Rapid Fire Challenge #2: March 2018

[Dosjetka]

Prompt: Burial

 

Maximum length: 500 words

 

Deadline: 31st March 2018

 

Where to post submissions: in this thread

 

Note - please make sure all submissions adhere to the forum rules. Any entry that breaks one or more rules shall be removed without notice.

[Soldier of Dorn]

We stand in the broken rubble of a sentinel shrine: its icarus lascannon arrays bent and broken, the golden standards of the VII Legion draped within now torn and tattered. Four brothers we are, clad in the bulky high-altitude variant power armor that marks out our company, auxiliary aeros-tubing twined through the battle-burnt crimson of our plate, arrayed in a loose semicircle around our reason for being there.

 

In the fallen stone and mortar can be seen a hand, gauntleted in the same colors as our own wargear, fixed in rigor mortis and outstretched towards heaven as that of a fallen star pleading for renewed ascent. Nestor Mehahel, our fifth brother, has fallen from heaven, as all Angels must at the end. And his Choir shall sing a lament to his memory. So it is among the Ninth, since our first days reunited with our father.

 

First to give voice is Catraes the Younger, his osmotic grill falling to the side accompanied by the squeal of releasing armorial seals, so better that he might be heard as he begins to give voice to song.

 

A howling song is his, echoing from the stone walls of this sector, broken as they might be from the enemy’s war. There are no words to this song, for no words can truly express the pain, sorrow and agony we of the Ninth feel at a brother’s death. It is the Wordless Lament, and all the ancient, terrible power of it is heard in Catraes’ voice.

 

As his voice fades away, a moment of solemnity is felt before Veualiah Bors takes up the melody. Somber in temperament for a son of the Angel, Veualiah’s rendition carries that facet upon the rise and fall of his cry to Mehahel’s memory, lamenting his fall with fraternal love and respect. His song flows with a measured step, the sorrow worn by experience, having seen too many die over the centuries.

 

Without any of the solemnity of Veluliah’s song, Pylaides Anael breaks forth his part, the young Astartes singing with the joy and energy of his youth. His song celebrates the life that Mehahel lived in service to the Emperor and his father, many centuries long, faithful as it was. His voice leaps and bounds in the melody, reminding us in death, that it does no good to dwell overmuch on sorrow but instead on the joy of life.

 

As for my part, I remain silent. I have nothing to add by my part, nothing more to express. Catraes, Veualiah, and Pylaides have given voice to everything I feel. I cast my gaze downwards towards this battlefield tomb, hefting the remains of Mehahel’s artificed Tigrus-Baal pattern bolter. I found it among the stones, battered – it will never fire again. So it will serve a new purpose.

Plunging it into the ground, I mark his grave.

 

Here lies a hero, an Angel of Imperium. He died as he lived - in the line of duty. May he never be forgotten.

[Khornestar]

In some ways, everything changed the day Golguror and his foe Laurentius of the Ultramarines laid each other low at Armatura. His once potent, battle-scarred body was mangled to near ruin, dragged away and interred in a brass sarcophagus like some preserved specimen. Dozens of tubes and cables connected what was left of him to the contemptor dreadnought’s frame.

 

In other ways, nothing changed. His mechanical legs bore him across battlefields almost as quickly as the tracked Twelfth Legion transports in his former life. Where once his chainaxe hacked through limbs and necks, he now obliterated even the most heavily armored foes with massive chainclaws revving on either fist. Walls were no obstacle to him. In a charge he could burst through them like passing through smoke. The hulls of vehicles and walls of fortifications fared little better, his inbuilt meltaguns spitting volcanic ruin before he set to work carving them apart. As often as he lamented the things he’d lost, Golguror reveled in the destruction his mechanical body wrought in battle. The nails still bit deep. His mind, or whatever was left of it after long ago accepting the surgical implants in emulation of his father, continued to be dominated by their painful demands of constant combat.

 

On the battlefield, Golguror preferred to seek out his ancient counterparts among the loyal legions. If he craved any aspect of his mortal existence, it was the gladiatorial duels exalted by the sons of Angron. Only challenging other dreadnoughts brought him any semblance of satisfaction. Thus far, he had proved his supremacy over all of those that dared to test him, though limbs and armor plates had been repaired and refitted many times over despite his victories. The ornate masterwork of the legion’s forge lords was gradually replaced by lesser, purely functional components as techmarines attempted to shoulder the mantle of their slain betters as the war ground on.

