The Lost Primarch Quest

Thinking quickly to himself, Kesar decided that the Titans and himself would head to the research complex while the reserve forces would assault the prison normally. While it would be nice to save the prisoners, it was simply not worth risking his son's lives over it. Now, the mop-up began.

As the Wardens marched upon the research complex, Kesar noticed a few issues. For one, the Titans were too large to enter the underground facility. However, they could still provide fire support by firing their weapons and collapsing parts of the research complex. Meanwhile, the Wardens themselves headed into the nightmare within.

When they entered, they were met with horrible, horrible creatures. Gaping maws of insectoid daemon engines, tentacled monsters with too many eyes, and things, for what else could these gaping wrongnesses could be? Still, the Wardens pushed forward with their gene-father leading the way. More than once, they called in Titan support to destroy areas where the nightmares had gathered. It was effective and necessary. Without this, it would have been difficult to truly cordon the creations without losing thousands of Wardens due to how favorable the corridors were to these things. In these cramped quarters, the daemonic machines could face the Wardens with their strongest armor, all the while having their flanks protected.

Even with these advantages and the nightmarish skill, the Wardens pushed forward. All the while, Titans destroyed entire sections of the complex, and any of the more powerful creations were subject to Kesar's wrath. The Primarch charged at these creations, none of which lasted longer than a minute at most. The creation that took the longest was one that emitted a constant chant that caused the Warden's ears to bleed and many of the Librarians were only saved when the Sisters of Silence moved next to them and blocked their powers. The sheer corruption and wrongness should have caused so many to fall. Yet, the Wardens stood tall. They refused to become Lost. They survived Gehenna Station, they fought the creatures of the warp, and the served the Primarch that caused even daemons to fear. And they would follow him into hell.

Room after room was cleared, with the Valhallan army acting as a rear warning. Kesar and the Wardens traveled from room to room, as the daemonic creatures were slaughtered and culled one after the other. As their numbers continued to decrease, the monstrous nightmares began to panic. Here, they should have been the hunters, but they faced the Eternal Wardens. The Wardens slowly cleared the complex, inch by inch. After nearly a day of conflict, where the Astartes and Valhallan units were rotated out multiple times, the complex was finally purged. And during the entire process, Kesar stayed on the frontlines, as the daemons tried to run in a complex where the exits were covered by Titans and Wardens. Needless to say, none survived.

Meanwhile, the remaining Wardens prepared to burst into the prisoner complex. As they charged in, they found a horrible site. Nearly every single prisoner had been executed to bring forth a small horde of daemons. These daemonettes twirled and screamed in ecstasy before the saw the Wardens. Immediately upon seeing this, they ran back into the warp as the hereteks looked on in shock.

At the loss of their support, the hereteks pointed their weapons, not at the Wardens, but at the few prisoners that remained alive. "If you open … " In response to what was likely an ultimatum, the Wardens opened fire, killing as many hereteks as they could. In response, however, explosive collars on the prisoners detonated, the devices coded to explode when the nearby cultists were killed. The room was quickly cleared, and the Wardens moved onwards to the rest of the extremely spacious facility.

It was haunting how empty it was. There were no humans in the cells, they had been sacrificed to summon forth a horde of daemonnetes that saw the Wardens and grew terrified. Instead, the only sounds the Wardens heard were the sounds of hereteks preparing for their encroaching death. As the Wardens cleared room after room, with each kill, an explosion would go off and the Wardens knew that another prisoner had died. While it was very unlikely that they would have been able to save them without suffering horrendous losses, it still saddened them. These traitors to man had spent centuries tormenting these civilians, and when they were finally judged for their actions, they decided to murder any civilians they could.

Still, the Wardens progressed onwards, clearing room after room, before finally the planet had been cleansed of important targets. There were still hereteks hiding in the corners of the world, but this would be dealt with by dedicated teams. Meanwhile, the prison was swept again, this time looking for any survivors. Room after room was checked in the expansive facility, but it was terribly quiet. After hours of searching, the Wardens revealed the final tally. Of the 500,000 prisoners initially held here, a total of 73 had been found that were pure of soul and alive. It was not a pleasant feeling, but nothing could have been done.

