Blood Spelunking Chapter 0 -2

[FattyLumpkin]

Blood Spelunking Prologue

 

The Veyrfall Temple of Water was still once. The waters came from cracks in the stone high up and tumbled down the many rings of walkways that lined the temple walls. It would flow so perfectly one might mistake it for glass. It cascaded down the stone work, gathering into scores of reflecting pools that filled and drained at a constant rate, giving the appearance of a rippling sheet. The flow continued to the grotto below that burbled with springs and geysers, spreading far into shadow and mystery. The Temple was still no longer.

 

The bombardment of the surface began weeks ago. Now the water trembled. The once peaceful streams sputtered and spat angrily in erratic patterns. The reflecting pools showed shattered mimicries of the refugees that prayed in front of them. Those on the higher reaches of the temple rings were assailed by falling debris. There were too many of them here, and they could not stay much longer. The air was becoming toxic and thick. But the fact that they were still here at all suggested the Imperium did not know of this underground temple. They prayed, though they knew naught what to pray for anymore. Life would never be the same. They prayed for the next second, and the second after that.

 

Veyrfall had never been given the opportunity to comply. Upon discovery by the Imperium, they were deemed tainted. The faith the planet was built upon was too virulent to allow it to fester. The people of the planet would be annihilated, or assimilated.

 

For a short span of time the explosions abated. The quiet permeated the survivors, and then turned to panic. This was not deliverance. Hope for such a thing left them long ago.

 

A massive kinetic weapon crashed through the roof of the temple and brought the end with it. The projectile detonated the ceiling like a mining charge. The shock wave was so powerful that many were killed instantly from the percussive force. As it ripped through the temple at an angle its supreme heat vaporized the water around it. The weapon embedded itself in the grotto below, and the temple walls collapsed around inward. Within seconds all that remained was a steaming crater, littered with dead.

 

The temple of water was the heart of Veyrfall's capital city, a massive sprawling flood plain with farm paddies and villages as far as the eye could see. Large city centers dotted the landscape at regular intervals, and shallow creeks with small river boats connected them. All now lay in ruin, obliterated from the days of relentless assault. The dead seed the landscape. The paddies and small tributaries turned pink with blood and changed their course to fill the crater that was once the temple.

 

The compliance of Veyrfall was achieved, and so began the long effort of the Tithe. Veyrfall was a large planet, with rich soil and many complex hydrologic features that made it ideal for producing food for the Imperium. Farms that spanned the horizon were planted with mega crops that sucked the flood plains dry. Natural reservoirs of water both fresh and salty were turned into highly efficient mechanized breeding pools that required large freight ships to harvest.

 

The Imperium, ever pragmatic, saw the ruins of the temple of water, and the large mass of remaining city infrastructure, and found it a suitable place to lay the foundations of a hive. They brought the dead from miles around and dumped them into the crater.

 

And so the temple became a tomb. Over long centuries the crater filled with earth. The citizens forgot what little they knew of what it once was, and it became their own place for revering the dead. They entombed the deceased in ever climbing catacombs that soon met the surface and became a graveyard that spanned kilometers.

 

Over centuries more generational crypts and tall mausoleums climbed into the sky, and at the same time sank into the soft earth. The planet's natural tendency towards uniformity would see the surface of the plains rise for generations to come, and crypts that once cast tall shadows saw their roofs covered in dirt. Eventually the great graveyard was connected to the nearby hives superstructure. Thousands of years of the dead now connected by plasteel and ferrocrete to the living.

 

With the sweeping recognition of the ecclesiastical truth, plans to build the Basilica Sepulchra Imperialis were made. A grand cathedral that spoke of the Emperor's divinity from atop generations of the dutiful and honorable dead. The outer bounds of the graveyard were encircled by low defensive spires, creating a courtyard in which a massive burial slab was built, and on top of this slab the Basilica was erected, and the planet renamed Veyrfall Sanctus.

 

The wealthy aristocrats of the hive invested heavily in the Basilica. Hundreds of years were spent on its creation. Generations of menial workers created communities and family lines around the production of the sacred stained glass that made up the entirety of the building. After its completion highways are formed leading to the great work. Parishioners and pilgrims came from every corner of the planet to see the magnificent tombstone of the planet's honored dead.

 

As centuries pass, space below the Basilica becomes scarce, and the structure itself sinks into the ground further. The hive grows taller next to it, and the church must be raised periodically. Great ancient mechanisms of the Mechanicus attach the burial slab at the Cathedrals base to the spires that surround it, and raise it when the need is met.