 

What difference did it make? As long as Golguror could reduce his opponents to slag, he didn’t care how much damage he sustained in the process. He held no fear of death as an Astartes, and certainly not now as this entombed abomination. In his low-power states between battles, he relived the duels with his worthiest opponents in his mind, both recent and in the foregone time of whole flesh in the pits with his brothers. What he would give to once more smell the sweat and blood permeating the arena, to roar exultant as a bout of sanguis extremis reached its glorious conclusion!

 

On the burning surface of a world whose name he didn’t care to know, chainclaws screamed to life as Golguror’s visual sensors registered a memory made manifest. The name Laurentius was emblazoned in the golden filigree of the azure contemptor dreadnought stomping toward him. As the once-resurrected warriors faced off for the final time, a brutal voice intruded into his tortured consciousness, urging Golguror to triumph over his hated foe - or at long last die in the attempt.

 

Edited March 8, 2018 by Juggernut

[Tarvek Val]

Juggernut:

Your story reminds me of Malcharion the War-Sage of the Night Lords and his multiple battles against Raguel the Sufferer. 

Very well done!

[Tarvek Val]

          The scent of war permeates the atmosphere of this world. The acid tang of gun-smoke wafts through the air, mingling with the distinctive copper scent of spilled blood and the sooty stench of burned flesh. A man, any man at all, would retch at the horrendous aroma of this war-torn place; many would even throw up, disgorging the pitiful remnants of their last meal across the rocky, unforgiving ground. I am no mere man. I have experienced war in all of its awful glory for centuries, longer than most mortal men have been alive. I breathe in deeply as I remove my helm from my head, tasting the poisoned air of Armegeddon for the first time in nearly five days. For five entire days, we held the line. We stood strong, as others fell because they were weak. The piles of enemy dead stretch for miles and miles, blotting out the very horizon with their foul bodies. Oh, how we hate them! That the greenskins would dare to impugn upon the Emperor’s territory is an affront to our order.

          When Ghazghkull Mag Uruk and his horde of ork savages returned to Armegeddon and the call to arms was sounded, my brothers and I came. With fire and righteous fury did we, the Emperor’s own crusaders, His Black Templars! strike down the xenos. With blade and with bolter, with hammer and fury did we cast down the enemy. My power sword, Exemption, drank its fill of xenos blood, though I wielded the blade only to cut down the greatest of orkish foes. The sword, a gift from High Marshall Helbrecht himself upon my proud ascension to the rank of Marshall, is of far too great value to sully in combat against such worthless foes as lowly greenskins. The inferno pistol hanging at my waist is a far more adequate voice to my ire against such enemies. Though we have claimed a great tally of kills in the months that we have fought against the xenos on this world, none has claimed a greater score of lives than our Emperor’s Champion, Palethades. That is why nine of my brothers have gathered with me in reverence before the greatest pile of slain orks within sight.

          “He prevailed, then.”

          The words are a statement, not a question. They are spoken by the brother to my right, an ancient warrior who shows his scarred face to the world with pride. He has fought alongside me as one of the Sword Brethren for decades. I nod, wordlessly pointing to the sword lying in the dirt before us. Orksbane, the blade that slew ten thousand orks in two months, lies in the dirt like a common knife. Its bearer lies beneath the pile of orks he slew, his sword lying where he had hurled it in defiance so that the sea of foes could not take it from him. He will be avenged. We are the Emperor’s Crusaders, and we are His vengeance.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Tarvek Val

[Iron Father Ferrum]

The Important Things

 

Boros looked down grimly at the body in repose on his slab. A faint frown pulled down on his lips; he could still remember when Einrik had been an aspirant. Indeed, he'd been the one to put inflict some of the scars on the corpse before him. Quite specifically, he remembered slicing off the left hand and installing the gleaming augmetic that still remained there.

 

The Apothecary lingered in his thoughts for no more than a moment. He did, after all, have a job to do. He picked up his tools and went to work.

 

A bone saw came first. The blade whined as ran up to speed, and the pitch deepened as he placed it against flesh. Flecks of blood and bits of flesh whipped through the air as he pushed the saw through the lower left forearm. It was no easy task, of course. Astartes bone was denser and stronger than anything naturally occurring in humans. He'd have to replace the blade at least twice during the course of his work. Soon enough, he'd detached the left hand from the weak flesh of the wrist and placed it reverently in a steel collection bin.

