretched out the material between his hands. It was a rope of human hair, the root ends clotted with blood.

“You master them or they you,” Thenaros said as he bound the daemonette with the hair of murderers: torn from the scalps of the chapter’s Bloody First company of butchers.

Excessus · July 11, 2015

So, it's about Alpha Legion of course...and it's a bit late...but here it is:

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The Inquisitor moved hastily towards the central engine department in the ship. He had received alarming news from the ranking magos, news about heretical behaviour amongst the serfs. Dire was such news, especially in the midst o warp transit. His search took him all over Imperial space, and other areas as well. The search was about the knowledge and experience of one of the few "lightly" corrupted warpsmiths of the Alpha Legion, one of the legionnaires that had stayed out of the eye since the legendary battles of the post heresy scouring. Unfortunately, his quarry had been elusive, as was expected of one of the XXth legion...

"What is the situation, magos!" the Inquisitor demanded as he entered the hot and humid engine departement, only to be answered by blank stares and whirring servos.

"I have heard that you have been looking for me" answered a voice suddenly. Emerging from the shadows, the bulky and well-armoured astartes in blue-green armour expertly typed in some codes into a data-slate connected to his wrist. The astartes pulled back his hood, revealing the mark of the hydra on what was left of the left side of his head.

"Well now, where to begin?"

All thoughts about how the extremis hereticus astartis had gotten aboard his ship was forgotten and replaced with fear as the pair travelled throuh the vessel, wading through a landscape of blood and bodies. Servitors, limbs covered in fresh blood, stumbled around amongst the bodies. They had used their hands and tools to kill any crewmembers they had come in contact with, and had fallen in droves...but the few servitors that had survived the slaughter was wandering around, seemingly aimless amongst the corpses. The conquest of the vessel had been brutal and short, it would seem the tech adepts had been converted or replaced to better take over the ship quickly.

Entering the main bridge, the same carnage met the pair. A damaged servitor brought the inquisitor his quill and data-slates for his logbook. "So, Inquisitor, what secrets would you like to know?"

His quarry had extensive experience of long lost STCs, which was requested by some of the more radical Adeptus Mechanicum on Mars. He was no stanger to using the weapons and technology of the heretics to defeat them, his soul was not important, only the Imperium was. The astartes now occupying the main command throne of his ship had been a decisive factor in several warzones, trading technology for other, less known, resources. Some of the rebellions had been defeated without the need for exterminatus, which had revealed several unknown but uncorrupted technologies in the hands of the otherwise ill equipped rabble. Everything had been worth the capture of the individual capable of spreading technology like a plague accross world otherwise too weak to rebel, and now he was sitting in front of him. The descriptions of how it had been during the crusades when the Emperor himself had walked amongst them, and the following heresy, and later the scouring, was captivating. The Inquisitor's quill ran out of ink quickly, but fortunately there was plenty of blood around the deck to serve as a replacement, and the text was more important than some orgotten old taboo about using blood in this manner. It was a historical transcript, nothing ill could come of it...

The warpsmith's smile turned into a frown as the long story progressed, and more technical information was descrivbed extensively. Suddenly the technology was not so pure, and daemonic rituals was mixed with the STCs to form new and horrible creations that would make sane men go mad. But the quill didn't stop, and the Inquisitor was horrified about the fact that he did not have control over his own body anymore. The quill kept scribbling, and the deck changed around them, lidless eyes opening on panels, cabling wriggling like tentacles...

The transcript continued, listing creations and constructs of horror and awe. From ancient technology from the age of strife, to xenos technology and daemonic beasts merged with their metal cages to form a mesh of machine and the warp. It was now that the Inquisitor realized the plan of his quarry. The uncorrupted STCs had been the bait, he himself was the quarry. A mind strong enough to transcribe the horrors created by an ancient heretic for a curriculum vitae of sorts, sent with a corrupted vessel into the eye of terror to recruit both followers and masters. Skills like his were in high demand outside the eye from raiding parties, and the Dark Mechanicus was eager to send adepts to a capable master for technologies and artifacts.

A lone tear of blood ran down the Inquisitor's cheek as he realised his own role in the scheme. His mind and body were slowly eroding, and the ship he had called home for the past year was growling through the vox-system like an angry beast.

As the warpsmith left the bridge for his emergency pod, the Inquisitor sat unmoving in the center of the room. Tentacles of meat and cables slithered around his unresponsive body, connecting into sockets they created in his flesh. The transript was complete, the course was set. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the warp engines squeal when neew coordinates was put into the system...

[Edit]: Changed some minor stuff and spelling...

Kierdale · July 11, 2015

And here ends the first challenge of the new Inspiration Friday. My thanks to Excessus and Carrack for their excellent entries. I particularly liked Excessus’s ends-justify-the-means inquisitor and his use of blood when ink ran out. And the fate which befell him, of course. It made me think of Lovecraft crossed with Event Horizon.

But I have chosen Carrack’s Chain Maker as the winner of this week’s Inspiration Friday. It fulfilled the brief perfectly: telling us of the Warpsmith’s past, his fall, his new ethos (The Three Forms. An excellent idea), creations, where he works and how his aims outweigh his fraternal ties.

Step forward, Carrack and claim your reward!

And, as reward for your winning Challenge The Traitors II, Carrack has the honour of setting the next Inspiration Friday challenge...

ETL Background Challenge. Write a background piece on one of the Chaos models you created for this year’s ETL. You can write a brief history of the model and its role in your forces, or a memorable battle or event that this model played a pivotal role.

Alternate challenge 1. If you are for some lame reason, siding with the loyalist this ETL, write about the models first, recent, or most memorable encounter with the forces of Chaos.

Alternate challenge 2. If you are not participating in this year's ETL, write something similar about a recent model you have finished.

Feel free to include pictures of the model you are using.

The challenge runs until the 17th of July.

Let us be inspired...

Carrack · July 12, 2015

Must...Obliterate

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Lucio · July 12, 2015

Well, this one was tough to select the right model, but I do like my Daemon Prince model a lot!

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Slave to Darkness · July 13, 2015

bugger. so many characters, so many ideas...

Teetengee · July 15, 2015

Haven't finished yet but:
The Prize of Cretan Hive

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Ready well before the planned commotion began, Apis Ini-Herit smashed his way out of the metal crate that had two months been his home while being smuggled into Cretan. With a few words in old Prosperan and a long exhalation, he quickly slew the few gang members that remained in the armoury. Reaching back into the shattered crate, he pulled out his ornate axe and bolt pistol, checking them for any damage.

Armoured boots slamming against the metal floors of the maze that was Cretan underhive, Apis followed the route memorized in his journey and paid for with thirty-seven of his best mortal servants. Apis ignored the gunfire above him, but dealt quickly with any PDF or gang member unlucky enough to cross his path. Deeper and deeper he ran.

