Inspirational Friday 2017: The Black Legion (until 1/5)

[Scourged]

Have a thing. And do forgive me if I end up going dark for a little bit again. Turns out the lady and I are moving to Chicago, and we're doing it by the end of this month. The God of Change has blessed by life, though it will no doubt bring a lot of Chaos as we try to pack our things and move in three weeks.

 

Hidden Content

Dark Humor

Nothing was left on this particular stretch of the battlefield save for three lone Astartes cornered against the decaying underbrush of the dying world. They had been running, fleeing from their pursuer for minutes that felt like hours, weaving their ceramite-covered bodies through the decaying vegetation as it sloughed away in ochre smears along the dark red and black flame paint. The thick cover of dying plant matter had been their only saving grace as they fled, the underbrush slowing the otherwise speedy chase of their hunter. But now that advantage was gone, thanks to the sheer cliff face rising hundreds of meters above them. The three fallen Astartes had not been running - they had been routed.

Ikram was the first to curse the gods, beating his armored fist against the damp rock. It sent sparks and pebbles flying in all directions, falling effortlessly away from the three superhumans. Though the other two shared his frustrations, they stayed still while he voiced his complaints over the vox.

“Damn them all, every last one of them. Damn the Emperor’s lapdogs and their ceaseless condemnation. Damn the Dark Gods for their constant abandonment. And damn our lord for sending us on this suicide mission on this suicidal planet!”

“I’m starting to think he doesn’t like us that much,” was all Xeph dared offer in reply. Dark moods could often appreciate dark humor, but the slamming of Ikram’s gauntlet into the rough stone once more showed this was not the case.

“Oh really, you think so?! You think the lord doesn’t favor us much? I hadn’t noticed, Xeph, not at all! After all, only the most favored chosen would be granted this detritus-wading, filth-mongering, ever so endlessly pointless-”

Xeph would never hear the end of Ikram’s rant this time. Or ever again. At first the sound was drowned out by an echoing thrum of pulsing energy, that sound preceding the near instantaneous detonation of plasmic fire on Ikram’s torso. The plasma shot ripped a hole clean through heretic and saw him fall immediately lifeless to the jungle floor. The little flesh left uncauterized by the shot would no doubt be already decaying on this death-accelerated world.

Still blinded from the flash of impact Xeph’s auto senses could barely register the distinct sound of a second plasma shot firing, nor the roaring hunger of their pursuer. The champion ducked with lighting speed, hand instinctively reaching for his blade and bolt pistol. Then the second shot exploded upon impact once more.

Rising, Xeph appraised his status, both through the data scroll in his helmet and his own physical examination. All limbs and armor intact. Did… did that damnable loyalist miss? Xeph dared a glance around him and to his sides, looking for the telltale signs of plasmic charring on the plants or rock.

Oh. No. The Space Marine didn’t miss. Tsku was missing his right arm and most of his face, the muscles still twitching as he fell over in a slump. Well. Okay then.

Should Xeph decide to mourn his squad’s death he would have to do it later. True, he probably wouldn’t bother. It’s not like their not replaceable. Besides, he was probably going to die here anyway, assuming the Astartes biker in blue armor has his way. After all, the Marine had gunned the throttle and was not charging straight toward Xeph, power axe raised high and ready to cleave the traitor champion in half. Yup. Probably going to die.

Hastily came the shot from his bolt pistol. The weapon barked as the detonated ammunition flew forward. Xeph had not had the time to aim properly. He had not had the chance to square away his sights and shoot at the soft armored neck or elbow of the charging Astartes. Honestly, his vision was still a bit blinded from the ball of plasma. Beyond the single shot of his bolt pistol, all Xeph could rely on was hope. Once that finger squeezed the trigger and the hammer fell, the Aspiring Champion offered a prayer to whatever deity was listening, Chaos or otherwise. Right here, right now, just this once, intervene and let his shot connect.

It didn’t. It hit the thick trunk of some native tree and failed to do little but chip away at the bark.

Damn.

The soldier on the bike with the axe would come crashing into Xeph in less than a second now. His one good chance at survival had failed. Though, really, every chance of survival on this planet had faded long long ago. Perhaps how long he lasted in the dying jungles would be its own reward, a record set in a trial of endurance. Not that such a thing had meaning. No one would know, save the Throne-lover come to kill him. Oh, well.

In the fleeting moments Xeph had left to live, he thumbed the activation of his power sword and spun his body away and to the right. He couldn’t avoid the impact of the bike, but he may do something to lessen it. He pivoted on his right foot and attempted to dodge, sword-arm held out in a wide arc as he turned. Maybe one of the Pantheon would give him the nimble reflexes to sidestep the oncoming-

No. He didn’t dodge. Not even a little. The front end of the bike smashed into his flank and sent Xeph flying back three meters. The Loyalist had predicted the maneuver and corrected for it. Xeph slammed into the ground, the heaps of dying plant matter - and some corpse of local fauna - did nothing to soften his fall. His skull bounced inside the ceramite helm while his organs danced between his fused ribs. That had hurt. A lot. But somehow, surely thanks to his armor, he survived.

...except his hands no longer held either of his weapons. Damnit. Well, some much for that little shred of happiness since hadn’t died instantly. Now that he was disarmed and lying flat on his powerpack in the jungle there would be an axe blade cleaving through him in no time. Any second now the Space Marine would whirl around and start chopping off limbs or just go for an instant killing blow. Within moments Xeph’s soul would bleed back into the Warp and become fodder for the Neverborn. Yup, he would die, just like the rest of his miserable brotherhood. Any second now.

Why wasn’t he dead? Where was his hunter? And why… why was the engine of the bike idling quietly instead of roaring with a charge. Oh, of course - the noble marine wanted an honorable duel. Well sure, fine, why not? Better than dying on his back, right? Ugh… at this point Xeph was just ready to be dead already - the build-up was killing him enough!

Snapping his hips and legs he shot up from the prone position, standing and charging toward the idled bike. A combat blade was already in his hand, and death was on his mind. Except… there was no Champion of the Emperor waiting for him. There was no brandished axe crackling with energy, no bellows of challenge or litanies of damnation, and no Marine in sight. There was just a bike slumped against the rocky cliff that kept Xeph pinned here moments earlier. So where was…?

“Oh. Ohhh… heh… heheh… hah!”

And soon enough, Xeph was doubled over in laughter, sharing the dark joke with the universe. There, two meters from the undamaged bike leaning on the rock rested the Astartes in blue armor. He was on his side, his axe within grasp but lying inert on the ground. And there, with the tip straight through the upper chest, was Xeph’s power sword. It had impaled the hunter and killed him before he could strike.

But… how? He never felt the blade connect. All the Champion could recall was the violent impact of the bike when… no. No! There’s no way! When he lost his grip, the sword actually flew out and stabbed the Space Marine?! Huh… perhaps one of the Dark Gods was listening to him after all. Only they, like Xeph, had a dark sense of humor.

Walking over Xeph pulled the blade free and maglocked it to his side once more. But as he did there was an alien energy coursing through his body. Aetheric energies spun around and through him, imbuing his flesh and his soul with new power. Caressing his body was a new aura, imperceptible to sight. Xeph watched as reams of hoarfrost coated the underbrush around him no matter where he moved. Not only had the Gods saved him, but they rewarded him!

Nothing came free, however. There was a subtext to his new aura of ice. He had not heard it, he had not felt it, but somehow Xeph knew what he must do in thanks to his new boon. Still chuckling, the heretic Astartes walked over to the idling bike and climbed aboard it. Yes. Somehow, for some reason, this just felt right. Maybe it had always been that way, or maybe it was the will of the gods, but Xeph knew that this bike was his bike, and on it he would ride eternally. Or until he died. Either one.

And so, imbued with the gifts of his impossible victory on this dying world, Xeph Caleph, newly endowed Biker Champion of the Company of Misery gunned the throttle and plowed his way through the underbrush.

 

[Kierdale]

The Black Stallions

One

Hidden Content

The needle entered the red as the engine’s roar eclipsed all other sound, even that of the incoming fire. The chassis shook terribly as it tore across the badlands, but the driver barely felt it, the wheel gripped tight in his fists, every muscle in his arms bulging, his knuckles pale as death. Dust battered his goggles and stuck in his hair, the stink of his ride’s crude fuel in his nose but there was only one sense - one stimulus - which dominated his mind.

Speed.

The truck tore across the dirt track, figures which barely registered to the driver diving aside so as not to be hit. Were such a collision to happen likely they would not have been driven over but rather smashed and torn asunder, such was the speed the truck was travelling at. The driver grunted as the alarmed cry of one such near-miss went past, the sound hardly reaching his pierced ears.

He was speed.

He was possessed.

And he was not going to stop.

Despite the protests, cries, expletives and blows to the rear of his skull from his passengers, he was not going to stop.

The dust coated the truck’s red paint on the outside, but on the inside it was still as bright as the driver’s beady eyes. Gork and Mork were with him, Gork’s strength his in arms and Mork’s speed in his nerves.

“We’ve got a runaway,” Otathis spoke over the comm, swooping down from on high, the engines of his storm talon screaming. Pale Raptor’s machine spirit automatically tracked the truck with the flyer’s twin assault cannons. “Permission requested to engage.”

The hammer was falling: a blow that would end the Greenskin menace here on Nuchinle. Less than a season ago a spacehulk had brought thousands of orks to the planet. A disturbingly high number of the thick-skulled bastards had survived the fall of their ride to the planet’s surface, no doubt due to the techno-witchery of their meks. And they had subsequently fallen upon Nuchinle’s refineries. The vast open plains criss-crossed with occasional deep, winding valleys favoured the fast vehicles the greenskins had brought with them, and those who did not ride in jalopies instead set ambushes in the gorges they had set up camp within. The pride of the tech priests overseeing the refineries had seen Ironstriders and skitarii sent out piecemeal, later Dunecrawlers too as the size of the threat was realized, and the orks had eaten up everything sent at them, salvaging the wreckage of that which they crushed and forging it anew into images of their pagan gods.

Finally a call had been sent out – likely after the magos had lost a couple of refineries to the orks which threatened his ability to fill his next quota – and the Stygian Guard had answered, sending squads of the veteran and tactical companies. They had brought fire and blood in a bold strike to the heart of the enemy, forcing the orks to fracture. The Snakebites had tried to vanish into the caverns and gullies – only to be burned out – the Goffs had made a last stand which had been the bloodiest combat even first captain Viphic had seen in a good many years. The Blood Axes and Evil Sunz had boarded their wagons, trucks and other ramshackle vehicles and bolted across the plains.

Once the chapter’s bikers had scouted out and subtly corralled these remaining greenskins, Otathis and his wingman Rius flew air cover for the first company’s assault: sternguard had dropped from orbit in a delaying action, with the landraiders of the first company quickly deployed to smash the orks between them.

“Permission denied,” came captain Viphic’s reply over, “Engage the bulk of the force, thin their numbers.”

Indeed, there was a vast undulating mass of xenos on the plain, a sea of leathery green skin and rusted, hammered metal daubed in blues and reds. The orks were charging this way and that as the first company fired on them from both sides. Not so much panicked as enraged, the rampaging orks got in the way of each other, fouling their own charges and running under the wheels of great battlewagons.

“Acknowledged. Beginning attack run.”

Otathis took the lead, Rius on his wing as the two talons dived and opened up on those orks in the middle of the mass, raking them with long bursts of their assault cannons and the heavy bolter pods mounted on the sides of their fuselages. Small arms fire streaked up at them, smacking into the thick armour on the front of the talons but no sooner had they began their attack than they were climbing once more and turning about to begin another run.

“Sergeant Vidicaso, deal with the runaway.”

Bonecrunchas and breakas, brainburstas and crushas, and gutrippas, the majority of the ork battlewagons were caught up in the melee with the first company. Vidicaso, sergeant of the biker squad assigned to the mission, looked over the myriad ork vehicles from the promontory the bikers were now parked atop. Though the barbarian xenos had no holy STCs as the Imperium of Man did, there were common designs and categories into which their constructions could be fitted, and he knew them all. Such was part of his duty. While those of the bloody first company might not know a Spleenrippa from a Kill bursta, only dropping in as they did for the final kill, it was part of their recon mission that the chapter’s bikers knew the enemy and the specifications of its vehicles. As they had chased the speeding greenskins across the plains, Vidicaso and his men had commed back and forth the composition of the ork convoy and designated which of the rattletrap warmachines to take down first in order to bring them all to a halt. While the rest of the squad had harried the right flank of the convoy, Krophis and Laro had swept in from the other side, throttles wide open, weaving their way through the greenskin trucks and biker outriders. One had slagged the lead braincrusha’s front left wheel, the other damaging the tracks behind with his bike’s meltagun, before the two turned and sped away as fast as they had attacked.

