Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

1 = Dancers
2 = Fury

The system of VRZCKT burned with drifting hulks of destroyed ships and mauled stations, a billion souls screaming in the Warp from battle and bombardment upon the planets and planetoids that had once willingly paid tribute to the Eternity in exchange for protection and education, tithes paid in their psykers, the blood of the system's youth marching to war, and the minerals hidden deep within the crusts of the planets present.

Once, it had even been known by another name, not merely a designation given unto those worlds that had fallen before the Blood Court and their madness. Once, it had been called Waterfall, home to garden worlds floating serenely across the void in perfect circular motions with worlds upon worlds filled by the pious and the humble. Once, great diplomats had set out from these worlds, their voices and minds crafting peace and accord in a galaxy of strife and war, finding common ground between the bitterest of enemies and bloodiest of histories.

Now, there were none left from that age. Now, these worlds had been turned into wrecked balls of misery and exploitation, their ecosystems poisoned and ruined, their ephemeral beauty plundered for short-term gains, and every mineral that could be gathered in its depths was ripped away by the mining operations of the Valan, their titanic mining machinery eating through mountains and canyons without care, setting aside the ore from the stone and smelting it within their bellies as they blasted clouds of toxic smog and smoke into the atmosphere.

No longer.

For the Eldar had come to the Lords of Eternity with an offer.

Codes and a route for them.

Peace for themselves.

The Lords debated for a fortnight, suspicious, paranoid even, before a consensus was reached. If this was another dagger to the back, similar to such offers that had been in their three-way war before, then they would retaliate as they had always done. But if it wasn't...

Yet, as they set out to gather the forces required to push into the system, conscripts receiving their marching orders and armories ordered to break out yet more war material, the Lamenters turned their fleet unto the system.

The Eternity bowed, and gave what support they could, thinking this to be the beginning of a charge into their forgotten heavens turned into hells.

The Choirs that had followed in the wake of the Lamenters had other plans.

Worlds burned. Howling gales split apart the monstrous machines that had dug through rock and split apart lavish seams of ore hidden beneath violated soils. The souls of billions sent to rip apart the worlds gathered from the Eternity were now naught but ash for the fire, kindling to the pyre lit by ritual and sorcerous minds dedicated and long well-studied in the deliverance of the might of local stars upon their foes. Choir hummed and sang upon ships with glowing sigils and within well-prepared sites that smelled of the sacred sands and blessed incense, trinkets inscribed with might glittering and clanking upon their forms and shining within their souls.

The Blood Courts had invaded these worlds as an insult and need alike, one hand slapping the Eternity as the other grabbed what was needed to fuel the economies at home, material required to bolster the flagging Homeworlds long since depleted by their uncaring overseers.

Now they reaped their just reward as the psykers of the Eternity watched and studied the might delivered by shell and Melody both. Though they knew that such might could be called upon, especially if one had the time and materials to prepare, the frequency with which the Choirs of the Glimmering Federation now did so was nothing short of astonishing for them all.

It did not help that the maelstrom of daemons gathering around the system, called whenever tremendous amounts of death happened anywhere, seeking to feast and dine upon the souls of the Valan, were denied by a Song that could be nothing less than Divine in origin, too fantastic, too blasphemous in scope, and too magnificent in its complexity and efficiency.

The Valan had plundered these worlds to build mighty bulwark fleets and constructed powerful bastions to protect them.

Now the star of Waterfall itself aided the Choirs, long knowing of the depredations visited upon the souls that had once called the surfaces of its attendants home, long irked and then affronted by the violations carried out unto the very same attendants in search of base minerals, far unlike the peaceful minds that had created great works of art and veneration for those that sheltered them from the indifferent fury of the Void.

Now the star of Waterfall soothed the burns that licked upon the bodies and souls of the Hymnals, guiding and gathering power into channels and canticles that burned and branded into reality paths that would lead to powers that may have never been found in another time, another place.

Worlds burned.

And the fleet of the Lamenters and all ships and soldiers of the Eternity that could be gathered plunged from a reclaimed Waterfall still smoldering with the heat of orbital bombardment mundane and sorcerous into the heart of the Valan Blood Court.

And were it not for the Celestial Choirs' Dirge for the Innocent Sung along the way, their journey would have been filled with the joyous howling and gathering hosts of Khorne riding to war and blood.




Howl Upon Vile Xenocide:
(6-Hour Moratorium)
[] Cleanse These Worlds, Brothers!
(The Lamenters are Angels of Death, and they have arrived with Flamer and Melta to cleanse their sins in finality.)
[] The Cries Of All Who Fell Before You.
(There is precious little mercy in the galaxy. The Valan warrant none.)
[] The Message And The Messenger...
(Though the Eternity now howls for revenge that appears on the verge of transpiring, some vile sins are only redeemed with a world torn asunder.)