As he entered the level wherein supposedly lay his prize, Apis noticed his helmet sensors warning of extreme levels of pollution and stagnation, as well as extremely low oxygen levels. This plus the thick layer of sludge he had to force through suggested that one of the levies had burst allowing industrial runoff into this level. The lethal fog all around him was so thick it greatly impaired even his gene-hanced vision. Apis conjured a series of small balls of warpflame in order to better light the path, sending them out across the hab-level.

Picking his way through the rubble of both gang violence and industrial waste, Apis crossed his target once before realizing fully what he had seen. In front of him more than half a dozen immobile giants, encrusted with filth and the dust of millennia and adorned with a hundred different marks from hive gangers who knew not the nature of these silent statues of a lost age. Yet their crowns reminded Apis of home, and of his purpose.

Apis quickly scoured clean the ground around them in order to create his spell circle. Taking components from the pouch around him, he began incanting the words of binding. Continuing on, through more incantations, of command, and of animation, Apis stayed for nine times nine minutes to work his rite. As the final syllables left his mouth, and feeling drained by his sorcerous ordeal a strange light began to permeate the thick atmosphere of the room. The warpflames he had created quickly sputtered out but the light was growing so quickly that few would have noticed. The air swirled and steamed collecting in glowing nimbi around the graffitied guardians of the blasted hab-block. A great sucking noise filled the room as the clouds of glowing smoke rushed brightly into small gaps and chinks in the armoured sculpture garden.

Suddenly all the motion in the room stopped and the light once so searingly bright, faded to black. Eyes quickly adjusting, Apis saw the faint glow of success emanating from the eyes of the warriors around him. He raised arm and voice and gave the order “Forward.” A crunching and grinding surrounded him as his newly awoken automata began their deadly march toward the surface, and toward the waiting Thunderhawk from the Tide of Blood.

Slave to Darkness · July 15, 2015

Im bangin my head against the wall trynna write this.. I keep wanting to change to another character... Could I write it based around a core group of characters, E.g. Hellraiser with Pinhead, Butterball and the female one whos original name I cant post here as its kinda rude...

Carrack · July 15, 2015

On 7/15/2015 at 7:16 PM, SlaveToDarkness said:
Im bangin my head against the wall trynna write this.. I keep wanting to change to another character... Could I write it based around a core group of characters, E.g. Hellraiser with Pinhead, Butterball and the female one whos original name I cant post here as its kinda rude...

Sure

Slave to Darkness · July 15, 2015

sweet. thats just made life a bit easier

Kierdale · July 17, 2015

The Laughter of the Mad

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The wrath of the Emperor of Mankind fell upon the planet Fulcrum. The homeworld of the Stygian Guard chapter of Adeptus Astartes; their corruption and that of the Exalted Fecund cult had been discovered and thus the hammer fell. While an inquisitor had been sent to visit the chapter master, overtly to convey the condolences of the Holy Orders for the mission which had resulted in the loss of the first company, inquisitorial agents had infiltrated the planet to rally what resistance remained amongst the native populace into a fifth column. At the same time Tempestus Scions had been tasked with bringing down the planetary shields and other defences and now the Black Templars made their assault: drop pods plummeting through the morning sky, punching through the cloud cover and the columns of black smoke trailing from sites the inquisition and Scions had struck.

Bregort swept his hotshot las-rifle left and right, the tunnel illuminated an eerie green through the lenses of his helmet. He was running point for his squad of Scions. Having taken out one of the triple-A towers on the south side of the traitor Astartes’ fortress monastery, toppling the entire structure into the deep moat which encircled the complex, they had pushed on into the enemy lair. While the Templars were dropping into the city and the fortress from on high, the Scion squad had changed direction and gone underground, now finding themselves in access tunnels deep beneath the fortress. If the schematics they had were correct, they could breach the lower storage chambers - and from there through coolant ducts to the primary reactor. Bring that down and the monastery would become one big tomb.

He moved again when his squad mate briefly put his hand on Bregort’s shoulder, and the squad moved silently on down the tunnel to the point they had studied on the schematics before insertion. Tempestor Vitag, the squad’s leader, reached up and affixed a meltabomb to the ceiling, the squad automatically moving back, some turning to cover up and down the passage as he pressed the timer. There was a flash of heat and a molten hole was burned through into the storage chamber above. After checking the room for threats with a reconskull the five Scions climbed up. The chamber, lit by overhead lumatubes, was not filled with crates of rations as had been expected but was in fact empty. Shrugging it off as yet another Intel mistake, Bregort moved to the chamber’s doorway. Through the next chamber and they would get into a main corridor on his sublevel and be near their goal. He heaved back the thick armourplas door as his squadmates trained their weapons on the portal.

Within was darkness and while their helmets adjusted to it once more they were unaware of the stench of sweat, vomit, blood and other bodily fluids as these were filtered away by those very helmets. This chamber too was unexpectedly devoid of storage crates. The walls had been daubed with fell iconography which neither Bregort nor his fellows let their eyes dwell upon, for it was the floor which grabbed their attention. It was a charnel house. The chamber was carpeted with bodies, the flesh of which was livid with bruises and distended in myriad ways: swollen veins snaked under taut skin like trapped eels, limbs were twisted in their sockets unnaturally, bellies swollen as if enceinte.

Bregort swallowed as his gorge began to rise, and he moved into the chamber picking his way across the bodies, trying neither to step on the twisted forms nor regard them for longer than he needed. His breathing quickened as he saw shapes here and there.

Remember your training. Focus.

Bodies intertwined. He raised his eyes and his rifle toward the opposite doorway, seemingly so far off across the sea of flesh.

The mission.

Flesh which had ran like candlewax.

Love the Emperor,

For he is the salvation of Mankind.

Obey his words.

For he will lead you into the light of the future.

Heed his wisdom.

For he will protect you from evil.

Whisper his prayers with devotion.

For they will salve your soul...

Step by careful step. Over a limb here. A face frozen in a rictus of ecstasy there. What fate had befallen these people? He shook his head to clear it of questions and images which nagged at his sanity.

The clatter of chains focused him and he whirled about to find one of his squad mates with hand up apologetically. The Scion knelt and raised one end of a chain he had accidentally trod upon. His curiosity gained the better of him and the Scion followed it only to find it terminated in a heavy iron ring embedded in the flesh of a blindfolded man sprawled upon the ground, his lower half buried under others.

“This one’s alive!” the Scion said in a shocked half-whisper, noticing the man’s chest expanding and contracting slowly.

Bregort returned his rifle to pointing at the doorway in case they had been heard, and so he did not see two of his squad pulling bodies off the half-buried man. Out of the corner of his eye, despite himself no matter how much he tried to focus on the doorway, he noticed what appeared to be a pair of headless bodies, each one’s neck terminating in the groin of the other. A hideous ouroboros.

The other Scions pulled the last corpse from atop the breathing man only to find his body continued down not into an abdomen and a pair of legs as was the human norm but rather it flowed into the torso of another human and that into a third human form. The upper one had but a head and two arms, the middle naught but a pair of arms and the final a full complement of limbs yet no head. The man-chimera’s breathing deepened as the soldiers looked in shock at its bastard form.