 

He moved down the slab to the left hip. Here, a full leg had been grafted on to Einrik after a flurry of shurikens had severed the limb well above the knee. Boros had been there for that engagement with the perfidious Eldar on Zoetermeer, had saved Einrik's' life then when he'd cauterized the wound. The bone saw was no use here. He'd been masterful with his placement of the cybernetic leg, having grafted it directly on just a very small spit of bone that extended from the socket joint in the hip. There was no way to cut it out unless he sliced away the entire lower left quarter of the pelvis and that was simply time-inefficient. So Boros simply grabbed the leg in one hand and Einrik's body in the other, and heaved. There was a moment of resistance and then, with a crunch and a pop, he could feel the hip joint seperate. Then he got to work with the saw.

 

Boros continued his work in silence. Left hand, left leg, right leg from the knee down, right arm from the elbow down. Split the chest: remove the third heart, the ceramic plating that reinforced the rib cage, and myomer musculature threaded across the shoulders. Open the cranium: out came an auspex unit and an enhanced optics strip, which had replaced both eyes with a single vision device.

 

All of the bionics were stacked neatly in reverently in steel cases ready to be cleansed of the crude biological matter that clung to them. They'd be checked for functionality of course and then placed in storage until such time as they were needed again. Boros hefted what was left on Einrik's corpse and shoved it rather unceremoniously into the crematorium. That, at least, he had no further use for.

[Pavement Artist]

Awakening

 

I awake from a sleep that is not sleep, into a life that is but a parody of death.

 

Eyes without lids open onto my kingdom of sepulchral night. I sit on my throne, wires as long and flowing as a maiden's hair, spill from my body, leeching power from this grave hall in order to sustain the form I name my body.

 

The quiet beneath the earth is unlike anything you could comprehend. The silence so utterly oppressive, like a hushed breath of wind before a hurricane. Can you imagine that? A quiet so complete, its very presence promising the onrush of death.

 

Beyond, I can see my warriors. They sleep upright, arms crossed, their frames recessed into the sarcophagi ports that line the catacombs of this vile hall. They await me, stretching away beyond my sight: an honour guard of the quiet dead.

 

My eyes alight on a swarm of servile constructs, their chrome scarab forms swarming over the walls like oil spilling from a borehole. These creatures had been awake the long millennia, keeping myself and my vassals-not alive but...functional.

 

I can sense the grave legions beyond me stir, a fibrillation of understanding pulsing through their forms. Like me, they can sense the interlopers on the surface. I can sense them even now, crawling about on

My warriors feel it, even though all memory and empathy had been sundered from them since before living memory. Something was awaking within them, a rising pitch of logical fury. There would be a reckoning with those above. We are the lessons of history.

 

I raise a hand to my face, seeing the monstrous gigantism of the machine form. My silver shod fingers clench together, testing joints that age can never weary. I raise my head to my men. I envy the ignorance of the dead. They have not been allowed enough of their past selves to remain in order to understand how miserably we have been reduced.

 

I arise. Cables snap from my form, pinging back against the seat of the throne as they tear free. Within me I feel a pitch of fury rising, disgust at the alien interloper. It irks me that I cannot embrace it. I have no way of knowing if this sensation is my own, or some impulse that has been threaded into my new form, laying dormant for my awakening.

 

In my hand is my scythe- the ritual symbol of my office. I remember I am a king. Miserable as my kingdom may be, the old ways must be remembered.

 

I raise the scythe in my hand. Along the endless hallways, more eyes without lids open. Weapons awaken, thrumming with power.

 

As one, creaking necks turn to me. Death mask faces, silently awaiting orders. For now, I give none. I raise my head and look into the distance, staring as I follow the endless line of corpse lights into the darkness.

[Pavement Artist]

The Important Things

 

Boros looked down grimly at the body in repose on his slab. A faint frown pulled down on his lips; he could still remember when Einrik had been an aspirant. Indeed, he'd been the one to put inflict some of the scars on the corpse before him. Quite specifically, he remembered slicing off the left hand and installing the gleaming augmetic that still remained there.

 

The Apothecary lingered in his thoughts for no more than a moment. He did, after all, have a job to do. He picked up his tools and went to work.