The battlewagon, far larger than a land raider, had been tearing across the plain at a fair clip for such a large vehicle and the traction on one side suddenly seizing caused it to slew about, finally pitching and rolling over and over again. Those gretchin riggers who were not immediately thrown off were ground to pulp, and the orks within smashed about the crew compartment. Armour plates and slates from the braincrusha’s house-like roof flew as it tumbled on its side, finally sliding to a halt in a huge cloud of dirt.

This had been the Stygian biker squad’s signal to depart, and the rest had been left to the first company.

“Sergeant Vidicaso, deal with the runaway.”

The biker sergeant took a moment before replying. A moment during which he took a deep, calming breath. His squad had been on Nuchinle for months, tirelessly tracking and harassing the greenskins without resupply. They had fed upon what wildlife they could find, and even upon the corpses of the xenos, Asonthi distilling useable fuel from that which they salvaged from the Ork’s own rides. The bikers’ alabaster white armour and bikes were stained pale pink with dust from the badlands and the recyc water he supped was tepid and foul.

Yet it seemed their job was not yet done.

He commed a confirmation to the first captain before opening the squad channel.

“Brothers, it appears the task of crushing the greenskins in their entirety is beyond the mighty first company-“

“Bloody First,” someone muttered.

“-and we find ourselves called upon once again,” he continued, making no attempt to keep the exhaustion from his voice. “Brothers, start your engines.”

The engines of the four bikes roared to life and they rolled forward to flank their sergeant, looking down upon the firefight on the plain, the veterans of the first company having surrounded the greenskin mass. But for one cloud of dust that was kicked up, racing away to the east.

“There lies our goal, I presume?” Krophis raised a languid finger and pointed.

“No doubt the warboss’ personal ride.” Laro this time.

“The Bloody First would surely not call upon us for any lesser target, brothers,” Krophis replied.

“If sarcasm were promethium...,” Vidicaso muttered and revved his engine and raised his voice to a shout, “We are not done yet, brothers! Ride with me!”

The bucking and rattling truck was making so much noise that it drowned out the considerable noise of the large astartes bikes, and the cloud of dust it raised served to cloak their approach. The autosenses of the Stygians’ helmets allowed them to see through the cloud, though not perfectly, and they observed four greenskins stood in the back of the truck. At least two seemed to be alternating between screaming at the driver and punching the back of his head, while another manned a large-caliber machine gun mounted in the middle of the flatbed and the last hung on for dear life, though at the same time seemed to be screaming either in horror or excitement. The facial expression of the greenskin was hard to read.

Being an ascetic chapter in the extreme, there was no such thing as the honour of the first kill (well, perhaps within the Bloody First...), and the bikers opened up with their bikes’ bolters as soon as they were in range. The head of the hanger-on popped and his body was pulled under the wheels as he fell. The ork manning the gun was also mown down, his body torn apart as several rounds impacted it simultaneously.

As they were splattered with the gore of their comrades, the other two xenos had their attention drawn to the marines. One increased his shouting and pummelling of the driver’s skull, pointing a dirty-nailed finger back toward Vidicaso’s squad, while his comrade pushed the late gunner’s body away, wiped gore from the spade handle-grips of the gun and began firing wildly into the dust cloud behind the truck.

The ork, a big brute in filthy rags and armour which had once been a brilliant red but was now dull like dried blood, narrowly avoided the marines’ return fire; bolt shells spanging off the metal plates of the truck around him. He then ducked out of sight, rising a second later with a stikkbomb in each hand.

“GRENADE!”

The bikers were forced to throttle up and peel off to the sides, leaving the dust cloud, though Krophis was too slow and as the explosives lit up the cloud from within, his squad mates saw his bike go down, the rider thrown from his saddle.

The ork rose once again, with a grenade held between the jagged fangs of his mouth as he turned the machine gun on the now-exposed bikers.

A greenskin was no marksman and the speed at which the truck was going made a mockery of any attempts at accuracy but the sheer volume of bullets the gun was spitting – it was rapidly chewing through a belt fed up from a crate on the flatbed - meant hits were inevitable and sparks flew from the armoured fairing over Cailega’s front wheel, causing the marine to break and jink, losing speed on the rough ground.

Not long out of the scout company, and on close terms with the nerve glove due to his willfulness, Cailega swore loudly and revved his engine, unwilling to lose face, ground, or the chance to get even. He still had much to learn of the chapter’s ways.

By the time he had caught up, blasting through the dust cloud once more, Asonthi had managed to kill the gunner, shooting him from behind while Laro had baited him on the other side of the truck. The Stygian Guard had no issue with shooting an enemy in the back, as some other chapters might have. For them it was pragmatic, the swiftest way to ensure the completion of the mission. Honour mattered as much as sorrow did: none had batted an eyelid as Krophis had fallen, merely making a mental note to return for his body (so that geneseed could be recovered) and any other supplies they could take. Spare parts for their own bikes, for one.

The remaining greenskin passenger noted the gunner’s death and gave an almighty roar. He appeared to be overcome with wrath, for he hefted a huge cleaver above his head and leapt from the back of the bouncing truck toward the nearest of the bikers: Vidicaso.

The sergeant braked hard and swerved, ducking as the greenskin sailed past to collapse in a bloody mess on the ground.

“Silly bastard,” he grunted and throttled up.

The truck was no longer encumbered with passengers and the driver appeared to be feeding some concoction into its engines as flames leapt from its exhaust and it rocketed forwards, threatening to outpace even the astartes bikes.

Vidicaso looked ahead. The plains were rising toward hills into which several gorges cut.

“Laro, finish this.”

The meltagunner eased off the throttle and let his bike drift toward the truck’s rear and the dust cloud it raised. At the speed they were travelling there was no point in trying to take out a wheel, he merely clamped down on the trigger built into his bike’s handlebars and the vape-gun shot forth a superheated blast. He played it back and forth, rapidly turning the rear of the truck to slag. Rivulets of molten metal began to pour from its back and first one then the other rear tyre popped. The ragged rubber soon torn from the wheels by the rough ground, sparks flew as metal was ground away and the truck finally began to lose speed.

The driver frantically began to feed in more juice from canisters crammed in about him and the truck managed to accelerate, grinding away at its own rear half as it did so.

“Laro, get out of there.”

Laro did not question his sergeant’s order, for he knew the construction of the greenskin vehicles as well as his squad leader did and he throttled away just before the truck ground through its own fuel tank, launching the vehicle and its speed freak driver into the air atop a fireball.

Cailega gave a whoop of triumph, sliding his bike to a halt to watch the charred wreck tumble through the air before the canisters about the driver went up as a secondary explosion which tore the vehicle apart mid-air, sending flaming debris cascading down.

Vidicaso took a breath to reprimand his newest squad member but he found himself smiling, grinning even, his breathing rapid as he acknowledged the adrenaline racing through his veins. Cailega had merely put voice to what they all struggled to suppress. After all, why had he not simply ordered Laro to melta the truck earlier in the chase?

Two

Hidden Content

With a final blow, the stone-like material gave and the statue toppled, the sound of it hitting the tessellating flagstones drowned out by the shouting, screaming, braying and other sounds of pandaemonium which echoed throughout the burning settlement.

Asonthi straddled the figure of the Eldar – he knew not who it was, if he was lucky perhaps one of the dead Eldar pantheon, or perhaps one of the xenos who had helped to sculpt this maidenworld – running his hands over the smooth curves of the statue’s wraithbone form before turning his chainblade and beginning to hew at the side of its head. He would take its face.

All about him were the sounds of the Psychopomps indulging in the spoils of war. The Stygian bikers had been tasked with tearing down and putting to the flame the ork settlements of Nuchinle decades before and had done so with a zeal built up in the roar of engines and the chases across the planet’s plains and badlands, finally released in vandalistic celebration even the squad leaders like Vidicaso had permitted – nay indulged in! All had neuro-flensed themselves in the pain glove afterwards in repent of their breach of chapter doctrine, but even that, deep down within some of them, had been the first steps on the road to their damnation.

Here and now, the Stygians – turned Psychopomps – thralls of Slaanesh having fallen upon the Eldar paradise-world like reavers from the abyss, their debauchery and madness knew no bounds. Gone was their alabaster white armour, now painted various lurid colours with a pastel roseate taking prominence, gone was the restraint that characterized the chapter. Gone was the uniformity: they armed themselves with a wide variety of weapons - whatever the individual favoured - and a great many of these were trophies taken from foes.

He did not look up from his cutting as one of his fellow Black Stallions tore past, the big bike’s engine roar deafening in the winding alleys of the Eldar settlement, a split-second later followed by one of the screaming aliens themselves, chains wrapped about their ankles tethering them to the bike. Likely the captive would not scream for much longer. The Eldar were fast, and tenacious, but not strong of body.

He paused to hope that his comrade would have the forethought not to waste the Eldar too easily, too quickly. Not to squander their anguish and agony.

The face eventually carved from the statue, Asonthi raised it to admire its features, removing a gauntlet so that he might run his naked finger over the smooth cheeks, across the brow above the xenos’ almond-shaped eyes. On a whim he removed his helmet too and brought his trophy close, licking the cold stone lips lasciviously before he broke out in laughter at his own actions.

When his mirth subsided scant seconds later he found the alien’s visage to be the most hideous, loathsome thing he had ever beheld. It was repellent, repugnant.

He cast it down before replacing his gauntlet and mounting his bike once more.

The engine emitted a scream which lanced at his ears as it was activated before settling into a pleasing purr. Only now did he replace his helmet, throttling up and directing his mount to crush the discarded face of the statue under its wheels before he moved off in search of greater treasures.

Three

Hidden Content

“Your job is done! Run along now!”

Vidicaso clamped down hard and the screech of his brakes set his teeth on edge even though the dampening of his blade-crested helmet. The five other bikers of his squad came to a halt a split second after him. It pained him to stop his ride, and indeed he could immediately feel the bike’s yearning to get into motion once more, but he slowly turned his head to face he who had addressed them.

One of the Sirens: those chosen of the warband who wielded the shorter-ranged sonic weapons. Like the Stallions they were hunters of a kind; while the bikers would tirelessly pursue their quarry for days, relishing the chase, the Sirens sought out foes who hid from sight. A sense that they themselves no longer relied upon.

The biker champion looked upon the scarred visage of the Siren: the marine having carved out his own eyes, pipes running from his ears to the stubby weapon in his hands, the daemonic visage both its muzzle and the focus of the marine’s senses.

“Run along bikers. We would not want you to crash your precious rides. Leave the city for us to take!”

The Psychopomps had assaulted the shrineworld of Hodegetria IV, primarily for supplies – both materiel and slaves – but in overcoming the Imperial defences and capturing the holy Shadowsword Manu Imperatoris an orgy of destruction had begun. The renegades had been unable to restrain themselves and simply make off with what they had sought, for the piousness and faith of the populace was a stink that hung over the world’s cities and the Psychopomps could do naught but turn that stench to a perfume of fear and desperation.

The lone siren – perhaps the only survivor of the bloody conflict upon the plains before the Sororitas chapter-citadel – stood atop a felled statue of one of the Order of the Gilt Hand’s abbesses, the veil over her eyes in stark contrast to the exposed bloody sockets of the traitor stood atop her.

The sound of tracks, engines and the roar of jump packs echoed through the empty streets: the rest of the warband was making its way through similar breaches in the shield wall, and the populace had fled to strongholds deeper within the city.

Vidicaso looked from the narrow, twisting streets – indeed not ideal terrain for bulky marine bikes – to the gloating Siren, to his bikers. He raised a finger, at which Laro, Asonthi, Cythesai, Cailega and Peusio started their engines once more, and as he made circular motions above his head they throttled up again and again.

The deafening noise made the Siren cock its head and sweep its weapon toward them so as to `see` them better. At this Vidicaso lowered his hand and the five bikers began to circle the fallen statue, deliberately over-revving their engines and creating a cacophony to rival the unleashing of God-Engine weapons.

As the Siren grimaced and took a futile step backwards Vidicaso dismounted, running a hand over the stone head of the Phoenix Lord chained to the front of his bike and slowly strode toward the Imperial statue as his squad rode in circles about them, smoke pouring from their squealing tyres. The Siren shouted, attempting to drown out the riders with its own enhanced voice, to put out enough sound to make sense of its surroundings once more, to no avail.