There was the sound of slick flesh sliding over flesh. Links of chain moved.

The squad’s leader, the Tempestor, motioned for his men to retreat from the abomination, adding a shouted order as the sea of flesh beneath them began to heave and roil.

The blindfolded chimera’s head raised and they could see the bloodstains where the bandage covered its empty orbits and rusting barbed wire sewed its mouth shut. It sniffled and searched about, a moan escaping from the second face in its belly which had been hidden, pressed against the floor and rubbed raw by movement.

The hideous ouroboros too rose up, stumbling on its four legs like a newborn foal, an arm on one side flailing about while where its opposite number would be on the other side there was instead a circular, fang-filled maw drooling heavily. From a thick pin in its back and a pair of arms amputated at the elbows, chains snaked over its form and into an orifice at its front. The chains pulled tight and its inflated belly shook as something pressed at the skin from within and Bregort swore he saw the shape of humanoid hands - adult sized - pressing impossibly out from within.

“Kill them! Kill them with fire!” shouted Tempestor Vitag, firing upon the steadily rising grotesques with his pistol before revving his chainsword and beginning to hew at them.

Those nearest the centipede-man had to fire point blank as it grabbed at their armour with its limbs, razor-sharp claws extending from its fingers.

Bregort raised his rifle toward the ouroboros and his finger tightened on the trigger, only to falter as its arms hauled backwards, the chains pulling tighter still and tearing bloodily into the fleshy rim of the orifice. Fingers began to extrude from within that dark hole, pulling frantically at the opening and there came a screaming from inside.

Bregort’s rifle slipped from his fingers as they went limp and he dropped to his knees, sanity abandoning him.

From the center of the room rose another beast, the lower form that of a lithe humanoid with a swollen abdomen, its torso terminating in the belly of another: a muscular man, his Militarum tattoos still visible upon his tortured and pierced flesh. The man’s eyes were rolled back in euphoria and the distended belly of the lower body exploded in a rain of gore, the semi-formed torso of a daemonette rising up to cleave the head of the nearest Scion with its claw, blood-matted blue hair caked to its purple flesh, the innards of the host tethering it within its womb.

The frantic firing in the room ceased and there was naught but the capricious laughter of the mad.

Carrack · July 17, 2015

This week's challenge was a difficult one to judge, every entry was well written. I am tempted to declare a tie where everyone wins, but we don't share in the Eye of Terror. So as guest judge for this event, I declare Kierdale the winner. "The Laughter of the Mad" captured in words, the spirit of his horridly grotesque spawn. Plus, "Kill it with fire!" Step forth and claim your prize.

Kierdale · July 17, 2015

My thanks to everyone for this week's great entries, to Carrack for providing last week’s challenge...and for choosing my entry! A pleasant surprise!

SlaveToDarkness please do get your written and post it anyway. I want to read it!

Here begins the next challenge...

The lair of the Infernal Powers.

- Only the strongest, the bravest, perhaps the most insane or the most genius venture into the domain of a God of Chaos. Be it the leader of your war band or another member with great ambition, tell us of this individual/group’s quest into the lair of one of the four Infernal Powers: the Fortress of Khorne, the Garden of Nurgle, the Maze of Tzeentch or the Palace of Slaanesh. Were they invited or did they force their way in? To what aim? And were they successful?

Alternatively simply describe (a part or the whole of) the Fortress/Garden/Maze/Palace for us.

The challenge runs until the 31st of July.

Let us be inspired...

Slave to Darkness · July 23, 2015

My late ETL piece, sorry about the bad writing, I'm a musician not an author lol

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Hellborn

The chanting grew louder as Inquisitor Haydon and his killteam advanced down the tunnels beneath the Cathedral, weapons raised ready incase of another ambush. Twice since they entered the tunnels they have been attacked by cultists, disfigured twsted creatures who seemed to enjoy being cut down as they charged with rusty blood stained knives, some even sounded like they were in the throws of (too rude for B&C) as their blood drained out across the floor.

Someone in the chamber at the end of the tunnels started playng an instrument, the chanting became a drone of voices out of key with the music, the dischordant noise setting Haydons teeth on edge. Soon they came to the tunnel mouth, looking out over the ritual in the chamber below them. Cultists swayed in time to the infernal music, dancing around a statue as they tore each others clothes off, some throwing others down on the floor and violating them, others cutting at each other with small hooked blades.

Haydon looked away from the bloody orgy of violence and concentrated on the statue, it was a pillar nearly twice the height of the Cultists and on its surface was carved scenes of torture and carnal perversions, bodies entwined a their flesh merged together, others blinded and gagged with razor wire, faces seemed to be pressing against the surface trying to force ther way out, expressions locked in a silent scream. Then the Inquisitor realized that they wernt silent, nor were they frozen in place. The faces started to scream and twist as they pushed against the thin veil between this world and theirs, the razor wire slowly slid across the surface of the pillar leaving bloody gashes in the bodies that have started to moan in pleasure a they caressed each other, the stone of the carvings taking on a blood slicked fleshy texture.

''I have seen enough'' the Inquisitor said as he marched down the steps into the chamber, pulling his Bolt Pistol from it's holster and taking aim at the Cultists playng the infernal music. Three pulls of the trigger and three Cultists fell to the floor, a pink mist where their heads should have been. As the Killteam advanced on the writhing Cultists around the pillar with their weapons raised a gust of sickly sweet smelling wind blew into the chamber extenguishing all the torches.

''My lord, look at the pillar!'' one of them shouted.

Haydon looked to up to see a faint light the colour of blood shining through cracks workng across the surface, in the distance they could hear the tolling of a bell as another gust of wind blew around the chamber. With an earsplitting crack the pillar split from top to bottom and the two halves opened up as figures walked out of the red lit interior.

The first to emerge from the depths of the other realm was a twsted creature, dragging itself across the floor with bloody stumps for fingers, its face was a twisted mess of disfigured flesh, the only feature being a bloody hole leaking thick black flud where the outh should have been, around its head was a crown of thumbs bursting through its skin. The creatures lower body curled up over itself like the tail of a scorpion, ut nstead of ending in a deadly stinger its lower body wastwisted into another creature with the head of a goat, atrophed arms pulled in close to its chest as another set of arms grew out of its back grasping wildly at the air.

The second figure was, at a glance, normal. A tall elegant woman emerged wearing a purple gown with a high collar made out of silver, the entire surface engraved with tiny runes that hurt the eye to look at. Her face was covered by a mask, simmilar to those used by ladies of nobility at their masked balls.

The third appeared to be a priest of some kind, tall with a muscular uper body covered in scars, the priests face was completly flayed, one half peeled down to bare bone. He looked at the Inquisitor with his one good eye and raised his arms out wide as he walked across the carpet of bloody writhing bodies and said in a voice that sounded as old as the gods themselves ''Welcome... To HELL''.