 

A bone saw came first. The blade whined as ran up to speed, and the pitch deepened as he placed it against flesh. Flecks of blood and bits of flesh whipped through the air as he pushed the saw through the lower left forearm. It was no easy task, of course. Astartes bone was denser and stronger than anything naturally occurring in humans. He'd have to replace the blade at least twice during the course of his work. Soon enough, he'd detached the left hand from the weak flesh of the wrist and placed it reverently in a steel collection bin.

 

He moved down the slab to the left hip. Here, a full leg had been grafted on to Einrik after a flurry of shurikens had severed the limb well above the knee. Boros had been there for that engagement with the perfidious Eldar on Zoetermeer, had saved Einrik's' life then when he'd cauterized the wound. The bone saw was no use here. He'd been masterful with his placement of the cybernetic leg, having grafted it directly on just a very small spit of bone that extended from the socket joint in the hip. There was no way to cut it out unless he sliced away the entire lower left quarter of the pelvis and that was simply time-inefficient. So Boros simply grabbed the leg in one hand and Einrik's body in the other, and heaved. There was a moment of resistance and then, with a crunch and a pop, he could feel the hip joint seperate. Then he got to work with the saw.

 

Boros continued his work in silence. Left hand, left leg, right leg from the knee down, right arm from the elbow down. Split the chest: remove the third heart, the ceramic plating that reinforced the rib cage, and myomer musculature threaded across the shoulders. Open the cranium: out came an auspex unit and an enhanced optics strip, which had replaced both eyes with a single vision device.

 

All of the bionics were stacked neatly in reverently in steel cases ready to be cleansed of the crude biological matter that clung to them. They'd be checked for functionality of course and then placed in storage until such time as they were needed again. Boros hefted what was left on Einrik's corpse and shoved it rather unceremoniously into the crematorium. That, at least, he had no further use for.

 

I really like this one. Nice and introspective. Just the sort of thing i like.

[Dosjetka]

Fantastic entries so far. It's great to see such diverse takes on this month's theme. :tu:

[Jagus Kumkani]

Dead of the Void

 

They stood in serried ranks within the Sanctum of Eternity the most holy of places within the Void Reaper. The entirety of the Chapter. At least what was left of it. Some

600 Void Brothers, clad in inky-black and midnight blue power armor; the color of the endless void.

 

The liberal lighting in the Chapel was all but sucked up by the darkness of their armored forms. Almost sapping the light of its very essence. The space was vast, gothic arches soaring overhead like the ribs of some great beast. Between them were murals depicting the Chapters most celebrated champions and victories since the Chapters inception in the Imperium. The stone and adamantium walls matched the ebon color of the warriors that were assembled there, dark and silent.

 

Around them were arrayed the Chapters most venerated relics. Ageless Relic Blades from ages past, Ancient Suits of Armor, and slain foes. But this most divine place also housed the ancestors of the Chapter. Encased in adamantium coffins that lined the walls, their names and battle honors etched in gold leaf upon these long dead Void-Brothers. But not even these priceless items nor the ancestors that watched silently, compared to the majesty of the Chapter symbol emblazoned upon the back wall. A vertical hourglass enmeshed within a horizontal infinity symbol 15 meters tall. The badge for the Sons of the Void of the Adeptus Astartes.

 

An imposing figure stepping in front of the Chapter badge, clad in the blackest armor, rivaling the jet black of outer space was the Chaplain of the sons. His grinning skull helm and blazing red eyed lenses took in every Void Brother assembled. They stood stone still, only the hum of their power armor betraying that living beings inhabited them.

 

The Chaplain removed his helmet with a hiss of escaping pressure. He took in a deep breath. His ebon features and ritual scars upon his face matching the 12 warriors

that lay in ceremonial garbs before him. His piercing green eyes taking in everything.

 

“Look upon the faces of the brothers before you.”

 

As one, the 600 warriors reached up and removed their helms. Swarthy faces like the Chaplain before them.

 

“I SEE YOU BROTHER, AS YOU SEE ME. FOR WHEN THE TIME COMES, THE EMPEROR WILL WELCOME ME WITH HIS GOLDEN LIGHT AS HE HAS WELCOMED YOU. REST, FOR YOU HAVE EARNED YOUR PLACE IN THE SANCTUM OF ETERNITY. WORRY NOT, FOR WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT IN YOUR NAME AND THE NAME OF THE VOID FATHER.” The warriors intoned.