A smile spread across the Stallion champion’s face as the one who mocked his squad staggered, blinded and deafened. Vidicaso drew his lash as he began to ascend to the plinth of the fallen abbess: a whip of daemonic flesh ending in tooth-like barbs – a gift of the neverborn and the signature weapon of the senior Stallions.

Standing upon the statue he watched patiently, with growing mirth, as his five comrades circled deafeningly. That a war was still being waged was forgotten to them: they had slaked themselves on Hodegetria’s defenders, but here was a rare pleasure: the torment of an ally. A brother. Not a new taste, he had to admit, but one to be enjoyed. Savoured.

The Siren panned its weapon back and forth, giving up on tracking the circuiting Stallions. Perhaps he had sensed enough to realise that only five of the six bikers now taunted him, and he sought the sixth, cursing and screaming as he did so.

The bikes began to scream, a noise emitted from neither their engines nor their tyres yet inexplicably coming from each of the machines. The Siren staggered and pivoted blindly, at which point Vidicaso stepped forward, raising his daemonic whip as he did so, a length of it stretched between his hands. He brought this down over the fellow Psychopomp’s head and with a jerk began to garrote him. Reflexively the Siren clamped down on the trigger of his weapon, pointed skyward, and the air rippled as noise – cascading from bone shattering bass to ear-splitting howls – vomited forth from its devilish muzzle.

The Siren’s panic turned to hysteria as the biker champion coiled the weapon about his neck, the flesh of the lash preternaturally and hungrily tightening about his throat and extruding bony thorns. It fed upon his dread, tightening and tightening, even more so as the spikes punctured his bodyglove and the meat of his neck. Vidicaso too was panting, not so much with exertion, rather he was drinking up his kill’s dread. His breathing was harmonized with the ragged, choked wheezing of the Siren, though as his victim’s breathing lessened, his own deepened. He could almost feel other Astartes’ life leeching into his body.

At the crescendo of the bikes’ roaring, the Siren’s body began to shake and its weapon fell from its grip. Vidicaso cried out at the climax before leaning in close, whispering to the dead Siren and lowering his body gently to the top of the fallen statue.

He then unsheathed his knife with one hand, holding the Siren’s head firmly by the jaw with his other. Another face to collect.

[Kierdale]

Thank you for your entries in Inspirational Friday: Chaos Bikers.

Personally I haven’t had a chance to read the other entries yet - life has been busy - but I hope to over the next week.

Here ends Inspirational Friday: Chaos Bikers though if you have more pieces on the topic, as always feel free to post them at any time with a suitable title to the post.

Here begins our sixth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2017:

The Warp

The Sea of Souls, the Empyrean, the Immaterium, the Ether.

The Realm of Chaos.

The warp is a place of energy. A twisted reflection of realspace in constant flux, with the effects of one having a knock-on effect in the other, and likewise eddies in the warp causing madness to reign in mortal minds and flesh. A place where time and form are fluid.

Yet the vessels of man and other races must brave this hellish dimension in order to traverse the great void between stars, exposing themselves each time to the risk of corruption or worse.

The Formless Wastes are a roiling, random landscape not entirely under the influence of any of the four Infernal Powers. Rivers of tar flow through petrified woodlands under crimson skies; great stairways lead up into the Welkin only to join themselves from below in everlasting loops; castles of bone and fortresses of ichor stand amidst copses of limbs, and the departed spirits of titanic god-machines slump in graveyard heaps. Every dream and nightmare, every lunatic vision and deranged fancy, finds its home in the Formless Wastes.

Each of the Chaos gods has their domain: the fortress of Khorne, the crystal labyrinth of Tzeentch, the Garden of Nurgle and the palace of Slaanesh.

Tell us this time a tale of the warp, be it a story set within the empyrean itself or of its influence upon the minds of mortals still within the material universe.

Inspirational Friday: The Warp runs until the 31st of March.

Let us be inspired driven insane.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Trevak Dal

To the chosen victor: step forward and claim the Octed Amulet:

[Evil Eye]

Assuming I don't completely forget/get distracted by something else, I'll have a stab at this. I've been out of the IF loop for too long, I need to get back in. Also this theme sounds awesome.

[Scourged]

Have a thing.

 

Hidden Content

Night Sky

 

A small grove in the orchards had become their hiding spot. It was between seasons so no workers would find them where they didn’t belong. The air had not yet dipped to uncomfortable frigidity so it left their rendezvous comfortable. For many nights the skies had been clear, starlight illuminating their irregular gatherings beneath the budding trees. As they did so often, the two rested in each other's arms beneath a hand stitched quilt kept in a foot locker within their private hollow. It was a rare moment where the two were not lost in their embrace of one another, but with the sky above them.

“Do… do you see it too, Khiba?”

“See what?”

“Out there, in the ether. The colors. The lights. They’re… so beautiful.”

The lights he saw were truly something remarkable. He had never been off world - our even beyond their village - so he had no frame of reference for galaxies and nebulae, only a few schola picts to rely upon for reference. But even with that paltry knowledge he knew what he saw night after night wasn’t any celestial body. He knew it. He felt it.

The lights and wisps and rivers and colors and waves and clouds and faces - faces? - he saw were not sitting solid within the space beyond them. They were not a part of the space. They were bleeding through the space. They occupied no matter but absorbed everything they touched. It wove through and behind and around and above the stars, never once touched by their light but shining with their own. The celestial phenomena poured through the universe in unceasing quantities but never added anything of substance to the void.

Living rainbows rolled and churned all across the night sky yet still did not occupy the tiniest shred of volume in this physical reality. Shimmers and visions of possibilities and worlds not yet born danced in the lights and gave birth to new dimensions in the colors. The invading entity rolled like clouds and poured like an avalanche and crept like winter frost and collided like falling rocks and moved in so many ways so familiar yet never accurate. It moved without moving and lived without existing. He found it all to be the most terrifying beauty he’d ever known.

“There’s nothing there, Phum. Nothing. Just stars and black.”

He knew she’d say that. The few people Phum had trusted with his visions had all said there was nothing there. He thought… he hoped that Khiba would be different. He hoped she could see it too, even if it was just a little. He dreamed that it was the colors and lights that had brought them together, so many nights, here to watch them. He had hoped that she was watching with him, only too scared to speak of it as he was. But just as with every other chance taken, his hopes were dashed. Khiba didn’t see as he did. She was like the rest.

“Yeah, you’re right… nothing there. Must’ve been my imagination.”

“Right… imagination. You need to lay off the sacrament when no one’s looking, Phum.”

“Heh, yeah… caught me. Just can’t resist the fruits of the harvest.”

They laughed together - she for real and he to appease her. Phum had not imbibed anything for months. It had been his first thought too: all that he saw were inebriated hallucinations. But that hypothesis was quickly dashed. Abstaining from impairment only made his connection to the phenomena stronger. It had worried him at first. Scared him. But the longer he looked at the impossible sky, night after night, the more it began to soothe instead of frighten him.

She rolled on top of him then, breaking his reverie with the intangible clouds. Only her eyes now filled his gaze, the deep cerulean nothing like the endless spectrum behind her. She kissed him one last time for the night, passionate and long. Phum returned with his own fervor, the comfort of her body, her touch, her smell, her taste, her… everything threatening to begin a third tryst beneath the blooming trees. Khiba must have noticed, because she quickly pushed off of him with a knowing grin and flicked his nose, rolling to her side to begin gathering her discarded clothing.

“Okay. Get back to your hab. They’ll be looking for you soon.”

She was right. Phum didn’t want to leave her, and he didn’t want to go home either, but she was right. Too much time had already passed. He gathered his clothes as well - though moved with no haste to redress - until both were folding their shared blanket and storing it away in the small box tangled in the exposed roots of the tree. One more kiss, one more embrace, and the lovers separated one more time, each going to their waiting hab and family.

The walk back had once filled Phum with regret and guilt. He should not be doing what he’s doing. He should not have kept doing it. He should not have sought out a secret spot for night after night of rendezvous. He should not willingly engage in such betrayals. Those guilty feelings were gone now. Something else filled their place. And as he walked, looking to the sky once more, that hollow void in his soul was quickly filled once more.

One look was all it took now. One glance to the night sky and Phum felt everything that troubled him fade away to nothing. When he let the visions fill his essence all was right with the world, with his life, with everything. He’d grown to need the calming balm on his spirit the turmulescent and roiling spectrum gave him. Each time he looked, he felt like he understood more than he did the night before. More knowledge, of so many inconsequential things, now occupied his brain. Yet he knew that nothing was without consequence, that every scrap of knowledge held its own power. And he wanted more of it.

Wait, no… he knew that wasn’t right. It wasn’t what he wanted. His desires had become secondary. He was along for the ride. It was the lights that wanted Phum to know all, to experience all. The desire was not his, but forced upon him. The colors and sensations radiated down from the heavens, flowing into him, propelling him with a motionless current through paths that could not be followed by those without his sight. Phum did not walk these trails of his own will, but he did follow the guide nonetheless. Whether it was he or the lights that wanted this fate, Phum accepted it.

Before he had realized it, the threshold of his domicile stood before him. He didn’t want to go inside. Not yet. Not at all, really. Inside Marae would be waiting alone, the children having long ago been sent to bed. She would have questions. She would want answers. Phum would have none he’d be willing to share. He’d lie, the same half-truth but always a lie. ‘I was watching the sky and lost track of time.’ And Marae would eventually give up, accepting his delusions. She would worry, he would console her. They would sleep, only to rise the next morning and go about their repeated, routine lives.

It was an existence that frustrated him. Nothing ever changed. The seasons were the same. The Harvest was the same. His wife and children the same. Every day, week, month, life the same here. He could not endure such unceasing monotony. It’s why he no longer fought his visions in the sky. It’s why he pursued and bedded Khiba so often. And it’s why now, as he so often had done, Phum pulled out his utility blade and carved a small scrape on his palm.

The pain was soothing, for some reason. It challenged his norms and broke a small part of his mind free. No cut was ever the same. No wound ever healed the same way. Each experience was a new experience. Those little cuts on his hands scratched an itch within his soul that could not be expressed any other way. Each little red line on his palm soothed an ache growing in him. The cutting soothed him, Khiba soothed him, and the night sky soothed him.

With one final breath Phum cast his eyes to the heavens one last time before having to hide indoors from the wondrous display for his eyes alone. The colors were there, perpetually in flux in a way that calmed the man endlessly. And flux the lights did, moving in ways that Phum had never seen before. The night sky was alive with rolling clouds of intangibility, blotting out the stars that could still be clearly seen. He could feel the living sensations traveling through realspace, tendrils of ancient and unborn thoughts seeking their threaded connections to their moments in reality. He saw the fibers of possibility weaving in the background of eternal existence.

Winds of fate suddenly whipped around the planet, around his home, around him. He could feel them now! The strong breeze tugged not at his loose clothing but at his mind and soul. It whipped his thoughts into a fervor, feeding and pelting him with leaves of emotions and the dust of histories unknown. Cosmic equations ran through his brain and rearranged the neurons in a flash, only to settle them into new and different patterns with the next barrage of knowledge. His heart burned with emotions unfelt to him or any living being, yet all so comfortable. Visions swam through the mind’s eye of beings that had never been born and longed to find a place in the material realm. Soon enough that’s all Phum could see.

More and more the neverborn spirits churned behind his eyes. Some took notice but left him be. Others swam in a sea of thought toward him with hunger in their many eyes but faded before reaching the shore of his corporeal form. They were hungry, and close, but Phum was not yet deep enough in the endless sea for them to reach him. How did he knows this? What did it mean? Did it matter?

Then the connection collapsed, leaving him winded and his mind three generations older. He had lived and died countless lifetimes in a single breath and blink, yet here he still stood. The sensations had been remarkable. Never had Phum seen or felt or known so much, and never had he wanted something so badly as he did that wind to tug on his spirit once more. It had given him no tangible memories save for a singular name: Zephyr. But it was a fleeting experience, and now gone. Perhaps forever. Only the colors and lights in the sky remained, a thankful reminder of the temporary gift given to him. That, and a strange itching in his freshly wounded hand. And though he scratched, it would not sate the sensation.

But the time for stalling had run out. Phum tore his gaze away from the sky and quietly entered his home. Sure enough, without the touch of the Zephyr - that is what he should call it now, yes? - on and behind his eyes the world had returned to the static trial of futility he had come to loathe. As expected, Marae sat upright in their shared bed, waiting for him with arms crossed.

“Again?”

“Yes. Again.”

“How many times has it been this month, Phum? How many? You know what, it doesn’t matter. You’re just going to keep running away from me, aren’t you?”