''DIE YOU TRAITORUS BASTARD!!!'' Inquisitor Haydon screamed as he fired at the Hell-Priest.

''Die?'' it asked as it reached up and took hold of the Bolt shell inches from his face, ''Is your puny mind so small thats the best you can come up with?? And please, call me Azeel''

''Fiend is what I name you, and be thankfull that I'm going to end your life now rather than hand you over to my torturers to play with''..

''Torture?'' said the female, laughing as she lowered her mask revealing her true form, most of her face had been peeled away, leaving a bloody mess that oozed down her cheeks, she glared at the Inquisitor with blind white eyes. ''You have no idea what torture really means!!!''

Azeel nodded, and lengths of razor wire snaked out of the shadows wrapping around Haydons Killteam, slicing through armour just as easily as clothing, Hadon looked around him as his squad was torn apart, one screamed as the wire pierced his cheek and exited through his eyes as he was dragged off into the darkness, another was raised into the air as it entered through his stomach and burst out his mouth in a shower of gore and innards before he was torn into pieces. The Inquisitor turned away to see another of his team twitching on the floor as the wire was forcing its way down his throat taking most of his face with it, moments later his face re-emerged from his anus like some kind of morbid rebirth, the rest of the Killteam were soon dead, butchered in even more disturbing ways...

Suddenly pain flared up in the Inqisitors neck, he turned to see the maked lady pull a long blade out from his neck, he fell to the floor clutching the bloody wound as the Goat headed beast took hold of his legs and pulled him into the interior of the pillar/gateway. The lady looked down at him smiling, ''Don't worry, the wound isn't fatal, you won't bleed to death''. A the gateway closed behind them and he slipped into unconsousnes he heard Azeel say ''Yes don't worry Inquisitor, we have eternity to know your flesh!!!''

Carrack · July 23, 2015

Garaduk and the Garden

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Alone Garaduk entered the so-called "Garden". His voyage to this festering swamp, the epitome of festering swamps, was a costly and long one. Lord Carrack would never have sanctioned such a quest, so Garaduk was forced to contract one of the many renegade pirate captains that had attached themselves to the Black Maw Warband with all of the loyalty of thieving mercenaries. Few had the courage to embark on such a journey into the heart of the Eye, and most who would agree to such a passage, would see him make a much shorter journey out an airlock as soon as the passage price changed hands. But Garaduk had not survived Millenia of war, intrigue, and betrayal to fall prey to some mortal pirate. His price would only be paid upon his return to Howler's Charn, and was enticing enough to lure one pirate, Captain Beshar, into excepting the use of a company's worth of Black Legionaries to raid a rich, but secluded mining world in Imperial space following his personal quest.

The flies were thick, black, bloated,

and hairy, they clouded Garaduk's power armor sensors, and clogged the intakes of his jump pack and atmospheric filters. He was running on internal atmosphere anyway, else he would have already contracted dozens of diseases in spite of the filters efficiency. If Garaduk examined the secret recesses of his mind, the memories he had so carefully hidden from himself behind adamantine walls of denial, he would not have bothered with the precautions. He was dying anyway. In spite of his super-human Astartes physiology, irregardless of the limited immortality that came from living in the warp, the years had finally caught up to Garaduk. His body was breaking down, his organs were slowly loosing their enhanced efficiency, his wounds were taking longer and longer to heal, he woke with soreness, and rested in excruciating pain. Embarrassingly, even his Demi-God's physique was giving way to a paunchy gut. When he had finally allowed himself to be examined by one of his thralls who was trained as a chirurgeon, he was told he had contracted a deadly disease that was attacking his body on a genetic level, a mere mortal would have withered away within hours, but he had a few months to find a cure. There was no known cure in the Black Maw's Apothecarium, and likely, none in all of realspace. The thrall-wizards did not have the skill to purge the disease, and the Black Maw Sorcerers could not be trusted with such a weakness from a captain in the Warband. But no matter how hard he hid this difficult truth from himself, deep down he knew he had to take whatever measures he could to find a cure, and he had to do so quickly.

Garaduk had heard the legends. He had heard of the Garden of Eddeon, la Fuente de la Juventud, and the Swamps of Immortality. He also had heard of the truth behind these myths, that truth was the Garden of Nurgle, and if he made pilgrimage there, he could find succor from the disease at the cost of binding himself to the Grandfather. Or he would be slain by disease, and his soul bound to Nurgle anyway. Garaduk hoped he had enough to offer the Dark God to still serve as an Astartes.

As he made his way through the swamp, a thick overhead branch finally rotted away from its trunk and fell with a splash at Garaduk's feet. Three little spiteful neverborn, with bloated bellies, and gangly limbs, clawed out of the maggot infested bark, laughing as if they had just been told the funniest joke. One hopped up onto a decomposing corpse of who knew what, and with hands on its hips said, "Garaduk, nice of you to join the party." Then fell backwards into the mire laughing. The second Nurgling, squatted down and quickly defecated into its hand and flung the foul missile at the third Nurgling, striking it in the back of its head. Then, stuck out the same soiled hand to Garaduk as if he expected to shake hands in greeting. The third Nurgling dove into the murky water and surfaced behind the captain, and went to bite the less armored section behind his knee with its filthy needlepoint teeth. Vaguely amused by the jovial, yet disgusting little buggers, Garaduk mule kicked back and sent the third Nurgling flying into a bramble, while using the forward lunge of his upper body to mince the feces flinger with his lightning claw. He quickly recovered to a crouching stance with his ensorcelled flamer pointed directly at the first Nurgling as it rose from the muck. "Take me to the manse of your master." Garaduk commanded with a weary voice. The Nurgling, never taking its eyes off of the nozzle of the deadly weapon, chuckled, "Your not dressed appropriately for a party at my Grandfather's house, Garaduk." The second time the daemon had used his name did not go unnoticed by the Legionnaire, but he was not going to show concern to this minor daemon. Garaduk was certain that his exploits within the Eye of Terror and without had elicited some degree of attention from the neverborn, and knew that they tried every trick they could to seem more powerful than they were. In response, Garaduk flicked the pilot light of the hell-forged flamer to spout a green flame before the nozzle. In a whining voice, the Nurgling responded, "Wether you roast me or not, you still can not enter the manse without bearing His Mark. Follow me and I will show you were you are to receive yours Garaduk."