With the conflict wrapped up, Kesar began to ponder how he could take the experiences of this battle and apply them to further improve the Wardens. As he did so, a different sort of battle was taking place on the Vigilance.

Onboard the Vigilance, several members of the Alpha Legion patrolled the halls in secret, carefully searching threats to Kesar's life. They had been placed here as a covert protection detail for years, and so far, they had not experienced any major issues. As they continued their patrol, they noticed something was off. Omegon was onboard as he was hoping to talk to Kesar about a joint project, but he was largely just relaxing. Why then, was then, was the life support decreasing at a faster rate than expected? After all, they should have known the exact count of bodies on the ship.

When he learned of this, Omegon ordered the Alpha Legion to report in in groups of five. Groups were brought in and cleared by the Primarch after they had provided the appropriate access codes. For a few seemingly random individuals, the hidden Primarch of the Alpha Legion took them into Kesar's office before sending them back out. After a few minutes of this, another group entered. This group was no different than the last, and at this point, the life support was reading the expected rate of decrease. When Omegon brought one of the Alpha Legionaries into a private room, this time, something was different.

The Changeling was giddy with excitement. This was one of his greatest tricks so far. Tricking the Alpha Legion was something even Tzeentch himself had yet to do. Resisting the urge to giggle, the daemon wondered how it would kill Alpharius. Transforming into him would be difficult, but doable. It had tested this before, and it had been successful. Still, the Primarchs were dangerous foes in any instance. As the Primarch in front of it asked questions regarding access codes and security verification, the Changeling answered each question flawlessly. The smugness in the daemon only increased as it realized that the Architect of Fate himself was assisting him. As the Primarch in front of it turned away, the Changeling's sight fractured into 99 separate possible futures.

In eighteen of these futures, it would fail to kill the Primarch as his initial strike would be dodged due to the insane reflexes of the Primarch. Then, the Primarch would send it back to the warp after its first attack would leave an opening it would exploit. In 72 futures, it would transform into the Primarch and duel with him. The resulting duel would take too long, and reinforcements would arrive. While they would be confused at first, somehow, they would know to target it, and the Changeling would be returned to the warp. In five of the remaining nine futures, the Primarch would withdraw too quickly for the Changeling to slay him. In the last four, however, Alpharius would die.

In the first, the Changeling would walk out before transforming into a bloodthirster at an exact moment. The Primarch would leap backward and during that leap, the daemon would turn into a Lord of Change and blast him with powerful sorcery. While still alive, this would open up the Primarch to the creation of a warp rift which would drag him into the warp to be torn apart by daemons.

In the second, the Changeling would perform the initial strike, and after the Primarch destroys his vision, he would swing his copied sword in an exact pattern which would lop off the Primarch's head.

In the third possible future, the daemon would take the form of Kesar Dorlin and strike. The brief hesitation would allow the daemon to gain a critical advantage which would wound the Primarch. After a furious melee, the Alpha Legion would break in at a position that would momentarily obscure Alpharius' vision. At this moment, the Changeling would stab the Primarch through the chest with his sword and kill him.

In the last possible future, and its favorite one, the Changeling would alter his form so that its ears would begin bleeding. As it faked hyperventilating, it would fake an attempt to warn of an assassination attempt on the Eternal Wardens using the Vigilance's cyclonic torpedoes. Concerned, the Primarch would move closer and the explanation would trickle out. When the Primarch would lay a hand on the Changeling's shoulder, he would then stab the Primarch laughing all the while.

With the possibility to kill a Primarch in such an entertaining manner, the Changeling chose the 99th​ possible future. Just as planned, the Primarch approached and laid a hand on the daemon's facsimile of a shoulder. Laughing, the Changeling drove his sword through the Primarch. "Now little snake, you see the futility of your defiance." In the warp, the Architect of Fate was pleased, now that the Anathema's most dangerous pawn was dealt with, he could move on to the next stage of plots. As Tzeentch began to weave his schemes, the dying Primarch said four words that terrified him.

"I am not Alpharius."