 

Now, in the era M.41 corruption unveiled sits at the heart of the Basilica Sepulchra Imperialis, and after ten thousand years, the dead it guards may not have been safe after all.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

The Governor of Veyrfall held his head in his hands in disbelief. His office was a mess of velum and drained amasec bottles. Veyrfall had never missed a tithe. At least, not that anyone living could remember. Why, oh why did it have to happen during his tenure? The thought brought fresh pangs of apathy and depression. Someone would be along to kill him sooner or later. They would install a more suitable governor, someone who would claim this tragedy was avoidable, and that he was incompetent.

 

There had never been a drought on Veyrfall before, and certainly nothing as strange as this. Not only had the rain stopped, but all of the features that made Veyrfall such a reliable agri-world had begun to fail. Mountain streams were diverted in odd ways counter to millennia of worn waterways. Vapor introduced to the atmosphere dissipated at a rate that did not make sense. Currents that maintained the livestock of the breeding oceans were failing, plunging the planet into a heat wave.

 

He filled his glass again. He told himself this wasn't happening long enough to close his eyes and down its contents. The potent alcohol burned his throat and landed in his empty gut with a sickening splash that reminded him of the worst of it.

 

The water the people of the planet did have access to had become tainted, somehow. Even the amasec that he drank made him feel sick. He was sweating and wanted to wretch, but the alcohol made it feel familiar at least. The drinking water of the planet began to have adverse effects on the population, though symptoms were rarely the same. Some were driven mad by it. Some claimed it boiled their tongue as they drank it. Unquenchable thirst, lethal dysentery, advanced dehydration. Some drank the water until it killed them, so parched they were. They could drink it, and needed to. But it was not without a cost, and always came with pain.

 

It has been six months since the rainy season should have begun, and the people of the planet were beginning to forget what it was like to live with drinkable, healing water. He opened his eyes again. The Inquisition had arrived today. If anyone needed proof that things were serious, this was it. He had heard of the cult outbreak in the Capital Hive, and took appropriate measures to ensure that it had not spread to his Hive. He was certain it had not. Even so, he would surely be meeting with the Inquisitor or an envoy soon. The thought actually made him wretch, and he aimed at the corner he had designated for the act.

 

– – – –

 

“Come here! Where are you!”

 

The door to the field house was kicked in by the foreman's strong mechanical leg. He was an extremely grizzled man, his right side mostly mechanized after various farming incidents. He paused in the doorway to look; the boys in the house all scattering from his sight.

 

“You! You little :cuss! Think you deserve more water an tha rest of us?”

 

He pointed at a young boy that had been caught stealing water rations earlier in the day. He stomped over to him with his pounding, lopsided gait.

 

“Come here!” He bellowed as he grabbed the boy by his scruffy hair.

 

The smell of amasec permeated the cabin as the old farmhand came for him. He turned and dragged the boy behind him, screaming now for help. The others in the cabin watched, dumbfounded. The old man dragged him out of the door muttering

 

“I know what'll do it... I know the stories...”

 

The old man dragged the boy far out into the dry mounds of tilled earth that should have sprouted long ago. The screaming brought other workers out of their field houses with lanterns and torches. They saw what was happening and stood stock still, confused. The Foreman brought him out far enough that his cries could barely be heard, and the darkness began to swallow them. The watching workers edged forward and angled their lights attempting to see.

 

They saw the flickering outline of the Foreman hold the boy up at eye level with his strong mechanized hand. The boy kicked and squirmed and flailed his arms to no avail. They could see the foreman pull something off of his belt, and in a brutal motion that allowed no resistance, ripped it across the boy's throat. The watching workers' desire to witness the event left them. One dropped his lantern. They saw the flickering man hold the now still body above the ground with both hands.

 

After a few moments the watching workers became nervous. They needed to get to their bunks now or they would be next. They began to snuff their torches and shutter their lanterns in a rush. They turned and started to run to their cabins. As they ran, they felt something in the air. They touched the backs of their necks, and their hands came away wet with water. They looked up to the sky, and out of the smog filled sky of a near hive plantation, droplets were falling. It was raining.