Garaduk lost all track of time following the little wretch. His internal clock, honed to perfection from countless precision combat operations, along with his power armor's chrometer were unreliable in this hellish swamp. His pace count, a measure of the distance he had travelled, normally was as reliable as any laser or orbital measuring system, also failed him as his guide led him in a twisting route through thickets, bogs, and stagnant pools. At times he could hear monotonous chanting or the gurgling, coughing laughter of lungs wracked with consumption, but he never saw their source. However, he had the persistent feeling that he was weakening with every step, his armored boots dragged in the muck, and his weapons grew heavier with each step. Finally he reached a clearing of relatively dry land with a tree in the center. The tree was a thing out of the nightmares of a lunatic. The branches were rotting bones that swayed without wind. The roots were barbed with horns and teeth, and seemed to rip into the soft ground unnaturally, as if they were intending to not only take in the soil's nutrients and moisture, but to inflict pain while doing so. Faces contorted with agony, slowly emerged out of the parasite infested bark, only to submerge back into the core of a tree the way a drowning victim, exhausted from keeping his head out of water, finally relents to his fate and sinks into the sea. Even in this warp damned garden, the aura of the tree was heavy with despair.

In spite of Garaduk's primal instincts screaming at him to distance himself from this tree, or at least burn it to the ground, Garaduk was overcome with weariness, and he stumbled forward to slump down against the tree and rest. It wasn't just the weariness, Maraduk recognized that something powerful was controlling his body like a puppet, he was just to tired to fight it. Was it a moment, an hour, a day that he sat there against the tree in the Garden of Nurgle? Garaduk would never know, but as time passed, his weariness was replaced with an unholy vitality. The disease that was killing him did not leave his body, but through the connection with the tree, warped from a weakness to a strength, he conquered it and used its suffering as a reminder of his fight for survival. His pain remained, but instead of antagonizing him, it soothed him, and reminded him that he was alive! His pauldron, and he was certain the flesh underneath warped to show the Mark of Nurgle, the brand of allegiance to the Lord of Decay.

The Nurgling guide, with a voice now tinged with awe and reverence, said, "You are now ready to go to our Grandfather's manse and meet with our master." Garaduk stood up and stepped away from the tree contemplating the Nurgling's statement. He then keyed the vox code to Captain Beshar as he answered, "I have what I came here for, someday I am sure I will end up in that manse, but not today." He squeezed the trigger on the ensorcelled flamer and burnt the Nurgling to ash as a growing pair of lights descended from orbit. The vox flicked an acknowledgment of Garaduk's pyrotechnic marking of his pick up location, and Garaduk soon escaped the Garden of Nurgle.

Teetengee · July 23, 2015

Welp, that was disturbing slave. Well done.
Carrack, nice tree. ;)

Carrack · July 23, 2015

On 7/23/2015 at 1:03 PM, Teetengee said:

Welp, that was disturbing slave. Well done.

Carrack, nice tree. ;)

Agreed. Not that my story was well done, but that Slave's was disturbing. :)

Slave to Darkness · July 23, 2015

haha thanks. just finished reading scarlet gospels so still had lots of hellraiser esque images in my head. book was awful though, battle for the abyss was better!

Scourged · July 23, 2015

I now humbly present to you all a tale of a lone sorcerer, seeking an audience with his new master.

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It was a world made of crystalized liquid, an opalescent flowing landscape that spewed from a horizon that didn’t exist. It shifted and grew as it melted and shrank away, paths and avenues spiraling into one another and through the corridors only to lead nowhere. Each surface shimmered with light reflecting a blinding luminance from a land with neither sun nor sky. Flashes of light were really thoughts and memories bouncing from threads of fate. The sleek crystal surfaces constantly writhed like an organic being either enraptured with pleasure or convulsing in pain, often both. At the threshold of this waking dream stood Telioch Philantos, clad in azure armor and black robes, all autosenses of his horned helm keyed off to prevent any further insanity from reaching his mind. He would not dare sneak a glance with his mortal eyes, for in the Crystal Labyrinth such a thing would end his journey before it began.

Telioch relied instead on his aetheric sight to guide him into the maze. The gaze of his mind swept around his mortal frame, pulsing outward and returning with an echo, mapping the ever-shifting walls of the Labyrinth. Not that a map could be made that lasted for more than a moment, however. Telioch was tempted, so very tempted, to study the changing of this world, to analyze and seek out the patterns hidden in the chaotic movements, to find the key to solving the maze. But experienced had taught him better. There is no pattern, no rhyme or reason, no structure to anything inside the Eye; there is only Chaos.

One final chance to turn back, he thought. Telioch could still turn away and save himself from a possible and almost certain doom. Stories of the Crystal Labyrinth did not cast a lucrative forecast to this endeavor. Since his fall to Chaos centuries ago – was it centuries, or days… he was no longer certain of time while in this realm – he studied the arts and arcane lore of sorcery, and the intangible knowledge that came with it. The tomes and scrolls started to speak of this realm, a world perpetually building and destroying itself to produce an impassible maze, in the heart of which could be found the Great Conspirator. These volumes described the challenge of traversing the labyrinth, the insanity necessary to plumb its depths, and the impossibility of a mortal to survive the trip. But some mortals have survived – an agent of the Ordo Malleus revealed that much to him after some “persuasion.” And Telioch knew he would be one who survived. Even if he should never pass through all nine gates and reach the Impossible Fortress, he would survive. Assured, he stepped forward began his journey.

Slowly he walked, ceramite boots leaving no footprints and echoing raucous thuds as he stepped on coalesced air. The sensations alone of walking through this world worked to tear his mind apart: with one step the “ground” would grab and pull his foot deep into a suckling eddy of crystal, the next step dragging his entire leg against the crushing gravity of a supergiant planet, then to have his next propel him forward as if caught in a cyclone’s gust. Even closed off within his armor Telioch could feel the pressure change on a whim, running a gambit from an airless void to the crushing of deep ocean depths and back again. Warning runes within his helm flashed off and on constantly with temperatures spiking and plummeting to dangerous levels. Everything was a contradiction in this place. The moment a mortal’s mind would process a stimulus it would change.

With a turn to his left – or right? Or was it a straight hallway? – Telioch found he was not alone. Multi-limbed apparitions were climbing and scampering all across the shifting walls, giggling mouths hanging agape with long tongues flowing out, and thousands of eyes staring at nothing. Their existence pressed on his mind, like cold needles begging to pierce his sanity. Daemons – a herd of Horrors. To and fro they bounced and bounded, playing with each other like simians, covered not in hair but shining brilliantly in hues from pink to red to orange and all shades throughout. Not a single specter paid him any mind as they ran and laughed, delighting in a joke that no one would ever know. And just as soon as they had appeared they were gone, some slipping through unseen voids while others effervesced away to nothingness. But it didn’t matter; the presence of the daemons was neither a test nor a distraction – they simply existed, a force of nature like the rest of the endlessly chaotic Labyrinth.