“Marae…”

“No, don’t! Why are you doing this? What possibly be pulling you away so many nights?”

“Marae, the lights-”

“Oh don’t you start with that nonsense again! Phum… I know you think you see them, but there’s nothing there. I’ve told you. The children have told you. Your own mother has told you. There are no lights! Nothing out there bar stars and emptiness.”

Like clockwork, the argument progressed as expected. Her words had filled with rage at the start, but calmed into worry, and would soon enough slip into a loving comfort. On and on, night after night, the same unbearable routine. Never changing. Never.

Phum wanted out. He wanted away from this life. He wanted something different, something new! He couldn’t find that here, but the Zephyr… the Zephyr could give him the change that he wanted. Still scratching at his palm, something inside Phum knew he had reached his tipping point. Whatever happened tonight, there was no going back. Not anymore.

“Marae, I can’t… I can’t do this…”

“No!”

She shout at him now, rising from the bed and storming toward him. Her lips quivered and her brown eyes were glistening but only anger bled from her condemning words. Though a full head shorter than Phum she grabbed his clothes and pulled him down, imposing her presence upon him.

“You do not get to give up, Phum. We have a life, and children, and you don’t get to run away. Whatever… ugh, whoever you’re escaping to all these nights isn’t going to fix what’s bothering you any more than you think leaving us will. So don’t you dare start threatening to leave us!”

She was right. Of course she was. In his later years, a part of Phum would no doubt remember this moment and reflect on how correct she was. There would be a twinge of regret at what he knew was going to happen. How did he know it though? He had not premeditated is coming actions. Had he seen them when the Zephyr coursed through his essence? Perhaps there was a gift of foresight still lingering from his gazing at the sky. But were his coming actions his own, or the will of the Zephyr? Was his still himself, or had he become a puppet of Fate…? Could he still change his mind, change his will, and act differently from what he foresaw, for what Fate dictated?

It didn’t matter - he didn’t want to.

His left hand moved fast, faster than it should have any right to move, and clamped onto his wife’s throat. She would have screamed if his grip had allowed her to breathe. His soul was burning as he felt the cut on his palm rip open. Marae’s eyes grew wide, filled with horror and pain. Phum watched her gaze change as he watched the sprites of the Neverborn dance around her body. He could see it all now. He didn’t need the night sky to see what should be seen. He was free. He was now with the Zephyr always.

Marae did scream now, but not with her voice. Not in this realm. Her soul cried out to Phum, pleading within him and begging him to stop. He could feel it calling to him. And then he could simply feel her soul. It was draining, slipping from the host of her flesh and away, into his palm. Her body grew limp, her eyes rolling back, her skin growing grey. The husk of her body had quickly lost all living presence, but still his hand continued to feed. Whatever wisps and tendrils of energy remained in the heap of flesh drained into the void of his palm. And then it finished, having sucked the woman dry, and dropped her to the floor in a heap.

Phum was panting, and sweating, and trembling. That… that had been such a rush! He truly felt himself draining Marae’s soul away. And she still swam within him, a prisoner to his will, trapped eternally behind his mind. He had fed on her, but she had not truly died. Her spirit pounded at the walls of his will, seeking freedom it would not find. This pleased Phum, and the Zephyr. Looking now at his palm he saw the rift that hand opened - devoid of all light and color, blacker than the night, and stretching for hundreds of impossible meters deep. Marae was in there. And so would be many more.

The sudden twitching of her physical body caught Phum’s attention. It was moving, muscles spasming, as if trying to return to life. But Phum knew better, thanks to the Zephyr’s knowledge. Taking her soul had created a void, and a void demands to be filled. It must be. That is the law of the universe. So with such an open void waiting, one of the more ambitious Neverborn leapt into the body, eager to fill it and join the material realm.

The skin and muscles were dancing, shifting, growing, mutating, all to accommodate their new host. The being within wished to remake the inadequate human flesh into something better, something proper. On and on the flesh remoulded itself into forms never seen by mortal eyes. But the husk of Marae could not endure the strain of the Daemon. It was too weak, and the entity too eager to remake it.

Phum had barely enough time to shield his eyes as the flesh burst out in all directions, coating the room and him with endless mists of viscera and gore. Bone and sinew and muscle had all vaporized into a pale pink splatter in all directions, leaving no trace that a woman had once lived and breathed in the occupied space. Phum watched the angered but delighted Daemon fade once more into the rolling winds of the Zephyr, waiting for its next chance.

He left the bedroom then, watching with amusement as the aerosolized remains of his wife began to sublimate into a black smoke and float away on an invisible breeze. The powers of the Zephyr had quite literally erased her from existence, save for her soul trapped beneath Phum’s. It had felt… so amazing. He wanted more, more of that feeling. He wanted to give unto the Zephyr so much more! But how, and whom?

And that was when Phum opened the door to his children’s room, knowing already exactly what would happen and never once thinking he should stop…

***

When he did not arrive for their next rendezvous, Khiba sought out her lover. It was unlike him to say nothing for so long, and to not show himself for their trysts. Something had changed.

She didn’t want to go to his hab - lest his wife be there - but she was left with no choice. Something had happened and she had to make sure Phum was okay. To be able to know this, and reassure herself, was worth the risk of Marae being home. Planning to knock three times, Khiba stopped after the first when it pushed open, never having been latched or locked. Feeling uneasy at this, she stepped into the silent home and called out for Phum.

There had been no answer each time she called out, but she eventually found him. He was sitting in the kitchen, alone at the table, staring at his hand. The man was lost in a reverie of his own mind, oblivious to the world around him. Khiba approached slowly, not wanting to startle him. She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat, leaning forward, but staying quiet. She waiting for many moments before finally speaking up.

“Phum?”

He didn't look away from his hand. He was enraptured with it. But he did at least finally speak.

“Hm?”

“Where’s Marae, where’s the kids?”

“...gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Just… gone. Completely gone.”

His words were unsettling, not just for what they said but in how he was saying them. There was a calm finality to his tone. And no remorse.

“Phum, I-”

“You need to leave, Khiba. You need to leave now.”

“Phum, why?”

Only then did he look at her. His eyes were no longer the dark chocolate brown she had looked into so many times. The irises had mutated beyond a singular color now. They were an ever-shifting landscape of every hue, pigment, and color known to man as well as unknown. On and on the colors rolled, exactly like Phum described the night sky to be. He thrust out his palm to her, and the contrast was exceptional. The hole that sat there was devoid of all color and light, a seemingly endless pit in the center of the young man’s hand.

“Because of this, Khiba. Because I’ve changed into something… and I don’t know what it is! I have thoughts that are mine but aren’t. I see the sky at all times as I do at night. I feel creatures all around us, scraping at a door to try and get in. I know things I shouldn’t know. I hear what can’t be heard. And my hand… my hand…

“It fed on them, Khiba. Mara and the kids, it consumed them. Their inside me now; I still feel them! Forever there, trapped within me… and I like it. I have been tormenting them for hours and hours, destroying their souls only to remake them again. I can’t get enough. And I want more. I want to consume more, Khiba. No, I don’t. I don’t want it. But the Zephyr does. So I will, I’ll do it for the Zephyr. So you have to leave, before I do it to you…”

Phum was pleading with her now, desperate for her to go. A brief streak of sanity had found him now, all thanks to her presence. As she had before when he first bedded her, Khiba gave him a clarity he could not find anywhere else. But she wasn’t running away. She almost looked… happy?

“You’re finally ready. I’ve waited so long. Don’t worry, Phum. You won’t harm me. I know it.”

“How… how do you know that?”

Her face shifted into a knowing smile, one that was just as much the playful woman he knew as it was an alien malice not too dissimilar from the one consuming him from within. The grinned widened more and more, more than should be possible for a human mouth. The rows of teeth went on and on, a second row of needle fangs pulling down from her gums and aiding to her beastial smile. But then her eyes began to change too. The cerulean pools began to churn and swim around her pupils, with new colors bleeding in. Phum watched with captivation as her eyes changed and boiled with the lights and colors of the night sky.

“Because the Zephyr told me, darling.”

[Trevak Dal]

I really enjoyed all three stories, Carrack continuing the Black Maw's campaign against the Aspis Sub Sector, Scourged with a story of a Champion who got a promotion on the whim of one of the gods', but Kierdale's depiction of the devolution of the Black Stallions from honored (if unappreciated by their brother marines) Loyalists to petty Team Killers, driven and corrupted by their desires.

 

Kierdale, I choose you!

[Kierdale]

Magnum Opus

Hidden Content

The applause was deafening, reverberating about the theater as the ten thousand present worshipped him. His chest vibrated reminding him of the times his father had taken him as a child to watch the Guard’s Valkyries practicing maneuvers, boy and father watching through the razorwire mesh about the landing field. How their engines had shook his chest as they accelerated away.

The flashes of cameras were blinding. Servo skulls and dove-winged putti hovering, fluttering and circling as the Valkyrie and Vendettas had. Some orbited him, the center of attention on the planet Fulcrum.

There he stood, beside his latest masterpiece, his magnum opus, basking in the adulation of the masses. His was a true skill, one honed and tempered over decades, steadily producing fine sculptures each surpassing not only his last but also those of his peers and those who sought to attain the same lofty position of recognition which he held. Minor artists, who shot to fame with single works that caught the attention of the masses, the mood of the moment, only to be unable to replicate that initial miracle were soon forgotten and indeed their names spat upon by the populace as a master such as he unveiled his latest sculpture.

Stood to the side of the stage in a flowing dress of emerald green, having refused to stand by his side - claiming the spotlight was for him and him only - she looked upon him with a smile a shade weaker than those of the promoters and sycophants about her. She could see too that the smile upon his own face was to some degree as a mask. His pride was genuine, and he basked in the glory of his latest piece, but they had been together since his earliest years and she knew him too well. She knew that as soon as he finished a piece, as soon as he stood back to proclaim it complete, his interest in it deserted him. This was both a source of sorrow and excitement, the latter as he was usually seized immediately by the urge to set to work upon a newer, superior work. These shows for the media were usually a torturous bore for him as they kept him from his workshop.

But this time she could not see the fire in his eyes. Only the misery.

 

 

He awoke sheathed in sweat, pulling the silk sheets from his shaking body and rising, his eyes wide, his mind sharp. Shocked into full waking by the dream. Pulling on his simple clothes – he was able to dress in the darkness of the night with ease, his wardrobe filled with naught but identical sets – he made his way down to his workshop, leaving her sleeping in their bed. He looked upon his works from the day before and sighed at their unsightliness. They bored him, they sickened him. This was the fifth night in a row now, but this time he did not take up his chisel and attempt to redeem the figure in grey-veined marble. Rather he cried out in tired anguish and took his hammer to it.

She found him that morning, covered in dust and stone chips, collapsed amongst the wreckage. He wept as she comforted him, his head in her lap.

“I am spent. I am forsaken. My muse is gone.”

 

Apothecaries prescribed medicines to ease his slumber, lethe-balm and others, to no avail and soon he sought proscribed tinctures from more shadowy sources, claiming to her that the government-stamped concoctions were insufficient. But in truth his desperation drove him to seek inspiration anywhere he might find it. Inspiration and escape from the nightmares, which soon began to haunt his waking hours too. That figure that watched him from the shadows, always in the corner of his eye. That staring face.

Soon his fortunes were dwindling, whittled away on myriad opiates none of which succeeded in opening his mind as he wished they would, nor any which served as a bane to that steadily nearing, haunting visage with its gaping mouth, always shrouded in the greys of shadow. More wealth too went on obtaining stone. Limestone, marble, gypsum and more. All too often hewn to smithereens in his nightly rages at their imperfection and ugliness.

While the masses called out for his newest piece, all too eager to see their hero once again surpass himself, rumours arose that he was indeed spent; no greater a talent that those he had trod upon with each of his works until this point. And there were some who believed that he worked upon newer, secret pieces; they sought him out and despite his initial refusals to grant any of these individuals an audience, they were persistent. And wealthy. He found himself parting with his monstrosities, his failures, each time taking their money as they carried away his faults. And at the back of his mind he always feared one of these might unveil his deformed figures, the twisted images that came to him now and had become all that he could render real. What would the masses think of him then?

Yet, what did he care for the masses? Did he make his art to please them? Did he hunger for their adulation? He had shunned it as it had kept him from his work. What then was his purpose? What had driven him and what drove him now?

All these buyers promised to keep his works secret, for their private collections, and urged him on to create wilder, more exotic imagery, some going as far as offering up themselves and their slaves as subjects. He reviled them yet his hands could do naught but turn those nightmare images into the most skilfully rendered of statuary. And these shadowy collectors loved him for it.