 

They watched silently as the Chaplain gave his last benediction and blessings before they were interned into their eternal resting place.

The Chaplain finished his duties and stepped before the Chapter, continuing the ritual as old as time.

 

“From the void we come!” The Chaplain bellowed.

“TO THE VOID WE SHALL RETURN!” the warriors replied.

[Wargamer]

The Ninth.

 

The bones of the Bastion creaked in the winter wind. The great walls, once thought impregnable, were now left to quietly crumble to dust.

 

Torsyr picked through the rubble of a lower chamber, one of the few that had not collapsed during the fighting. A tattered banner of the Ninth shivered in the breeze, its proud High Gothic litanies ruined by blood and bio-acid. The dessicated husk of a Tyranid burrower stared at him with empty eyes, its corpse picked clean by carrion. It was one of hundreds, one of thousands that still littered the Bastion. Nobody had yet found time to burn them all.

 

Broken glass beneath his boots told him he was nearing the Apothecarian. Adepts had cleared a corridor through the rubble, just high enough that an Astartes might gain access at a crouch. He had no desire to use that path. He'd been there when the gene-vault was breached and ten thousand years of Chapter bloodlines were consumed in minutes by the swarm.

 

At last, the great pit. Most of the Bastion had fallen into it, yet still it was a drop of many metres onto its surface. He glanced up at the cloud-laden sky some twenty floors above him, half wondering, half hoping that the rest of the fortress might just give up and fall down on top of him.

 

With a grunt, he dropped himself onto the detritus that formed the barrow mound for what he once called an armoury. The depths below him were still now, but for weeks the Chapter had laboured here to rescue what they could. The efforts were fruitless. Every vehicle, every Dreadnought, every relic that had not been borne to the surface was lost forever. Even then so many had been damaged beyond repair. The detonation had atomised it all.

 

He placed a loving hand upon the ground and sighed, “Will they forget you?” he asked the ghosts below. “Will the Ninth fade, as the Tenth did before it?”

The dead had no answer. After an age of indecision he rose once more, the peace and purpose he sought still absent, and began he long climb back to the surface.

 

The storm broke just before he reached the entryway. From the deflagrated gatehouse he could see the beginnings of a new fortress, though it would be the work of many decades before it was truly fit for purpose. Was this a promise from the Chapter that the Ninth would endure, or a hollow gesture to placate them until those last, pathetic embers died away?

 

No Ninth Armourer lived to oversee the work. No Ninth Chaplain or Librarian endured to bless the souls of the labourers. No Captain remained to lead the rebuilding. There was just him and a dozen other souls, the last of the Ninth, deprived their honourable deaths.

“Emperor, could you not have buried me too?” Torsyr asked the uncaring sky, and began the long trudge to rejoin the living.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Wargamer

[Barabbas Sogalon]

Konstantin van Borken, High-Colonel of the Icosetian Dragoons and loyal servant of the Emperor, didn’t flinch as the firing squad mowed down the men around him. Instead, he straightened the crimson uniform, held his head high and met the stare of his executioner, a one-eyed soldier armed with an old autogun. The man was disgusting; scruffy-bearded, dressed in drab colours, and the owner of a grin filled with gold, iron and yellowed teeth.

 

Dying at the hands of filth.

 

Northern Varyags. The regiment of hyperviolent, genocidal savages had helped conquer this world five years ago and after seeing how they exterminated pacified cities just for the excitement Konstantin wasn’t surprised to find them among Horus’ traitors. Those beasts were always a stain on humanity, the Emperor should have-

 

The autogun barked and Konstantin fell backwards into the body pit, stomach ablaze with excruciating pain after his executioner decided to aim low. He landed beside an official whose throat had been cut.

 

A purple-haired girl from the firing squad looked into the pit, smirking. “Something wrong with your sight, One Eye?”

 

“Nah. Remember how the stuck up bastard used to mock us? I’m just returning the favour.”

 

The girl giggled as she walked away, leaving the High-Colonel to writhe among the corpses of his Dragoons. He had no idea how long he lay there, cursing his murderers and wishing for an end while red-hot shards moved around in his abdomen. A loyal officer deserved better than this.