Still Telioch walked forward. To analyze these changes would be to damn himself a slave to them. They did not make sense, and they never would. He could only move forward. But… was he moving forward? Surely, he was a moment ago. Though, now it felt like he was backtracking. There, that crystal pillar, he had seen it already. Twice even. No, fifteen times already in just this hour. No, he had never seen it before. What crystal pillar? Was he even walking? Yes, no, wait, running. Running at full speed. But going nowhere. He had never been moving. Yes he was; he was spinning, caught in a weightless void and tumbling. But how could that be when his feet were flat on the ground? Of course, yes, he is walking. Yes, he is going somewhere, going forward, straight to the Fortress. But which way is forward? What is forward? Can there be direction in a world of nine dimensions? Why does that crystal pillar seem so familiar all of the sudden? Maybe if he takes a break to try and…

No! Telioch recoiled and immediately pulled his aetheric sight back into himself, shutting out everything. His vision was blackness, his ears only hearing rhythmic breathing, and his only thought was emptiness. Deep, safe in his own mind, he chanted a rhythmic mantra and calmed his tempestuous mind. He had lost his focus and let his mind stray too far into the pull of the maze. This world was too much to handle, too devoid of all the rules and logic to a being born in the material universe. But he was here, and he was not dead. Not yet. No… not at all. He will not die. If this world will break all the rules, then he would break them too, including his own mortality. There is was again: his confidence, his resolve, his ambition. Calmed and assured, Telioch opened his aetheric sight again to the maddening world.

And so he walked on. Relentlessly, the maze shifted and all bearings were useless. A narrow hall blossomed and opened into a vast courtyard, stretching a distance of no quantifiable distance. The courtyard grew and grew, doubling over onto itself and swallowing the sky with its shimmering surface. Still the walls rolled, swirling into a spiraled tunnel barely wide enough to fit the Telioch. Then there was no tunnel, but a crossroad of eighty-one paths, each identical to the last. Then they were not the same, all adorned with a frame of faces that literally spoke to him. Each path whispered into his ears and mind, tempting Telioch with a promised fate of fortune or doom.

That first door there, it promised to be the path necessary to finish the maze, taking him directly to the Changer of Ways. Another door wailed of the misery awaiting him when his limbs slowly burned and fell away as dust. Yet another goaded him with the true knowledge and power of the Immaterium, filled with secret knowledge not even found in the Black Library. And yet another revealed an alternate life where it was he that led the marine warband, and the mighty Rahaund’ul Dhelmas groveled at his feet . Or there was the doorway that promised to reverse time and let him relive the days where he sought the truth in the name of the Imperium. Or yet another doorway that spoke of daemonic hordes that would destroy his flesh and devour his soul eternally if he could not solve a puzzle…

But all of them were lies. Not one door promised anything real. They were temptations, prying at his mind to lead him away from what he really hunted. The floor and ceiling of the antechamber – if either of those words could truly apply to the amorphous structure – still shifted on and on, though the doors remained to tempt him perpetually. Each doorway whispering louder than the other, fighting to draw Telioch down a road that he did not want. When he did not move the cacophony grew louder, the chorus of fates and fortunes working to bore deep into his guarded mind. The lies, all of them, worked to take him over and bring him to madness. He could hear all of the lies.

This made Telioch smile. Should any other sorcerer have wandered to this room, they would be undone in moments. Some would run down whichever path appealed to their vanity most, while others would collapse into madness from the never-ending, incomprehensible voices in their mind. But Telioch was not a novice to this torture; he had become quite adept at silencing the voices living in his thoughts. If he and his brothers could weather the sound of an entire galaxy’s lies, what chance could eighty-one paltry doors stand to break him? Smile now gone, Telioch slammed his staff against the opalescent ground and propelled the force of his will out in every direction, the brunt of his resolve slamming against every whispering entrance and silencing them. As they crumbled, a single path was revealed, and Telioch knew this was the right one.

All else seemed to fall away, as if reality crumbled along with the doorways and leaving a void in its wake. But the void would not remain empty and the crystals surged once again, spiraling and flowing to create walls adorned with vast murals of churning faces. At the heart of it all was a massive gnarled golden gate: It towered above Telioch, wrapping around and over itself from one end to the other. Flames of blue and pink – in shades that knew no mortal definition – blazed along the length of the structure. The gate itself gave away no view of path that lie on the other side, but instead was filled with a shimmering mirror. Telioch saw himself as he stepped toward, his reflection mimicking each step along the unnatural surface. Once close enough to touch his own twin, Telioch found himself disappointed: the reflection was not a twisted sight of mutated limbs and wretched fleshmetal, nor was it a cackling daemon inhabiting the mortal’s body. Only his accurate reflection peered back at him – how mundane compared to everything else in this realm! As if reacting toward his disappointment, the reflection that once stood in power armor and robes dissolved to become a disembodied maw.

“Welcome, Telioch Philantos, ascended human of the Materium, sorcerer of the self-proclaimed scourged ones, and servant to our master, Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. I am the Guardian.”

The Guardian of the Maze. Only one source in Telioch’s research had spoken of such an entity, and any information was vague at best. He knew the Guardian had been watching him since the beginning, since before his first step. Most likely, it had been watching him all his life. Time, after all, had no meaning in the Crystal Labyrinth. It knew Telioch would end up right here, it knew he would have the resolve to find the first Gate, and it knew if he will answer the riddle correctly and be allowed to pass…

“Yes, I do. But you do not. You cannot know your own fate as we can. Your mind is simple, mortal. But you have ventured deep into the Labyrinth, and we who watch are amused. Now, answer your first of the Riddles of Tzaratxoth.”

And then Talioch heard the riddle in his mind. No, it’s not that he heard the riddle, because it was not a spoken question. It was images, sensations, emotions, and experiences, one at a time and all at once, seemingly disjointed and unrelated until one brief flash at the end. On their own, each impulse meant nothing. But, when stitched together in the right order, with the right understanding, they asked a question that words could not express. Telioch worked his mind, scouring the pieces until they fit together, a puzzle slowly unfolding. Then, in a flash of his own brilliance, he had his answer. With the return of his sardonic smile, he replied to the Guardian of the Maze.

“Because the choice was never hers.”

The answer hung thick in the air, as if the words themselves had materialized into existence. After a pause, the reflective surface sublimated and flew away in a vapor, a brand new path on the other side already swirling and gyrating. The Guardian remained for a moment, consuming its own image until only the mouth remained, mimicking Telioch’s grin. The golden gate remained constant while the fire pointless struggled to consume it, the asymmetrical archway the only beacon of stability in this mutated dreamscape. But the question lingered… was this the path provided for the right answer, or the wrong one?

Kierdale · July 30, 2015

This didn't flow too easily and I'll probably consider it `apocryphal` when it comes to the Psychopomps. The elements I wanted to put in are there, but the juices didn't quite flow right

A Thief In The Garden

Hidden Content

Former chapter master Sophusar of the Stygian Guard, now Sophusar `the Facinorous` of the Psychopomps, stroked the violet skinned cheek of his closest bed-partner as she ran a claw down his muscular chest, over myriad scars, tattoos and sockets within the subdermal black carapace. These sockets would connect him to his armour, be it powered or tactical dreadnought, but here within his sanctum he lay unarmoured and disrobed. Her claw moved lower and he inhaled sharply, grinning and taking a fistful of her scarlet hair, pulling her head back violently and licking her throat. His omophagea allowed him to taste her daemonic spoor and his eyes rolled back.