 

あShe left him, distraught at his withered appearance and his addiction to those potions which his new sponsors now provided him with, and he barely noticed. The face grew closer now, in his nightmares and his daylight hallucinations. The deep, shadowy, soulless eye sockets, the skin of the cheeks stretched taught, the mouth gaping as if screaming. The eerie pale green face of a devil.

He ventured forth into the daylight, wincing at the flashes and stares from those who spotted and managed to recognise the shadow of the man he once was. He sought out the grand libraries of Fulcrum but in no file nor tome no matter how old, could he find images like that he now saw unceasingly, like the afterimage burned into one’s retina from gazing too long at incandescence.

Nor in the arcane and forbidden texts of his patrons, filled with imagery which they found lurid and arousing, yet he sought and could be satisfied only with that which haunted him.

 

And that night he awoke, the face having danced its way closest, his eyes opening to find amid the clutter of his bedchamber but one item standing unbroken and unsoiled: the pic of she and he from many years ago, upon the bedside table.

Superimposed upon hers was the face that haunted him. He saw, or was shewn, the truth of it now.

 

“W-what has become of you?” her voice quavered, almost a whisper. Stark contrast to the scream she had emitted as he had broken into her bed chamber. It had not been hard to track her down. Mutual friends had looked upon him with pity, aiding his search for her in the hope that she might save him. In a manner of speaking, they might have been right.

She wept as she beheld his sallow features, his veins prominent and his skin as translucent as the finest marble he had once worked into masterpieces which had fascinated a world.

“No, no, not like that,” he shook his head as he looked at her tear-streaked face, his hands reaching out for it. She backed away.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said quickly, his voice softening. “I’m not angry. I don’t mind your haunting me. But please, please…”

She scrambled across the bed, putting it between them, trying to edge her way toward the door.

“Get away from me!” she said, once spoken, the second time shouted. In that moment, her jaw stretched wide, her eyes creased, he almost saw it.

“Yes! That’s it! That’s it!” his voice rose with elation. “Show me again! Show me it again!”

When she screamed, he pounced.

 

 

The scents awoke him, though in truth he would never really wake again: his physical form broken and punctured by the shots of the arbites who had discovered him stood over her body. And yet he awoke, his nose stimulated by aromas until now unknown to him. Bouquets so rich, so tantalising that his mind was bewitched before it had a chance to question its existence. 

Though his masterful craft had afforded him great comfort in life, no couch or bed he had been able to purchase could compare to that upon which he awoke and it took all of his will to open his eyes and rise from the divan, so comfortable was it that he might lose himself to slumber once more and enter a sleep eternal.

He found himself in a bed chamber - the walls, floor and ceiling all of marble: the floor blue in hue, the veins giving the impression of waves so realistic he might sink into them as he stood from the couch. The ceiling blocks a rich shade of green, the lines upon them winding like vines, a canopy over his dell of stone. And the walls. He ran his hands over the pristine white. A momentary urge took him and he wish to lash out and deface their beauty, before his mind settled and he looked upon the walls seeing not their flawless surfaces but rather the grand images he might carve into them. Figures reclining and engorging themselves upon fine victuals, cavorting with beings half-beast and half-man, and others neither entirely male nor female.

Either the change of environment or some agent of the perfumes which wafted from the censers mounted upon the walls, he knew not, only that his muse was returned and invigorated.

He turned about, finding a doorway where one had not been seconds before and followed the passage, his bare feet finding the marble refreshingly cool, until the winding way lead him to a workshop. He was surrounded by a master sculptor’s array of tools and before him upon a table stood a block of finest jadeite. Closing his eyes he ran his hands over it, a contented smile slowly growing upon his face and his hands drifted to the tools at his side. He took them up without looking and set to work, the image fixed in his mind.

 

An indeterminate time later - he had ceased his toiling for neither food nor water, sleep nor the call of nature - his work was complete. As if summoned at that precise moment, one of the lilac-skinned beings appeared, running its clawed hand down his spine, the touch neither hard nor soft, warm nor cool yet sending shivers throughout his body. Its other arm ended in a humanoid hand of five slender fingers with which it raised the artist’s chin so that he faced her. His eyes wandered her face - if it truly was entirely female, for upon its chest was a single breast, protruding above a corset of silver and mail - as if seeing a dream made real.

With shaking hands he raised his work and placed it upon her face, looking into the cold, dark sockets of the jade mask.

[Carrack]

I can't seem to get a readable story out this time for the contest. I did write this story though, it can count as a late entry for the Daemon Engine contest.

Nazatl the Unleashed

 

 

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww256/Carrack1/IMG_9512_zps5tucyj5e.jpg

 

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Night of the Blood Feast

We bled for Nazatl long before the Night of the Blood Feast, never forget that. It's true that our enemies bled more, but we bled as well, Nazatl demanded it.

 

To bring the rains, we shed blood. To start every growing season, we would march captives up the stairs to the altar, day and night, until the heavens opened up with life-giving rain. Our fields' thirst for rain was never satisfied until Nazatl's thirst for blood was first quenched. Some years there simply wasn't enough captives.

 

Likewise, if the rains were too abundant, and our fields threatened to swamp, we went to war with our neighbors, to march more of them up to the altar to placate our capricious Nazatl.

 

Blood was not the only offering Nazatl would accept. Artifacts of the Ancients would stay the blades of his priests. Chunks of the ore that could not be melted nor marred with obsidian blade, ceramite, would be accepted by the priests instead of blood. Nests of the shiny vines called cables or wires could also be substituted for hearts on the altar of Nazatl. Our vassal tribes would scour the ruins of the Ancients for such tribute to offer to Nazatl, in effort to keep our warriors out of their lands and their people from climbing the steps of Nazatl's temple.

 

Every year our warriors went out for Nazatl, to capture sacrifices and extort tribute. Some years they gathered enough blood and artifacts to start and stop the rains. Some years we were forced to offer up our own; our criminals, our weak, our infirm, and our poor, would climb the steps never to descend.

 

The thirst and hunger of Nazatl could never be predicted. There were times he was so hungry he would swallow the moon or the sun, and the priests could only convince him to vomit back our sources for warmth and light with mass sacrifices of our own people. Games were held and the losers lost more than their pride. Their blood would channel down the grooves of the altar to the heart of the temple that only the priest could enter. In the heart of the temple dwelt Nazatl. He was never seen, except by the priest, until the first Night of the Blood Feast.

 

On the first Night of the Blood Feast, Nazatl's hunger was so great, he brought the very stars down from the heavens to feast upon them. We lamented for our warriors had not yet went forth from our lands and we had no captives. We cowered in our dwellings that night, fearful of our god. Yet with thunderous voices, our priests announced that Nazatl could be persuaded to go into the heavens and feast on the stars that remained there. His hunger would be sated forever and ever, and he would allow the rains to come and go for us in eternal blessing. However, he would need nourishment for his journey, and the priests would open the temple, and allow Nazatl to feed on the blood of his faithful one last time. We would be held hostage to the hunger of Nazatl no more. All we needed was one last sacrifice and we would end our constant wars. For peace, and with joyous hearts, we left our dwellings in celebration. Nazatl was terrible to behold, and he slaughtered many that night, but it was the final price we were to pay, and we paid it willingly, so you and your children would never have to walk the steps of the temple, or go forth to make war so others would walk in your place. This is the reason we celebrate the Feast of Blood.

[Kierdale]

I did not get round to commenting earlier on the Bikers entries, so will do so now:

Carrack, I loved the breaking of seals in your entry, and the description of the riders. Very biblical. The descriptions of the desert and Water Gardens too made them easily imaginable. Excellent stuff.

And Scourged’s Dark Humor. Good stuff! Xeph was truly blessed!

Thank you for your entries in Inspirational Friday: The Warp.

I was sad to see only one entry besides my own for IF: The Warp…then Carrack gave us his work at the last moment!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Scourged’s Night Sky. Phum’s description of what he saw brought to mind images of a twisted Aurora Borealis, and reminded me of Ian Watson’s Warped Stars. As I read about Phum’s boredom with his monotonous life I could see Tzeentch painting a target on the mortal’s soul. Your description of the warp wind and the daemons he could see as the Zeyphr touched him was great. I loved that his first kill’s body was not...shall we say wasted? That something tried to fill that void. That it failed messily was even better than if it had succeeded (which might have been too early in the story for Phum in my opinion).

And his dark, dark descent!

Night of the Blood Feast was Carrack’s entry. I loved this too, it bringing to mind some kind of primitive tribe existing on a world once more advanced, worshipping a being known as Nazatl, placating and beseeching it via sacrifice. I can only assume Nazatl is a daemon prince or some form of incarnation of Khorne. I liked that so much was left unexplained – were the tribe getting cables and ceramite from the ruins of an older culture/settlement? Or had some battle taken place there and these were the pickings?

And that the tribe payed such a terrible price on the first night of the Feast of Blood so that no more needed be sacrificed...Nazatl was banished or permanently placated in some way?

And in my piece, Magnum Opus, I gave an origin to the jade masks worn by the daemonettes of my warband, the image having been planted in the mind of an artist; haunting him and sapping his usual artistic talent, warping it until he finds the truth of the image and has to take a terrible step in order to achieve his goal.

I had wondered about, at the end of the story, the daemonette being sent to haunt the artist, making a kind of time-loop/paradox, but though it probably better left out.

Here ends Inspirational Friday: The Warp though if you have more pieces on the topic, as always feel free to post them at any time with a suitable title to the post.

Here begins our seventh challenge of Inspirational Friday 2017:

Hive War

Inspired by Shadow Wars: Armageddon, this challenge’s theme is warfare upon a hive world. From Armageddon though Arcadia, Ashek II, Medusa V and Stalinvast to the homeworld of the Astral Claws: Badab Prime and perhaps the most famous of Eta-class worlds itself: Necromunda, the hive worlds of the Imperium of Man are vast and teem with live, the majority of it in squalor.

And what lies between the towering spires of the hives: ash wastes, deserts, monster-filled jungles or raging seas?

And not all hive worlds are under the purview of the Imperium, for how many are Chaos worlds? What horror exist in vast hives whose millions-strong populaces are devoted to the Primordial Annihilator?

Be it an all-out assault upon a hive world (to what end?) or the account of a kill-team dispatched from your warband/legion to carry out a covert mission, over the next two weeks tell us a tale of the agents of Chaos active upon a hive world.

Inspirational Friday: Hive War runs until the 14th of April.

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: me!

And it’s not an easy choice (it rarely is when those two submit entries). I really enjoyed both entries and the images they conjured up. Nice that we had a Tzeentchian, a Khornate and a Slaaneshi entry...sadly no showing for Papa Nurgle...

I have chosen Scourged’s Night Sky as the winner this time as the imagery of the warp bleeding through the sky, that only Phum could see, really impressed me.

Scourged step forward and claim the Octed Amulet:

I do realise that Scourged may be moving around this time so, unless he posts that he can judge the next IF, I’d like to offer judging of IF: Hive War to Carrack.

[Kierdale]

I read Carrack's post - and made the update - via my phone. Now I've seen the hidden images I understand your Daemon Engine comment! :)

[Carrack]

Thanks Kierdale. I had a blast with the maulerfiend, and it is my best creation so far. The pictures don't do it justice. I'll be happy to judge if Scourged is busy moving across the states. Also, Magnum Opus was one of your better stories, and that's saying a lot.

[Carrack]

Assault on Calebra Hive

 

Putting an Ear to the Door

 

Cancon's skin crawled as they made their way through the mobbed street. He couldn't let his warriors know how uncomfortable this hive made him, and it wasn't just from being in the abode of the enemy either. It was the hive itself. He had been raised on the open prairie, and the confining pressure of being underground was wearing on his nerves. Honestly, he didn't even know if he was truly underground or not, such concepts were meaningless anyway, when miles of city were both piled above him and stacked beneath his feet. His feet hurt too, which was a sensation he had not experienced in many years, given a warrior's life constantly on the march, but the mix of cobblestone, ferrocrete, and flagstone were wearing calluses in his hardened feet. The confining, pressing nature of the urban landscape was amplified by the pressing of the teeming mobs crowding the streets. Cancon had to hunch his broad shoulders inward to keep his personal space, and shorten his swaggering stride so as not to trip over the feet of the surging sea of humanity. Even so, he was jostled and pressed with every step. There were subtle things about the hive that unnerved Cancon as well, his life of forced marches and long patrols had taught him that a ten minute walk was not long enough to travel any significant distance, yet here, ten minutes carried him into entirely new cultures, with different languages, different styles of clothing, different aromas in the air, it was unnatural how much could change in such a brief journey.