 

May the Emperor burn those honourless whoresons to ash!

 

A heavy stubber sent more bodies into the pit and Konstantin almost blacked out when most of them ended up on top of him, making the pain unbearable. Why couldn’t he just die? His murderers sang and cheered as they rolled another batch of corpses over the edge; the freshest ones were all decapitated, their heads no doubt decorating the Varyags’ tanks. Breathing became more difficult as the pile grew heavier and foggy vision heralded a welcoming loss of consciousness that would end this nightmare. But fate wanted otherwise.

 

Liquid splashed over his face, pulling him back into the living hell, and the stench of death was replaced by that of petrol and heavy spirits. Through the bars of his corpse-prison, he noticed a tall woman stop by the pit with a cigarette between her slender fingers; she was covered in gold, pearls and silk, and each puff of smoke was followed by a long sigh. Konstantin remembered her from five years ago, a sadistic noblewoman who once turned standard compliance into mass slaughter out of boredom. Her kind had no place in the Imperium, corrupt and decadent aristocrats twisting the Emperor’s dream to serve their own needs. Tyrants of the worst kind who… He stopped his fevered rant when he saw the woman throw away the cigarette with a flick of her wrist and cheerful Ta ta!

 

The High-Colonel screamed as the flames ate into his flesh.

 

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

It was a funeral procession fit for a king.

It should have been, too; today they buried a Phaeron. They buried their ruler, their father, their brother, their wrath and glory and hope and dreams.

Sarnakh the Unmoving was the last of the ruling caste that had been in power before the Great War in Heaven. The Naculan was ruled by new blood now. Truth, they had been trained for it, but those Lords who now commanded legions and had the power at their fingertips to destroy worlds with but a thought, were new.

The Regent shook himself from his thoughts to observe the spectacle before him.

A legion of the Phaeron’s Immortals marched forward and back of the pall, their carapace freshly polished and their blasters pulsing with eldritch energies beyond all comprehension.

Ten Lychguard marched on each side of the pall, holding it up high with one hand whilst bearing their shields with the other. They would descend into the core with their liege and never return, just as every Royal Guard Phalanx had done for aeons. None of them would like it, but upon reaching the platform they would enter into eternity with their lord, ever watchful for threats against his unmoving body, until the end of the universe.

Crypteks and their creations flanked these Lychguard, recreating the Phaeron's stories and his life for all to see, rendered in loving fashion by the masters of the arcane (all of whom except one expected handsome compensation for their services , however, just as all Crypteks did).

Onward the procession marched, marched and marched and marched for a hundred miles—or so it seemed. There was not enough space in the palace, nor in the courtyard, for a hundred-mile funeral procession. Eventually the head of the march reached Burial Drop Precipice and the entire parade came to a crashing halt.

Sarnakh the Unmoving teleported to the front of the column and began to speak with the authority his position and personal power imbued within him. “CITIZENS AND ROYALTY OF THE NACULAN DYNASTY! TODAY THE GREAT PHAERON KYLAS THE MORNINGPALL HAS FINALLY FALLEN! WE CELEBRATE HIS LIFE, AND MOURN HIS DEATH! LET US NEVER FORGET HIS SACRIFICES FOR HIS PEOPLE, AND LET US ALWAYS FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS!” He turned about and faced the Crypteks who would enact this final memorial. “LET DOWN THE PLATFORM!”

A massive stasis-bubble engulfed the Lychguard and their master’s casket, then slowly began to descend into the magma chasm.

Ever so slowly the bubble began to recede under the red-hot stone. Eventually it would settle on the bottom, where the Lychguard would forever stand vigil over their master, ready to march forth if called.

Sarnakh stood pensively, gazing down into the pit. “Milord,” came the voice of Lady Hespheret. “We have another matter to attend to.”

“Of course, my dear.” With that, Sarnakh turned from his father’s grave and towards his wife’s face to walk with her to the future.

[Tarvek Val]

Very interesting, Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch. 

A very interesting take on a race that doesn't really get tons of time in the spotlight (especially as anything but the antagonist of a novel here and there!).

Very well-written, I enjoyed reading it.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Thanks. I wanted to detail this scene, and also expand on the characters surrounding my Phaeron (who has only now become so). It's funny, actually, i haven't written anything for my marines despite them being my main army. Glad you liked it, wasn't too sure of it myself.