“I am concerned about your chirurgeon,” she mewled, eliciting a frown from the master warrior and chief architect of his chapter’s debauchment.

“You doubt Polus’ loyalty? He is dedicated to the cause.”

“Is he? Really?” The words were spoken by one consort and finished by another behind him, her dainty yet razor-nailed fingers circling the service studs imbedded in his scalp.

“He is dedicated to me. Along with Zenelaius he created the infernal engine. The very tool of our enlightenment,” his voice shuddered as the Daemonette behind him ranked her taloned fingers down his back, thick, bright Astartes blood dripping onto the leather upholstery of the bed. “His loyalty is unblemished,” he sighed with pleasure.

“Yet he toys with death. He veers from the path. Test him.” Again the sentence flowed from consort to consort as each spoke with one voice, leaping from mouth to mouth as the daemonic bodies and that of the corrupt Astarte writhed upon the bed of cured human skin, the features of those whose flesh it comprised stretched taught under them.

“You have something in mind?” Sophusar grunted, wrestling with one of his partners.

She grinned and nodded, pulling on the chains which hung from barbed piercings in his limbs.

“He will survive?”

One wrapped its legs and arms about his muscular figure as he throttled the other beneath him.

“Either way, he will be transformed,” they answered as one.

Life and death. A fine line and one that the apothecary was charged with keeping his brethren on the right side of. Medicines, unguents, serums, tinctures and elixirs were his province. Yet after the Stygian Guard had become the Psychopomps, chief apothecary Polus had explored not only the very limits of life: contriving with the chapter’s master of the forge a machine via which the Astartes could experience the emotions of other sentient beings hooked up to it. The base emotions of humans soon failed to satiate their awakened appetites and they had turned to using captured Eldar. The Xenos proved to experience a spectrum of sensation far beyond human ken. It was ambrosia. It at once tore the soul and plunged the very depths of the heart. Such pleasure. Such pain. Such sorrow. A regale which ended all too soon as the subject expired, and left a void which could only be filled by future excess.

Yet Polus had also explored toward the other end of the spectrum. The very border of life and death. Multitudinous venoms and viruses, poisons and phages; he had studied all he could acquire while loyal to Terra in order to better protect his battle brothers. And now, will unfettered, he explored that fine line.

Often he conversed with chief librarian Holusiax upon the nature of the Empyrean - the Sea of Souls by another name - and the process by which one made the transition. A one-way transition for all but the strongest of psykers capable of projecting their will astrally into the Beyond.

He had conversed too, while working on their infernal engine, with master of the forge Zenelaius, the latter speaking often - albeit in hushed tones - of the Palace of the Dark Prince; a realm wherein the neverborn of their patron god cavorted and satisfied the whims of their creator.

Approaching master of sanctity Angra, Polus had been granted access to the chief chaplain’s growing library of accursed tomes and therein had found word of that which he sought.

His quest had then been granted the blessing - to Polus’ surprise - of master Sophusar with but one stipulation and thus Polus and a bodyguard of seven terminators prepared. The seven were armed non-standardly: each carried a veritable arsenal of weaponry from melta and plasma guns to assault cannons and lascannons which had been adapted for use by those in dreadnought armour. They and nine-and-two-score thralls were sealed within a chamber deep within the flagship Charon. Incense of sacred, lethal black lotus and that most sought after of blooms: lacrymata, were lit and Polus’ body was daubed with icons which would guide him in the transition, many of them defiled. The indalo, the ankh, the manji, the circumpunct, the om...the trefoil disks and the Octed.

Symbols of life and of death.

Polus awoke to the roar of gunfire. His eyes opening he took in his surroundings within seconds. The poisoning of the cultists had been Charon’s obol: the toll paid for their entry into the garden of the Plague Father. The luridly painted armour of the Psychopomps was at stark odds with the jungle they now found themselves in and its defenders had soon risen to drive them out. Polus’ terminator guard had responded by opening up on them with their assault cannons and heavy flamers. The roar of brother Gabrene’s rapidly-spinning cannon eclipsed all other sound, the hail of rounds sawing through the fetid jungle-swamp vegetation, exploding rotten trees just as easily as it tore apart the diseased and gangly, pot-bellied Cyclopean minions of the Garden’s master.

The terminators formed a circle about the chirurgeon and drove back the plaguebearers as sergeant Nysoces turned to Polus.

“We are where we are supposed to be?”

Polus nodded, drawing his own weapons: a bolt pistol and chainsword.

“That was no teleport, chirurgeon!” the towering sergeant spat angrily, turning back into the circle of guard to add his firepower once more. More and more plaguebearers staggered out of the putrid jungle or pulled themselves up out of the noxious filth which sucked at the greaves of the Astartes. There were hundreds of them now, shuffling forward like a sea of twisted corpses.

“This is naught but a vision quest. Have faith, sergeant.”

“Feels pretty bloody real to me!” swore Gabrene as his assault cannon ran dry. With neither time nor space to reload it he swung the barrel at the nearest plaguebearer as it charged and he felled it, the heat of the barrels scorching the rotten flesh of its collapsed head.

“Stay focused on the mission,” Polus spoke calmly, firing shots from his bolt pistol with expert marksmanship. Each was a custom round, akin to the hellfire rounds carried by Sternguard veterans but loaded with toxins and pathogens of Polus’ own engineering. Unlike his terminator guard, Polus had known - from his research - exactly what he was leading them into and had prepared. Knowing that the spawn of the Plague God would have feasted upon the majority of the harmful viruses in his laboratory, he had had to concoct scourging microbes as yet unknown to man. Hybrid phages and devastating mutant organisms.

He used these rounds sparingly, knowing full well that with each shot the master of this land learned more of his craft and Polus no doubt drew attention to himself. This latter was a matter of personal pride.

He settled his sights upon a Plaguebearer and fired, the bolt burying itself in the daemon’s cranium and vomiting forth its fell payload. He watched with a clinical curiosity as the neverborn’s flesh tried to devour the very phage which was rapidly eating away at its very head. The daemon’s constitution failed and it collapsed, flesh turning to slurry, though the next shot’s effect was already visibly diminished, the next Plaguebearer staggering further before it fell. Polus bit back a curse and made a mental note before changing magazines.

A shot from this new magazine saw the target’s body torn apart as bubbling masses of cysts grew, explo at a geometric rate.

“This is a cesspit, sawbones! You’ll find no weapons here. Master Sophusar must have been mistaken!” Nysoces spat.

The Plaguebearers, the Aghkam’ghran’ngi as they were in the Dark Tongue, were soon upon them and brother Legade was beaten down by the blows of pitted, corrupted blades, firing his weapon even as he vanished into the thick sea of blight at their feet.

“Cover and reload! Move!” roared the terminator sergeant and the squad wordlessly moved, two brothers stepping before Gabrene, laying about themselves with massive swings of their powerfists, giving the other the chance to reload his cannon.