 

Cancon struggled to control his nerves as he glanced back to check his warriors. He could only spot two of the nine in the crowd, both following at loose interval, but he could tell they were having difficulties similar to his own. Harkin had his hand stuffed underneath the folds of his clothing, no doubt gripping his weapon, even though they were told gunfire in the streets of this level could compromise their mission. Jella, a few paces back in the file, was making subtle ward gestures with her hands, invoking the protection of the true gods. Like all of Cancon's warriors, she had been told any display of faith was strictly forbidden outside of their squad's bolt hole. Fortunately, these followers of the Corpse God were an ignorant bunch, and failed to recognize the gestures. This puzzled Cancon, he had been raised with teachings of how to recognize the enemies of the gods, and had assumed the reverse was true, but the common Imperial seemed oblivious to his religion's antithesis. Cancon even wondered if the precautions his lord had taken in selecting warriors for this mission were necessary. Only warriors like himself without readily visible gifts from the gods had been selected to venture into the heart of Calebra Hive.

 

Cancon saw the faded blue awning of his objective, and glanced at the ground around him. When he saw a sewage grate he raised his hand in signal, then shook his wrist as if he was working out a cramp. The signal was seen and relayed to Yarl, the rear most warrior in his file. He made his way past the objective house's front and stopped at the lamp post on the corner, lighting a lho stick. Harkin and Jella passed by him and turned, circling the house to take up a position on the opposite block corner from Cancon, they would watch the rear exit. The rest of his warriors took up positions under the awning, or with Cancon at the lamppost, save Yarl. Yarl stopped at the sewage grate and dropped a can shaped object down the grate, only to curse as it bounced off the catch-shelf to drop down the drain several levels and dump out into an alleyway. He fumbled in his pocket and grabbed his second, and last can. He twisted the lid on the can and pulled a ring from the base, then dropped the can with a silent prayer to The Weaver of Fates. This can bounced once on the catch-shelf, but came to rest without falling down the drain. A few moment later it began spewing forth a thick, noxious, black smoke. The crowd began to panic. It was like a herd stampeding in every direction. Cancon and the warriors with him at the lamppost struggled against the waves of humanity to get to the door beneath the awning. It was like swimming against a strong current, they almost got swept away. They reached the awning just before Yarl came rushing to the door dropping his shoulder into the aged plastic board. The door almost came off the hinges, and Yarl, expecting more resistance stumbled onto the floor just inside the room. Cancon leapt over Yarl drawing his pistol and blade. His warriors followed suit.

 

The room was dimly lit by a couple of smokey candles. It had almost no furnishings, save a surprisingly ornate wooden desk with a bulky vox station mounted on top. Two figures lay amongst some old guard issue sleeping rolls in the far corners, while a ginger haired man sat at the desk listening to a headset, and a burly man leaned against the far wall under a wide brimmed hat, with a lasrifle slung over one shoulder across his chest. As Cancon and his warriors burst into the door, the soft coughing of silenced pistol shots shooting into the lasrifle toting sentry preceded the wet thuds of blades and truncheons doing their dirty work on the sleeping forms and the vox operator. The sentry must have been wearing armor underneath his duster, because he was able to withstand the pistol shots and spray the warriors, dropping two, before he was felled by Cancon's whale skinner through the left eye. The room was cleared.

 

As his warriors took up stations at the doors, Cancon went over to the vox station. He took a mental note of the positions of the three dials before noticing that the outer channel indicator ring on the middle dial had been shifted. He applied pressure and slowly turned the ring till it clicked into place, and took note of the actual channel. Meanwhile, Yarl removed a black box that was jury rigged to the antenna outlet and handed it to Cancon, the encryption device they were after. Then, Minos, one of Cancon's surviving warriors, emptied a bottle of grain alcohol onto the power outlet the vox station was plugged into, as others sprinkled the room with similar bottles. Cancon whispered prayers while he searched his two fallen warriors for anything that would betray their allegiances. It was a somber task, but the warriors knew that if they fell this day, that is where they would lay. None had expressed any fear of such a fate. In the end, Cancon was forced to skin a tribal tattoo that had The Eye of Horus intertwined within its skulls and vines motif. Once the gruesome task was finished, the warriors filed out the back door and linked up with Harton and Jella. The last to leave, Cancon turned as he exited the door and flicked the lit lho stick he had started smoking before they breeched the door onto the alcohol soaked outlet by the desk. It lit up like a tinderbox. Cancon was under no illusions that this fire would conceal the evidence of his raid from all but the most cursory of investigations, but perhaps it would buy them a day or two of time to get away. As he passed by his warriors they began falling in behind him single file as he made his way back to the bolt hole.

Slim Chance

 

Previously....Yarl stopped at the sewage grate and dropped a can shaped object down the grate, only to curse as it bounced off the catch-shelf to drop down the drain several levels and dump out into an alleyway...

 

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

 

Bull had been up on the slaught for at least five days straight, as far as Slim could reckon anyway. The red eyes framed with dark bags gave away his lack of sleep, and the pacing and shaking in barely controlled fits gave away the reason for his lack of sleep. This was not good. Not good for the health of the gang's leader for sure, but not good for anyone around him either, and that included Slim. Not making eye contact, Slim carefully shifted himself out of the inner circle of the gang as he edged towards the ally's entrance. "Where you going Slim?" Asked the hulking Bull as he drew his large bore shotgun from across his back sheaf. "Ah, uh, nowhere boss." Slim started to reply before a metallic clang interrupted him. The clang came from a can dropping from a sewage drain above the alley. The can was sparking from one end before a soft "pop" sounded and the can started emitting clouds of black irritating smoke. The gangers eyes started watering and snot started dripping profusely from everyone's noses. The first to act, unfortunately was Bull, he bellowed out, "This means war!" He then rushed out the ally and started unloading his shotgun into random pedestrians in the street. This was bad.

 

The first thing Slim had learned in the gang, and other gangers had as well, was that when Bull started shooting, you better be shooting too. Up till this point however, that lesson had only been practiced on rival gangers, people no one, like the authorities for instance, cared about. Now Bull was massacring random subjects. Slim had no choice though, so he racked the slide on his autopistol and took aim at an old man walking up the street with a plastic sack of ration tubes and water.

 

When it was all said and done, over a hundred civilians lay dead in the streets, along with Bull and his entire gang. Half of the gangers were killed by civilians in self defense, this was the kind of neighborhood where people sometimes traveled armed. The other half were dropped by Arbites executioner shells or power mauls. The area was cordoned off by order of the Adeptus Arbites, and an investigation was launched into the cause of this massacre. The Arbites investigation quickly focused on the excessive slaught consumption of the gangers and sought to find their source for the combat stims. This happened to pull resources away from the investigation of some mid-hive block fire that initial reports seemed to indicate being caused by faulty wiring.

 

Author note.

My writer's block continues. I've started a couple stories, but can't seem to get anything good going. I'll go ahead and post the story that started my Assault on Calebra Hive campaign, since I can't seem to match it as far as capturing the essence of a hive war for me.

Edited April 9, 2017 by Carrack

[Scourged]

Hey all. I'm finally back. The Windy City has welcomed me with open arms, much like the eternal embrace of the Warp. It's nice to finally be settled once more (and have at-home Internet again, heh). And thank you, Kierdale, for selecting me as the winner! I had fun trying to develop the indescribable imagery of the Immaterium so I'm glad others enjoyed it too. I look forward to reading about the Hive Wars. 

[brettfp]

I'll be posting this in its own thread soon when I start the WIP for this warband, I'm not sure its really "Hive War" but its the intro for my circus-themed nurgle cultists kill team for Shadow War so i though it would be close enough, it's short because I'm not much of a writer, just a bit of fun

 

They came from the shadows
with a laugh and a grin
And sang to the man
enticing him in

“Roll up Roll up”
they merrily cried
“Prepare yourself
for a marvelous ride”

The clowns bounced around,
a dance and some flips
He watched them confused
then reached for his hip

His pistol was missing
“Who are you?” he snapped
Not noticing the Ringmaster
now at his back

The Ringmaster's dagger
plunged into his lung
“The Carnival of Rot,

we're here to have fun”

Edited April 11, 2017 by brettfp

[Kierdale]

Necromunda: Shadow Run

Hidden Content

He had to find Henke. He had to find Henke and tell him what had happened to the others. He prayed to the God Emperor that Henke was still alive.

He would be. Henke wasn't the biggest of the gang but he was the smartest. That was why he was the leader of their gang.

Or had been.

Were they still a gang when someone had geeked eight out of ten of them? Teun had been late for the meet but why hadn't Henke been there? Teun hadn't seen him in the brief search he'd done of the bodies. Very brief as his stomach hadn't been able to take any more.

He had to find Henke. He'd have answers.

Perhaps it had been that last dataslice? Teun had had a bad feeling about it.

Their gang, the Green Snakes, lacked the muscle or guns of many rival gangs in their hive so it had been Henke's idea to put his -Teun's- tech skills to use: they sliced data from corps in their and neighbouring spires and sold it to rival firms -they'd made some powerful contacts that way - and sometimes even back to those they stole the data from. In those cases the gang always kept a copy: a deadman's trigger in case the victim-come-client wanted pay back. Had someone they'd hit before decided enough was enough and sent a hit on them? Teun didn't think they'd sliced anyone who would go to such lengths. But whoever had done it had been armed. Teun had run with the Green Snakes for a few years now and he'd seen gangs clashing. The boom of shotguns, the rattle of auto pistols, but nothing like the devastation which had been wrought at the gang's hideout. And how had they been found?

Teun did the slicing via his own cranial jacks and the ware installed in his skull, and never from within Van Saar territory lest they bring heat down on their own clan. Had someone seen them and tracked them back?

He ran through an abandoned manufactorum, away from their hideout - constantly expecting to feel his back punctured with bullets - and toward the Ring: thirty floors of commerce catering to the spire's wealthy, he judged no one would try to murder him in such a crowd.

 

* * * * *

 

"Henke! It's me! It's Teun!"

The hololithic display in the cubicle had been vandalised but the voice that answered the call had been his leader's.

"Emperor's balls, Teun-"

"They're dead, Henke. DEAD. Everyone!"

Henke cursed, "Teun, I need you to do something for me. Where are you?"

"The Ring. Come meet me, man." His eyes searched the crowds about him, vaguely visible through the cubicle's misted plastek walls.

"I can't do that."

"Teun swore. "Was it that last slice? Did we piss someone off?"

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment.

"I think so. I think they're after what's in your head, Teun."

"Frakkit Henke! What have you got me into! I'm going to get it out. Get rid of it."

"Calm down, kid! You think that'll stop them? You think they'll believe that?"

"I- I- I'll go to the Judges! Get protection."

"Listen to yourself, Teun! They'll hack it out of you too, and probably do a fair bit of damage in the process."

"Help me, man!"

"Have you accessed it? Have you tried to open the file?"

"The file? No. No. Should-"

"Don't!" Henke quickly put in. "That might just save your neck, Teun."

Teun frowned, "How do you know this, Henke?" His hand waivered over the disconnect key.

Just listen. I'm working on a way to save both our hides. I need you to get your precious head and all that rattles around within it to the West Sumps, level 24C. Got it?"

Teun swore and looked about nervously.

"Got it?"

"Alright, alright. I got it."

He jabbed the key and swore again.

 

* * * * *

 

Old Cog was a burn out. Supposedly he'd once been a priest of Mars, a nagos or something. Teun didn't know the terms they used, only that Old Cog had always been. He'd always been there in the lower levels of Van Saar territory here in the hive, one people turned to when they couldn't get things fixed through official or clan channels. He knew things the clan had either forgotten or had never known. And his scrapyard, with its vaulted ceiling so high that mist filled it like clouds, was neutral territory for the clan's gangs and even those from the neighbouring Orlock sectors.

 

Old Cog's glowing amber eyes studied him, his chrome skull face canted inquisitively to one side under his oil stained, frayed-hemmed red hood.

"Interrogative: what do you offer in exchange for the safe removal of the data from your cranium?"

"You can keep it."

There was a bark of static from the former tech priest's mouth grill that Teun took to be an expression of mirth.

"It's worth something. Quite a bit I should think." If the heat coming down on me is any guide, he did not add.

"And if it's removal damages you?"

The young ganger shrugged. "Am I likely going to be able to complain?"

Another blurt of static.

"We shall proceed."