 

The drizzle became a shower, and the boys opened their mouths instinctively, their lips cracked, and their mouths filled with sores. They braced themselves for the pain that it would bring, that all water has brought them for the last half a cycle. But it did not come. The cool water soothed their wounds, cleaned their bodies, and nourished their souls. They became lost in an incomparable joy, and thoughts of the boy that got caught stealing water rations left their minds.

 

The shower became a storm, and as the boy drank their fill from their own cupped hands, they saw the Foreman walking past. His head was down. He walked straight to his cabin, and shut the door. The boys watched him pass. Their jubilation faded. They had better just get to their bunks. There would be work in the morning.

 

– – – – – –

 

“The galaxy is vast and full of horror. Only by the Emperor's infinite vigil are we delivered in these strange decades.  Xenos that fester in the dark, corrupt the soul, and devour all. Long limbed strange faced mockeries of the holy human form that feed upon your suffering, like a sweet honey. Great tides of green skinned beasts that live only to slaughter."

 

The preacher stood in front of a large golden aquila, planted unceremoniously in the town square. A small crowd was gathering from alleys and crowded townhouses around.

“You are the Emperor's tools! Only by your endless effort does the Imperium survive! The Emperor's currency is human lives, and he is rich like no king has ever been or ever will be. Your efforts are not wasted. Your contributions do not go unnoticed.”

The preacher moved to talk to the people in the crowd face to face, grabbing them each by the hands.

“The galaxy is vast and full of horror. Screaming demons that expand your consciousness with new depths of terror. Vile rot that blooms in your soul and spews out of your mouth and on to all that you love. Winged creatures the size of star systems bedecked in skulls the likes of yours and mine. Incomprehensible horror that will leave you gibbering, only able to feel, and perceive.”

“In times of struggle, in times of great cosmic horror, in the face of unbelievable, unfathomable suffering and evil. Strange tithings are needed. The Emperor needs you, fellow devoted. The laws of the cosmos do not bend to you or me! They do not bend to our reason, logic, and morality. They bend to the will of the Emperor, and no other!”

With this the priest took a knife out of his robes and put it to his palm.

“The galaxy is vast and full of Horror, and the emperor will save us all. You have heard news of the neighboring hive and their good fortune. With man's holy blood comes healing rain!”

The preacher opened a deep wound in his palm, and the blood landed on the ground with a splash. He went to a member of the crowd and gingerly offered the knife to them.

“Bleed for the emperor.” he said

The woman nodded and screwed her eyes shut. She closed her hand around the blade and screamed as she pulled it out. Her blood joined the preachers in the grass. He brought the knife to the next devotee. They said no words, only enacted the ritual. And on to the next.

After the fifth parishioner had cut their palm open, someone in the crowd quietly said, 

 

“Look...”

They pointed at the aquilla. It was covered in beads of water. The preacher left the knife with the flock, and walked to the statue. The moisture in the air was clinging to it, and forming streams down its fine details. A breeze pulled the air towards them.

“The Emperor sees us! Fellow devoted, rejoice in his glory!”

The crowd kneeled as one. Those with wounded hands held them over the ground, their offering made. They passed the knife to those waiting to pay tribute. The water from the aquilla was forming streams that reached the crowd. They dipped their hands in and drank the bloody water, and it did not hurt them. The preacher stood and turned to observe his flock.

There was one person not kneeling. She was tall, wore a long leather jacket with a tall collar and black hair. She held a pistol of incredible value in her right hand.

 

Heretic

A voice so loud it made the crowd reel in pain blasted through the plaza. The preacher fell back on his haunches in front of the aquila, gripping his ears in pain. The sound was so great his vision was blurred and he thought he was going to throw up. The figure approached the preacher, and once within easy shooting distance, unleashed a beam of red energy from her pistol that erased the man's head and shoulders. The woman turned to the terrified parishioners, and spoke in her harmfully loud voice.

Return to your homes. Planetary quarantine by order of the inquisition is now in effect.

 

Chapter 2

Calpurnia watched the burned shrine district pass beneath her.  She stood in the open doors of a transport that brought her from a hive halfway across the planet.  She used the time to rest, and awoke to the planet's strange purple moonlight.  It cast varying depths of violet coloration that made it difficult to discern where shadows began and light ended.  On the ground countless Inquisition personnel and Mechanicus adepts worked with servitor teams to neutralize the district.  