Onward the terminators and their charge fought through the Garden of Nurgle. Through structures resembling the ruins of myriad ancient cultures both human and Xenos, all being devoured by the voracious, pox-riddled vegetation, for Nurgleth was most ancient of the infernal powers. As they pushed on toward its center - a direction dictated by Polus himself to the mystery of his bodyguard - , a constant fight against the garden’s denizens, they passed through areas characterized by different maladies. Here the oak wept thick rheum from cankers in their cracked bark, there the branches of twisted willows were matted with blood-flecked mucous. Bloated fungi shed clouds of noxious spores. Pines dripped virulence; it was these which had seen the end of brother Kradus. In another place towering pitcher plants plucked one of their number from the ground with a snaking prehensile vine, dumping him into its vat of rot. Gabrene had turned his cannon upon the fleshy walls of the plant in order to free his comrade, whose screams tormented them over the vox, and the assault cannon had ruptured the plant’s cask of filth, spilling forth countless millennia of swollen and twisted corpses. Gabrene had found Cagas’ body. The corrosive blight had eaten away at much of the one proud warrior and his armour and weaponry had melted, run and fused. Polus had not been able to retrieve his geneseed nor were they able to salvage any of his weaponry. The loss of not only the warriors but also their precious geneseed and ancient armour was a great loss to both the mission and the chapter.

Pushing through a forest of trees bearing quivering, vein-threaded tumours as fruit, sergeant Nysoces spat as Polus ran his hand over one of the tree’s berries, studying it and Nysoces turned, quickly raising his weapons as his HUD locked on to a figure crouched atop a ruin opposite, watching them. Gabrene, the only other remaining terminator was alerted by his movement and he too trained his weapons upon the intruder, his assault cannon slowly spinning up; its motor and bearings now partially clogged and eroded. It had been almost ten minutes since their last encounter with Nurgle’s servants - a cloud of those giant flies bearing maggotkin upon their backs - and the losses of Lianeau and Zetuseo, but they had always had the feeling that they were being watched. And here was the watcher.

Clad in ragged fatigues stained with blood and diseased bodily fluids, his flak armour corroded and pitted in several places with triumvirate craters, the skeletal figure with swollen belly was heavily reminiscent of the Plaguebearers but was evidently human, or had been human, and a member of the Imperial Guard at that. Cadian if the pattern of his armour was any guide. That he had been corrupted by his presence within the garden was clear but how could he have survived? The filters of the Psychopomps’ gaudily painted terminator armour were borderline clogged yet this human crouched, observing them quite calmly, his face unmasked.

That face. Nysoces stepped closer, his weapon trained on the man, and could then see his features better. Under his helmet, the camouflage now a pattern of rust shades, the man’s mouth was sewn shut with razorwire and his eyes were scabbed over. Yet he seemed to be looking directly at them. Or rather, at Polus.

“Sawbones. Sawbones. Polus!” Nysoces grunted to get the apothecary’s attention, before breaking into a fit of coughs. The sergeant swore that he would have his revenge upon the chirurgeon for bringing him and his squad into this hellhole without proper intel. There was no weapon of immense power here. Just rot, death and the carrion legions of a rival god. He would have words with master Sophusar too, if they made it out alive. The indignity of playing bodyguard to the chirurgeon in order to lead him through this daemon-fouled jungle in search of a lie… There was no excess here. No stimulation but the slaying of the diseased and the already-dead. It repulsed him.

The withered guardsman stood up on the thin branch, not once wobbling or extending his arms to correct his balance. His arms hung limp at his sides, though the hands were curved into palsied talons. The terminators and Polus could then see that the guard’s distended belly was split with a ragged gash from hip to hip. A gash which was home to what at first seemed to be bone fragments but which Polus soon realized were in fact teeth, as a tongue formed of vitae lolled out and the mouth spoke.

“Intruders,” the belly of the watcher hissed, “Servants of the Prince, you will die here. Your bodies will become home to such wondrous infestations!”

“Permission to fire?” coughed Gabrene, the once brightly-painted panels of his armour already beginning to pit, crack and corrode.

“Grant-,”

“Belay that order,” called Polus, raising his hand and stepping between the terminators and the herald.

Nysoces was about to protest when his chest was wracked with wet coughs.

The herald cocked its head questioningly as Polus stepped forth.

“I come here to beseech your lord,” the apothecary said in a powerful voice, unafraid of all he had seen, and the loss of most of his bodyguard.

The belly-mouth smiled, “and what is it you seek?”

Polus licked his dry lips. The pressure of the moment or symptomatic of some pathogen which had penetrated his armour, he did not know. The half-lies he had told Nysoces and his men would now be laid bare.

“An audience with a guest of your master.”

The smile split as the herald’s belly shook with laughter, “the fay goddess is grandfather’s private guest. He would not grant an audience to those who kneel to the Great Serpent,” the herald began to turn away.

“I bring an offering.”

The herald craned its neck over its shoulder, the neckbones cracking audibly.

“My bodyguard,” Polus motioned to the two remaining terminators with his open hands.

“Bastard!” Nysoces spat thick bile and brought his weapons to bear upon the apothecary. As he and Gabrene opened up, cutting down Polus in a hail of gunfire, the herald turned back toward them, a thick green pall flowing out of its abdominal mouth and soon they were engulfed.

The darkness of death receded and Polus heard the wet voice of the herald once more.

“My master accepts your offering and deigns to grant your request...and make you personally an offer of his own...”

There came a heavy banging upon the chamber door, followed by the clatter of weapons being armed on this side as two squads of Psychopomps trained their weapons on the portal.

Master Sophusar stood magnificent in his terminator armour, the falx horrificus –that huge axe, its very blade shaped like the icon of his lord - in his hands, flanked by a coterie of his violet-skinned, jade-masked Peris.

“Open it.”

Huge bolts slid back into the walls and the door was pulled aside to reveal the bodies of the forty-nine cultists within. Stood at the center of the chamber were seven hulking figures, the gaudy hues of their armour dulled by contagion and mutation. Each was now as one with his armaments and would forever be so.

And at the middle of the circle of seven stood a gaunt figure in filth encrusted white armour daubed with the symbols of the Dark Prince yet even these markings were tainted now, dirtied.

“Polus! Polus has returned to us!” Sophusar announced victoriously as he stepped forward into the chamber, his own bodyguard following.

The obliterators parted after a moment’s hesitation and the chapter master embraced his chief apothecary. Polus removed his helm after being released from his master’s grip. His features were drawn and his eyes distant and when they did focus they appeared to gaze through the subject of his scrutiny, as if regarding their soul rather than their flesh.

“You saw her, did you not?” Sophusar asked enthusiastically, his Daemonettes coming close and regarding the obliterators with distain.

Polus’ eyes finally seemed to find the chapter master and focused on him properly, the power of Sophusar’s personality drawing the apothecary from his reverie, if only briefly.

“I stole a kiss from her ruby lips,” he whispered.

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