 

Minutes later Old Cog reeled backwards, retracting his probe from the youth's cranial jack as if he had been stung. Cog's three eyes dimmed and flickered and for a moment Teun worried that some protection on the file had killed the old priest.

"Exclamation: Blessed Omnissiah! The shapes! The patterns within patterns!"

Old Cog's eyes lit fully again and fixes upon Teun with an intensity the ganger found most uncomfortable.

"Why, I do believe I can remove the file, young Teun. I do believe I can. Just lie down now, lie still boy and this will not hurt a bit. I must see more of this. The patterns. The patterns."

Teun took a step backwards, his back hitting a pile of parts stacked up against the wall in Old Cog's little hovel.

"Command: come here, boy. You know not what you carry."

Teun then heard it: someone's foot splashing through one of the oily puddles in the junk yard. Years of sneaking about the hive, mainly avoiding the bigger gangs, his ears were accustomed. Old Cog did not react, but advanced on Teun, his wraith-like body held aloft by snaking metal tentacles.

Teun threw himself prone a split second before gunfire blew in the stained, scuffed windows on three sides, and he stayed down until the deafening roar subsided.

Only it didn't. Not entirely.

Debris ceased to fall on him after what he guessed was a minute or so, but he could still hear gunfire outside and the occasional shot tore through the hut...as if someone on one side were firing at someone on the other.

He heard cries and shouting from his left and right, raising his dust-covered head - his black hair and green leathers were now grey with debris - to peek out. To his left were others clad similarly to him: Van Saar youths, though the swirling blue and green tattoos on their cheeks marked them out as -who were they again? Henke had told him, warned him in fact, when he had joined...the Dragons? The Jinx? - either way, they were no friends of the Green Snakes. And on the other side he spotted other gangs sprinting from one pile of junk to another. Orlocks, judging by their jackets. They were breaking the agreement? No trouble on Old Cog's turf. Not that Cog was likely to protest: he'd copped a fair bit of someone's opening volley and was down, leaking blood and oil.

 

He ran. He didn't know what direction but he ran from the nearest gunfire, sliding round a corner in the junkyard, behind a burned-out rockgrinder truck and bounced off something as hard as ceramite, landing on his butt in another puddle of oil.

He looked up at the rippled muscles of a bare-chested Goliath, who lowered the huge muzzle of a revolver into his face.

 

* * * * *

 

Teun had never seen the ash wastes that stretched like dunes, seemingly endlessly between the huge hives of Necromunda. He squinted, never having seen anything at any great distance, but could make out nothing unless he craned his head back to look through the windows at his home hive, rapidly receding. Ahead the rail stretched onward into the darkness of a siltstorm.

Head shaven, stripped of his gang’s green leathers and now bare chested, he looked a poor excuse for a Goliath. The musclebound gang had grabbed him and ran, losing a couple of their number who had stayed as a rearguard. Those who now sat about him on the train had reminded him several times that their mates had died so that they could get him. He would have been quite happy if they hadn’t bothered...but then again if they hadn’t likely he would have ended up in either the hands of those Orlocks or his rival Van Saar gang who were gunning for him.

What the hell was it he had in his head?

Central Imports Agency. That had been the target.

CIA. It sounded innocent enough.

Whatever it was, evidently these Goliaths had come far to get him. They had bundled him into a compartment on the train, cramming themselves in around him and intimidating anyone else who attempted to enter. Either they were taking him back where they’d come from, or they were taking him to meet whoever had set them on his trail...which was particularly worrying: the Green Snakes had sliced a corp within their own hive. Why was payback coming from elsewhere?

Perhaps if he’d listened to Henke and gotten his hide to the West Sumps, level 24C he wouldn’t be in this mess.

He opened his mouth to ask his abductors once again where they were taking him, but the flared nostrils and grimace of the mohawked thug before him, as broad and tall as a Cthellean Cudbear, stopped him before he started. He looked out the window, first at the storm darkening the horizon ahead, then down from the thin rail the train sped across to its unknown destination beyond that storm, down to the silt flats a dozen meters below. He frowned as a shadow shot across the grey wastes and a second later the windows vibrated. The roar of engines then came as a small shuttle – an Aquila lander he thought it was – circled and dropped to fly level with the train. Dangerously low considering a slight gust could kick up clouds of dust which would clog a flyer’s engines in seconds. If it intended to race the train through that storm up ahead it was surely going to lose. Terminally.

The flyer accelerated and Teun could briefly make out a corporate logo on the fuselage. Not the arbites then, thank the God Emperor. But wait...that logo...not CIA, but one of their past jobs? They’d done so many recently he couldn’t remember! Dammit, where was Henke? He’d been the one who picked their jobs. Picked their targets.

How long had it been since he’d found Arnout, Guust, Hubrecht Wouter and the others dead? How long had Henke set the deadman’s release on their stockpile of stolen data? He started to panic that their cache of blackmail data had already been released but no...surely Henke would have sent the daily clear-code to keep it safe...right? Right?

The train shook and everyone pushed their faces to the window to peer forward. Someone aboard the small shuttle had hauled open a side hatch and the large-bore barrel of some kind of weapon protruded from it. The train shook again as fire was spat from the cannon barrel and everyone swore as the rail gave way, throwing the train like a vast chain, to the ground.

 

* * * * *

 

Sparks gave the only illumination within the battered and twisted carriage. The stink of blood was thick in the air and the wind blew in harshly from holes in the metalwork. Light and silt streamed in through these holes and the wind nearly-screamed outside. The light was dying. He didn’t think he’d been knocked out, so it wasn’t the sun setting.

The storm. It must be hitting.

Muscled bodies lied bent and broken on the floor, or the left wall actually, as the train car they were aboard had rolled as it fell. Teun was glad the bastards worked out as hard as they seemed to have – or pumped themselves full of as much stim as they must have – for their bulk had broken his fall and cushioned him in the crash. Aside from enough bruising to turn his entire body purple for a good few days, a pair of twisted ankles, he seemed to be okay and proceeded to drag himself over the gruesome carpet of his late kidnappers toward the door at the end of the carriage.

He was just reaching for the handle – he knew he wouldn’t survive in the storm, but he wanted to get away. To another carriage at least. Find somewhere not filled with dead thugs - when the door swung outwards and an armoured figure was silhouetted, a long rifle in its hands. It was too late for him to play dead and the rifle was soon pointed in his direction. The gunman wore pale blue carapace armour and a helmet with a filter and visor covering his face. Better kit than he’d ever seen on an arbite or Guardsman.

Corporate, then.

“Face down!” the man screamed at him over the wind howling behind.

As the gunman was about to take an awkward step through the sideways-tilted door his chest erupted outward, splattering Teun with gore. The young Van Saar buried his face in the Goliath corpse he lay atop and prayed for deliverance.

 

“Teun! Teun!”

 

“Teun! You daft bastard why are you dressed like that! Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Henke.

“Henke?”

Teun looked up to find his friend crouched over him. His face was familiar but he no longer wore the green leathers of their gang. He was clad in a tight bodysuit of a glossy green-blue.

“Your clothes...,” was all he could manage.

“My clothes?!” Henke laughed as he kneeled atop another Goliath body. “One of my associates almost blew you away too. Though you were one of these fellas,” he rapped his knuckles against the Goliath’s shaven scalp.

“Your associates?” Teun swore he must have gotten a concussion.

Henke nodded and pointed toward the doorway.

In the dying light Teun could just about make out a towering figure. It would have been bigger than the biggest of the Goliaths but the blue-green powered armour it wore made it a monster of a man. It held a huge bolt gun in its hands, pointed out of the carriage.

“C’mon Teun. They want that file out of your head.”

[Kierdale]

Thank you for your entries in Inspirational Friday: Hive War.

I’ll get around to commenting on the other entries soon. I didn’t want to read them before finishing my own (which I did just this morning).

Here ends Inspirational Friday: Hive War though if you have more pieces on the topic, as always feel free to post them at any time with a suitable title to the post.

Here begins our eighth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2017:

Propaganda

In Wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

- M2 Terran Warmaster

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.

The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat becomes, by repetition, the truth in the heart.

The weapons of Chaos are legion, from the fallen and renegade astartes through masses of turncoat Guard regiments and cults which lurk on countless Imperial worlds to the daemonic hordes at the command of the gods themselves. And one of the most subtle weapons of the Primordial Annihilator is the twisting of the truth, the tempting lie.

The theme of this Inspirational Friday challenge is propaganda in all its forms.

Inspirational Friday: Propaganda runs until the 28th of April.

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Scourged (since he’s back, unless he wants to pass the duty to Carrack)!

To the chosen winner, step forth and claim your prize:

[Kierdale]

Carrack, I loved Cancon’s observations about the hive and that while ten minutes on the plains of homeworld you saw no change, ten minutes travel in the hive took him to entirely new cultures. And I loved the unexpected results of Yarl’s first grenade!

 

brettfp, that was good! I look forward to seeing this Nurgle kill team. Please post a link here when you’ve got them started.

[brettfp]

Thanks Kierdale, Here it is

Probably should put it in sig too :S

[Scourged]

Ah, some fun choices to pick from. brettfp, I enjoyed your contribution. In only a few short stanzas you conveyed the delight, malice, and dread that encompasses the Grandfather and his followers. Very nice. I look forward to seeing more of your work around these parts, should you decide to hang around and develop some more fiction for your Carnival of Rot. 

 

Carrack, I really felt likes your conveyed the very nervous human element of gang warriors. We all focus so much (at times) on the demigod Astartes and their minds that it's easy to forget that the humans are far, far different. The operation of Cancon and Yarl felt real, the bustling nature of the hive felt real. Plus, the little twist with the consequences of the smoke grenades was oh-so Tzeentchian. Good stuff all around.

 

Kierdale, yours too felt very human (and inhuman when appropriate, heh). The panic and fear of Henke and Teun as the small fish in a big pond was palpable. The scramble to escape their own backfired machinations was real. Also, I really enjoyed the subtle touch of changing the font for Old Cog's dialogue: that small change immediately triggered a cold, mechanical voice in my mind. Very clever. 

 

In the end, though, I had to make my decision based on one defining quality for me: setting. Only one tale truly felt like it put me inside of a dank, crowded hive, succumbing to the cramped conditions and immersing me in the daily struggles of the Imperium. For that, the honor of this week's winner goes to Carrack. Congrats. 

[MaliGn]

What the High Lords of Terra Don't Want You to Know!

 

Good Evening and welcome to VoxWars! With me, your host Darius Icke! Coming to you live on 4TK FM and across the Noo-Sphere! In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium there is only war for your mind! What a show we have for you this evening my friends, we'll be shining a light on the dark underbelly of our Machiavellian overlords, a beacon in the sordid quagmire in which they grind us inexorably into fuel for their industro-military machine! A beacon of Truth my friends, A beacon of Truth!

 

Truth, hmm, funny thing Truth, we think we know what it is, we put our faith in our masters telling us the Truth, yet i am here to tell you this evening that they are incapable of telling the Truth, they will do anything in their power to prevent you from learning the truth, we're going to peel away the layers of their lies, reveal them for their hypocrisies, unmask their deceits and then you will be able to begin your path to the truth! Heed me my brothers, my sisters, heed me and you will learn to see with new eyes what your masters do not want you to see!

 

Now let's take our first caller this evening, now, our first caller is an active soldier within the Imperial Guard, so we have had to conceal his identity and mask his voice, for reasons which will become apparent to you when you here what he has to share, for this reason we shall refer to him as Trooper Jenkins. Good evening Trooper what is it you wanted to share with us this evening?

 

"Hi Darius, i wanted to talk to you about Cadia Man, I was there Man, and what they are telling you ain't right Man! I Seen things! They tell you that it was geological, but i seen them! Space Marine and Xenos working together man! They was up to something! Some funked up Magos..."

 

Let me interrupt you there Trooper, you're saying that Space Marines were working WITH Xenos? Throne! That's unreal! What happened to purging the alien? It's one rule for us and no rules for them! The Adeptus Astartes are supposed to be the paragons of humanity! And you're telling me that they are working with Alien scum?! Call me a bigot but i do not suffer the alien to live! It just shows that they don't want us to know what's going on out there! Then Cadia "conveniently" explodes! A source tells me that it was an agent of the mechanicus that caused that! It's all a cover up my friends! You are being lied to!

 

This isn't even a new thing! They have been pulling this crap for thousands of years my friends! You ever think about it? Every time that the people of a world get to close to the truth they pull the same "overrun by Xenos, order exterminatus" BS! Ever hear of Calth? Prospero? Caliban? Of course you haven't! They. don't. Want. You. To. These brave visionaries: Aurelian, Lupercal the rest of them they saw the truth and they were silenced! I'm telling you all my brothers! They will even silence their own!