 

The district was burned roughly eight months ago.  It was Calpurnia's first order, her decision made before she made planet fall.  The outbreak of the Khornate cultists had been an incident severe enough to condemn the planet in the eyes of the Inquisition.  Calpurnia's intervention had saved the planet, but a stain remained on its soul.  Calpurnia burned the district and anyone that remained inside.  Neighboring districts were evacuated and now being demolished in order to create an impassable quarantine zone, disconnecting the shrine district from the hive.

 

The only structure left for kilometers was the The Basilica Sepulchra Imperialis, and its protective spires.  The transport flew along the grand processional highway, which led to a part in the spires encirclement, the entrance to The Basilica.  Calpurnia had seen picts of the building in its glory, and it was truly one of a kind.  Never before had Calpurnia seen such a large structure made entirely of stained glass.  Now, coming to dominate her view was an ugly building smudged with endless layers of black.  The Basilica was the epicenter of the outbreak, and for the time being held to much valuable information to destroy

 

Corruption has spread planet wide, of that Calpurnia was certain.  If the planet were to survive the wider Inquisition must never know this, Calpurnia also knew.  This was an infection like none she had seen before.  The water was tainted, and behaving strangely the planet over.  Out of desperation the planet's devoted citizens had begun to lean on old superstitions and macabre rituals, and they were working.  Blood sacrifices have been reported from every corner of the planet, and with the sacrifices came bountiful gifts of clean nourishing water.  The planet was now under strict quarantine, and many perished daily.  If the corruption could not be cleansed, it would be them all, through one means or another

 

Calpurnia's transport landed in one of the many docking bays that crisscrossed the spires surrounding the Basilica.  She looked out the interior.  Here is where the blood priest Kayde had unleashed his tide of slaughter and revealed the corruption that flowed into the planet's heart.  The Basilica stood in a burned courtyard big enough to hold millions of pilgrims, and a great sphere of absent material encompassed its pavilion and forward wings– the site of the blood priest's ultimate heresy.  She boarded another smaller transport that would bring her to the entrance en route to her destination below.

 

The transport landed on a pad that had recently been erected at the top of the very large staircase leading into the grand antechamber, past where the obliterating sphere had taken effect.  She stepped off the transport and walked towards the giant entryway, completely cloaked in shadow.  The building did not function in any sense of the word anymore, and there was little point in restoring its facilities at the present moment.  Calpurnia blink clicked a rune through her augmented eye and a servo skull hovered over to her from the transport and illuminated her surroundings as she entered the darkness.

 

She knew the number of steps to take in what direction to reach the priest's old quarters.  The light above her simply illuminated dark marble flooring beneath her, and then faded into the huge room that surrounded them.  She came upon an average sized wooden door bereft of adornment and entered.  The servo skulls light now had walls to bounce off of and illuminated the room sufficiently.  It resembled a small hab unit, with the bare necessities for living.  A bed, table, closet and small pantry.  In the closet was a trap door.  The trap door led to the priest's actual abode.  Calpurnia descended the narrow staircase and emerged into a dark sea of glinting metal and jewels reflecting the servo skull's light in every direction.  The priest had received many gifts over the years.  In fact, there were more riches in this chamber than could have plausibly been gifted to Kayde in his lifetime, and thus Calpurnia had surmised this was a generational collection.

 

In this chamber, behind a massive gold plated mirror, was another small passage.  This one led into the priest's personal library.  The ceiling was low and it was so cramped that there was no telling how big the room was upon entering.  The room stank of rotting old velum and mold growing amongst the ancient scrolls.  The path she needed to follow was marked out on the floor, as it was a path with many wrong turns and opportunities to lose oneself.  She came upon another trap door, already open.  She felt relief that she had nearly arrived.  It irked her that this was the fastest route her team had surmised thus far.  The trap door led to a small room with an elevator, suspended over a chasm by a single chain and pulley.

 

The catacombs of the Basilica first aroused suspicion immediately after the Malum Vigilia had managed to contain the outbreak.  The priest's final bloody sacrifice was his corrupted flock, and any they had marked for sacrifice.  Every cult member and every captured citizen died a horrible agonizing death as the blood left their bodies and fueled a torrential storm in the courtyard.  At least, this is what compiled reports told them of the event.  The cult had been transporting the captives into the catacombs through the two entrances located in the district.  Their exsanguinated corpses led them to the ritual chamber, Calpurnia's destination.