With that, the Astartes masquerading as Omegon masquerading as Alpharius perished, triggering explosives in the room. Within a microsecond of his death, the room was engulfed with flames as the Changeling screamed as it was tricked. Meanwhile, Tzeentch stopped completely. No plots, no plans for an eternity and never. In that moment and eternity, the Changer of Ways had seen all of his plans for the Alpha Legion derailed. His plots were dismantled, his plans were seen through, his divination tricked, his sorcery countered. Nothing had gone right!

In that single moment and eternity, the Changer of Ways changed once again. Except this time, it was without a doubt a detriment. The Alpha Legion had terrified him, to the point that he would never be able to operate against them at full effectiveness again.

As Omegon looked at the reports, he was irritated that he had missed a daemon stowing away. Then again, Malcador had explained that the Changeling was one of the best at infiltration and had even tricked the Sigillite once. Nevertheless, having just two Alpha Legionaries die in exchange for foiling another of the Architect of Fate's plots was worth it. Now, he simply had to ensure that the explosion had all traces erased and that Kesar would not find out what had happened. A simple task.

After a few days on Abom VI, the Primarch Kesar Dorlin had confirmed that the planet did not hold any more dangers, and in fact, he had found something interesting. A psychic device from the Dark Age, Kesar himself couldn't make anything of it. However, the Thousand Sons did. It seems that it was called an Occulus. This device allowed psykers to channel their abilities through it and extend their vision and information gathering abilities. Sadly, Kesar was unsure about whether he would be able to reverse engineer it since it seems to be purely operated by psykers. In fact, from his initial examination, none of the technology involved did anything besides maintain its shape. It seems that it simply channeled psychic energy in a manner that allowed for this to occur. Another major detriment to trying to reverse engineer it himself was that it would take time away from analyzing Gehenna Station, which was undoubtedly more important. However, he could give the device to Magnus, who was undoubtedly qualified to unlock its secrets. In the end, Kesar chose to

[] Let Magnus Uncover its secrets
[] Attempt to reverse engineer it himself
[] Write-in

As Kesar entered his office, he paused. Nothing was wrong in the room, in fact, it looked exactly as he left it. But then his augmented sense of smell registered a faint trace of cleaning sprays. Additionally, something was off. Drawing his sword, he prepared to call in reinforcements before an Alpha Legionary stepped out from behind his desk. "Lord Primarch, I apologize." With his hands raised and no weapon visible, Kesar put his sword away.

"What happened in here?" As he said this, he noticed that the Alpha Legionary looked sheepish, and Kesar's eyes noticed something underneath his desk. A small drop of blood. "Why is there blood in my office?"

"I apologize Lord Primarch, but there was an intruder that was dealt with. I am afraid that I was not cleared for information."

"I see, and you were attempting to complete the cover-up." At the Legionary's nod, Kesar continued. "In the future, please inform me of security holes or breaches. While I trust you, it is better to have contingencies as my First Captain puts it."

As the Alpha Legionary left, Kesar pondered the lessons from this year. From what he could see, there were four main issues. The first was being unable to properly understand how dangerous a world was until it was invaded. This resulted in Maticus arriving with minimal support. It would certainly help if Kesar could receive even a single word illustrating how dangerous the world was. These danger analyses could prove to be extremely useful.

Another idea was to implement a counterintelligence division in the Wardens. After repeatedly discovering Alpha Legionaries, it had become a joke within the Wardens that the Alpha Legion simply wanted their attention. However, it illustrated that there was a definite need to ensure that some form of defense existed against sabotage and infiltration.

The third idea involved increasing the Wardens' resistance to corruption. After some massively corruptive machines, the Wardens had proven to be able to resist through sheer willpower and the memories of the Lost. It would certainly be a good idea to further expand upon this and increase their resistance to the daemonic whispers.

The last idea was to simply improve the Legion's general combat ability. So far, the Legion was extremely specialized towards dealing with daemons. As such, the Wardens suffered when facing Xenos or other dangers. To counter this, Kesar could work towards increasing general combat skills. However, with how easy this combat was, there is unlikely to be much improvement. It would likely be as useful as the Runes of Reinforcement, but it was a general all-purpose upgrade that would come in handy.
"Konrad? How did you find me?"
In the end, Kesar chose to
"Little snake, I have information you should know."
[] Danger Analyses of Planets
[] Create a Counterintelligence Division
[] Increase Corruption Resistance
[] Improve General Combat Ability