 

I'm getting all worked up here, I'm telling you folks it really makes me mad! But I need to get going now or they will find my location! Tune in again next week when i will bring you revelations about the perfidious xeno-lizards that have infiltrated planetary governments across the galaxy! Catch you next time on VoxWars, remember the war is for your mind!

[Kierdale]

Conception

Hidden Content

“Bathe in His vast knowledge and be elevated!”

“The Emperor Protects!”

Counsellor’s Square was packed with bodies, as it ever was day-in, day-out. Circadian rhythms mattered little on a world like Galythea: the smog which reached from cloud base all the way to the stratosphere blocked out so much of the sun’s light, and within the hives night never fell unless one lived in the lower levels, where it never ended.

Once, when Vinsae Hive had been merely a city, the huge chamber had been that settlement’s center of politics. Members of various parties had presented their arguments here, bickering and spitting at their rivals, vying for power over each other and the populace. The coming of the Imperium and the installation of a God-Emperor appointed governor had put an end to such madness. The chamber, once cavernous when it had been the debating chamber of those few hundred legislators, was now cramped in comparison to the vaulted halls of lord Egoido’s palace, or the citadel of the Jotabr legion and its engines. One of the Galythean Guard regiment’s Capitol Imperialis’ would barely have fit within. Some, usually quickly hushed by those around them, suggested that driving one of those mammoth, treaded fortresses through the Square would not be such a bad idea. To put an end to the squabbling of the various sects’ preachers, for where the Imperium had replaced the chaos of democracy with the order of tyranny, the various groups of the Imperial Cult had filled the void.

Egisians, followers of The Emperor’s Egis, worshipped the Emperor as protector. The Imperator Afflatus sought his knowledge and divine inspiration, while those of the Exalted Fecund saw the production of offspring: the future of the human race, as the best way to glorify the Emperor.

Brother Joro stood behind the stone lectern, its corners worn smooth by the centuries of its use. He stood only a dozen meters from his rivals yet between them was a sea of bodies, the three preachers -and more from more minor sects- stood atop platforms which allowed them to project their voices, to sway their flocks. The stains upon the steps of some of the daises showed that on occasion the zeal of the proletariat could be stoked to violence and rivals dragged down and silenced.

“`The Emperor Protects`?” Joro spat, raising his voice over that of the Egisian minister. His provocative tone caused a couple of hundred heads to turn in his direction. Such a base, easy tool.

His rivals looked at him as if he had spat upon a statue of the Master of Mankind, and Joro smiled.

“Aye, he does, but does that mean we should sit back upon our...ample laurels?” he inclined his head toward the rotund Egisian, sat upon a servitor-palanquin studded with suspensors. “Oh yes, the Emperor protects! Let us all go home and pray for salvation. Salvation from heresy, from the witch, from the Xenos!”

There were whimpers and cries from the crowd, and a cheer from one who evidently knew nothing of sarcasm.

“Aye, let us kneel before our shrines as the darkness stalks us...” his voice trailed off and he looked over the hundreds of faces before him. Even a few vox-servitors in the form of putti, had been drawn to him. Driven by the attention of the masses, these constructs flocked to whomever held the attention of the multitude.

“Or do we take His example? He who fought the darkness and fights even now from His Golden Throne?”

Cheers and cries of support went up and the face of the Egisian minister fell.

“We must fight! We, the faithful, must form armies in His name. Armies with which to hold back – NO – to destroy the darkness! To eliminate the xenos, to burn the heretic witch, to crush false faiths.” With these last words he turned his gaze upon the other preachers.

He thrust out a finger accusingly at the skeletal preacher of the Imperator Afflatus. “What need have we of knowledge? Knowledge leads to questions, to inquisitiveness, to unsurety. Need we question our purpose? No! The domination of the cosmos is Mankind’s right! We have need of naught but ambition! The ambition to climb above those who would destroy us! Those who would control us or keep us under their heel!” He skewered his rivals with his fiery gaze once more and so did a great many of the crowds.

“What of those of us too old to fight?”

“Those too infirm?”

Voices cried out from the crowd. Faithful shills.

“Then the Exalted Fecund asks that you follow naught but your nature! The armies of faith require bodies, bodies innumerous, against the darkness of tyranny! Go to your homes, celebrate the glory of human life and bring forth the next generation of the faithful!”

“Present them to the Exalted Fecund and they will be welcomed into the fold. Marching within the armies of the faithful we shall spread our word from world to world!”

 

 

Brother Joro dabbed sweat from his shaven brow as he stepped down into his retinue of followers. A great many of them were now busy handing out leaflets and blessings to the press of bodies: those who had been swayed by his words and were eager to learn more. It was deafening, a babble of voices. He could only imagine the Sea of Souls itself could be noisier. Oh how he longed to gaze upon it. Brother Anansi had promised him as much, had described it to him and the palace of their lord which lay beyond that sea.

He was about to turn toward their transport when a pair of faces in the throng drew his attention. Why these two had he did not know, for everywhere he looked people pushed in against him and his people. The old, the young, the beautiful and the repugnant. But the faces of a couple stopped him in his tracks, his bodyguards shuffling him toward the ground crawler at first shoving him on past them before he turned himself to face them, pushing against the tide.

“Halt! Let them through!”

 

The couple who now sat opposite him in the landcrawler’s cabin did not appear to be hive residents: their garb was stained ash-grey, the patches upon their enviro-suits worn away by exposure, their faces leathery and age unreadable. They looked most uncomfortable within the luxurious interior of the cult’s vehicle, silt from their suits already staining the fine upholstery.

“How may I be of assistance?” brother Joro sat forward, a welcoming smile upon his face.

The man looked nervously from the preacher to his wife, received a nod and looked back. “We are simple people, father. Mechanists, servicing the chemducts between hives. We seek faith and saw much in your words that we believe in.”

He smiled, “For I speak the truth.”

They nodded eagerly, almost apologetically.

“However we are too old to join the guard and spread the faith through His regiments.”

Brother Joro smiled wryly, “You have a bed aboard your transport out on the silt flats?”

The couple looked down, “The nature of our work has sadly rendered us as barren as those very dunes,” the man motioned hopelessly, “There are treatments available within the upper hive but the cost...”

Joro nodded sympathetically. “Those of the upper hive extort the faithful who toil beneath them. Mark my words: in time they shall be shewn the error of their ways,” his frown turned to a warm smile once more. “But worry not, for the Exalted Fecund can aid those of conviction. In faith there lies an answer.”

He looked at them levelly.

“Do you put your faith, your lives and those of your blessed offspring in the hands and rituals of the Exalted Fecund?”

The couple shared a look. In it dreams blossomed that they had been too scared to voice. Joro could see this and his smile widened.

 

 

As they had been conceived, the children were born within the Exalted Fecund’s largest chapel in Vinsae Hive, upon a bed embroidered with the entwined sigils of the masculine and the feminine. The icon of the Dark Prince.

The chanting of the faithful, encircling the bed once again, had reached a crescendo as the last of the twins had been drawn from its mother.

As the parents tearfully embraced their newborns, brother Anansi put his arm about his protégé’s shoulder. “My congratulations, brother Joro. Do you hear their cries? The song of the Sea of Souls? These two are Neverborn no more.”

[Carrack]

Truth of the War

Key Events of the War of the Shield

 

I. Lord Aspis leaks unverified reports of enemies attacking an isolated fortress on the distant fringe of the subsector. Who these enemies are remains a mystery, supposedly for our protection.

 

II. Lord Aspis calls for an unprecedented founding of Imperial Guard, and ships the majority of possible dissenters off-world.

 

III. Lord Aspis publicly shows the nobility and remaining population that he has employed the Angels of Immolation, with a costly ceremony in which he bestows the fate of the subsector to their chapter master. Thus securing a military force that none would question, ostensibly to fight the mysterious enemies attacking our far flung holdings.

 

IV. Lord Aspis lays crippling taxes and tithes on his impoverished subjects, concentrating the wealth of our world in the hands of his government, again to fight some unseen menace that he can not tell us about. Unrest begins to grow.

 

V. Ember the flagship of the Angels of Immolation, sworn servants of Lord Aspis, comes into high orbit, apparently having trouble finding these mysterious enemies that Lord Aspis hints at. At Lord Aspis's orders, the ship shells the capital, targeting areas of our city believed to be most dissatisfied with his rule.

 

VI. Lord Aspis personally leads a suppression of his subjects while we are still reeling from his bombardment. He assaults protesters and supporters alike in a well coordinated attack at the head of his personal guard, but also in collusion with the Adeptus Sororitas and hand selected units of Imperial Guard.

 

How much longer must we suffer from Lord Aspis's cruelty and lies?

 

Rise up!

Slow your hands if you can.

Do not give this tyrant your best labor.

Stay your feet if you are willing. Do not report to the Founding Fields.

Lift your voices if you are strong. share the truth of Lord Aspis's wickedness.

Fight if you are courageous.

 

What is Truth?

 

Let me debunk my conspiracy theory on my own fan fic story. Sources cited. ;)

 

I. The Black Maw Warband of the Black Legion launched an invasion of the Aspis Subsector, beginning with an assault on the fortress world of Tancrea, the Pillars of Fortitude.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/317935-inspiration-friday-2016-thousand-sons-until-113/page-5?do=findComment&comment=4320090 (Pilum)

 

II. Lord Aspis mobilized his subsector to fend off the invading heretics.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/. (Severity of the Situation)

 

III. Lord Aspis bestows the Aspis Eternal to Chapter Master Barcar of the Angels of Immolation, in accordance with an ancient pact of protection between the subsector and the chapter.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/page-2 (The Shield)

 

IV. See above.

 

V. The Angels of Immolation are defeated in a naval battle at the Garland System and their flagship Ember is seized by the Black Maw. Lord Carrack takes his newly stolen battle barge on an attack run through the Aspis system, the subsector seat, bombarding the Imperial capital.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/page-4 (Donning the Black and Rain Brings Flowers)

 

VI. While personally visiting the victims of the bombardment, a riot is triggered by a nervous bodyguard and pressing mobs. Atrocities ensue.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/319223-the-shield/page-4 (A Second Storm)

Edited April 25, 2017 by Carrack

[Kierdale]

I will be busy at the time I usually update IF tomorrow so I'm posting the new topic now, but if anyone has any more entries for Inspirational Friday: Propaganda please do post them within the next 12 hours. I ask Carrack to wait 12 hours from the posting of this message before judging

Thank you for your entries in Inspirational Friday: Propaganda.

MaliGn gave us VoxWars, spreading the truth that the Imperium wished to keep from the ears of the masses. The truth about Cadia and Imperial collusion with Xenos forces. I loved the way this was presented, bringing to mind modern shock jocks and conspiracy theorists.

Carrack’s piece was Truth of the War, an excellent alternative look at the events of the War of the Shield, putting a twist on key happenings to make the Imperial lord appear inept and tyrannical. I really liked the fact that Chaos cults might sew such twisted versions of the truth: making the well-intended acts of loyalists seem suspicious - undermining even their victories - and purporting the strikes of the Enemy to be barbaric acts by those same loyalists.

And I gave you Conception – a tale of Exalted Fecund (the Slaaneshi cult allied to the Psychopomps marines) preachers on an Imperial world subverting the Imperial Creed’s worship. Worming their way into the hearts and minds of citizens, into the regiments of the Imperial Guard...and bringing forth changelings.

Here ends Inspirational Friday: Propaganda though if you have more pieces on the topic, as always feel free to post them at any time with a suitable title to the post.

Here begins our ninth challenge of Inspirational Friday 2017:

The Ends Justify The Means

In an hour of Darkness a blind man is the best guide.

In an age of Insanity look to the madman to show the way.

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.

- Demosthenes

The Warhammer 40,000 universe is one of madness.

When the agents of the Emperor’s most Holy Orders of the Inquisition will call down Exterminatus upon a planet, when entire regiments of Imperial Guard will be executed in the aftermath of victory against daemonic forces lest word of the monstrosities they fought spread, to what terrible lengths will the forces of the Primordial Annihilator go to achieve their goals?

Inspirational Friday: The Ends Justify The Means runs until the 12^th of May.

Let us be inspired.

And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: Carrack.

To the chosen winner, step forth and claim your prize:

[Carrack]

Well even with just two contestants, this week was hard to judge because both stories had such different tone.

 

I choose Kierdale as the winner.

[MaliGn]

Congrats Kierdale, I rather enjoyed your story, a worthy winner.