 

As Calpurnia descended in the elevator, she began to notice the smell.  She doubted the stench of death would ever leave this place.  Those in her employ had spent months cleaning the rotting aftermath of the atrocity, but the smell remained strong enough to turn her stomach.  The long descent gave Calpurnia a grim appreciation for the task that lay before her.  These catacombs dated back to the era of compliance, and the distance she had traveled so far was a small fraction of their total depth.  The elevator landed and Calpurnia stepped off.

 

The bright blue light of the servo skull lit her surroundings from above.  The walls were made of hard packed earth, with skulls embedded along its middle.  After a short while she emerged into a long, smooth-walled chamber, filled with artificial sunlight.  The entire room was slanted slightly to the left.  Dark passages lined the walls.  Far to the right there were two sets of stone steps that led to a raised edge.  Calpurnia could just see the teams of servitors that stood at the top of the stairs.  In the middle of the chamber, from the space in the center of the steps, to the catacomb halls on her left, was a meandering depression in the soft clay, stained bright red.  Calpurnia walked to the channel in the ground and knelt in front of it.  The earth was still wet.  Drops of blood glinted at her in the light.

 

She followed the damp stream to its source up the stairs.  As she climbed the servitors backed away, giving her space.  Above them hummed hundreds of servos skulls waiting to be deployed.  At the top of the stairs was the sacrificial cistern.  A shallow depression in the earth with a lowered lip to form the mouth of the river.  It was many meters wide and criss-crossed with walkways that sat stained in the blood.  The many chains that had been used for the sacrifices were bound together and held in the center above them, and the long barbed poles they used were stacked in a pile against the wall.  She walked further around the great mass of blood.  It should have been hardening, congealing, darkening in color.  Degrading somehow.  But it was as bright as though fresh from a wound.  In contrast, the walls and floors around the pool were stained by layers of blood from red to black.  Calpurnia had ordered the pool left alone for now.  Such things held power.

 

As Calpurnia looked into the pool she considered how many must have died above it over the years.  She did not want to think of a real number.  So, so many.  She thought of the sacrifices around the planet, and the drought.  All signs pointed to this corruption having deeper roots than anyone knew.  Perhaps Kayde and his line of bloody priests were acting as the planet's saviors, in the only way they knew how.  There had never been a drought recorded on Veyrfall.  Could the planet's history of trading blood for water trace back to its pre Imperial culture?  Ten thousand years of blood.  Longer.  The thought was unbelievable.  

 

+It is good to see you again, Inquisitor Thorne.+  She heard a low robotic voice from behind her. 

 

Calpurnia snapped to attention.  She was staring at her reflection in the pool.  She did not know how long she had been there looking.  She turned to see Pathfinder Drayvus Kern, the mechanicus adept she had chosen for this mission.  He was... complicated looking.  Every piece of his body was something else, a tool or appendage of some sort, tucked neatly into an average six foot male frame.  The most plain piece of his body was his head, a blank polished head shape, covered by his single adornment, a ragged mechanicus hood.  He was bereft of clothing, but also flesh, and it did not come across as indecent.

 

“Hello Drayvus” Calpurnia said, turning from the pool

 

Upon turning around Calpurnia saw a cluster of machines against the wall of the cavern. It looked halfway between a bio chemical lab and a steel forge, though it was cold at the moment. She gave Drayvus a look and asked

 

“What is this?” Gesturing at the equipment.

+Do you remember when I asked your permission to take samples from the pool? I had an idea I told you. This was the idea.+

Drayvus walked over to the chemical forge contraption. Calpurnia followed and saw the intricate system the Drayvus had created. On the left were many flasks and beakers marked with different anti-chaos runes of varying severity. There were piles of incense near the beakers, and mountains of candle wax under the material they heated. The system became enclosed at the point where it connected to the forge, which consisted of a major heating element and various dies for shaping.

Drayvus walked to the end of the blood forge and picked up a tiny iron bracelet off an anvil.

+We are still examining the properties of the blood forged iron. So far we have not observed corrosion, and we have not been able to break it, though it can be cut with extreme heat. No trace of corruption lingers after the sanctification rituals.+

Drayvus held it out to her. +Take it. It may offer protection+

Calpurnia took the bracelet and affixed it around her wrist. It felt strange. That was all she could note about it.

 

+Come Inquisitor, we will find Sister Cassandra.+

Important continuity note;  if you read relics, it says at the end that only the streets were burned, but i changed that to the entire district, just havent gotten around to changing it yet

Edited 10 minutes ago by FattyLumpkin
typos