Sunrise - a Khepri in the Dark Lands Quest (Worm/Warhammer Fantasy)

Disclaimer: I do not own Worm, Warhammer Fantasy or Total War: Warhammer I & II, which are the inspirations for this quest.
Secondary Disclaimer: I'm going to try to gloss over the gory details enough to keep this from needing a Mature tag, but these are rather dark settings and you should not read this story if you're unwilling to read written depictions of slavery, daemons, ritual sacrifice or slavers drowning in a tide of bugs.


The Dawi Zharr, also known as Chaos Dwarfs, had faced many slave rebellions over the history of their species. The largest and most famous was the rebellion of the Black Orcs, a disaster that shook the Chaos Dwarf's iron grip on the Dark Lands enough for Skaven, Ogres and Greenskin tribes to claim vast swathes of territory. Some say that the Greenskin hordes rampaged as far as the Temple of Hashut itself, but they say so quietly, in whispers that they hope their masters will never hear.

In an effort to prevent such a catastrophe from striking their nation again the Chaos Dwarfs became proactive about managing their slave rebellions. Carefully curated and vetted agitators were seeded into the most common problem areas, where they could find the most rebellious, unruly and wilful of the local slaves, gather them together, organize a 'rebellion' or mass-escape, only to report back to their superiors so the breakout could be crushed in as public a manner as possible. Anyone who showed actual skill in evading the eye of their captors or who possessed a glimmer of leadership potential was captured and executed, slowly, painfully and publicly.

For a time this system worked. Slaves were cowed, each generation having several events within living memory that seemed to prove the futility of defiance and the brutality of their masters, while distrust and paranoia shattered many genuine uprisings before they could begin.

In the caverns of a long-dead volcano a group of nearly a hundred slaves found themselves trapped, abandoned by a leader who they had thought they could trust. The vast, stone warehouse had been supposed to hold the food and supplies they needed to escape, but the crates were empty and the exits were blocked.

There is a saying about cornered rats that applies to them.

Unarmed, untrained and with nothing but the promise of slow, painful death in their future, the slaves turned to the most dangerous weapon they knew, magic. One of them had been tasked with cleaning the ritual-sites of the Daemonsmiths; and while he lacked both knowledge and skill he still knew enough to roughly ape in blood the twisted rune-craft of his captors. His plan was to summon a daemon to break them free of the blockade, to cut a path through the line of solid dwarven steel that ringed the warehouse so that at least some of the slaves could escape. Barring that… well he considered a swift death via ritual sacrifice kinder than the punishment for rebellion.

One girl objected to the plan. A young woman named Elva was once something other than a slave, someone who actually knew something of daemons and the horrors they brought, and of souls and what it meant to sacrifice them. Her objections were overruled, her violent protests marking her out as the vessel for the daemon to be bound within. She was held down on top of a crate as, one after another, dozens of slaves took turns using a single, precious, stolen dagger to spill their lifeblood over her body.

Desperation, a dozen sacrifices, mis-drawn runes and a ritual made up on the spot… The most common result of all this would be for nothing at all to happen; or perhaps the north wind would whisper instructions into the ears of the man leading the ritual and yet another servant of Chaos would find a toe-hold within the world.

But the ritual did neither of those things.

Dice fell. A god with an ever-shifting face laughed. An alien being budded, then ate it's own bud for the sake of a love it didn't understand. Elva saw a vision of two gods, fighting through a million portals upon a thousand worlds, then her soul was caged as a prize for the winner.

We are all so very small, in the end.

No! No please! No no no no no no no…

You open your eyes. You're being held down by four women while a man stands over you, holding a bloody dagger with trembling hands. You reach for your swarm and feel relief as it answers. Your range is good, better than it was before even, about a dozen blocks in size. It's just bugs again, the people here are beyond your ability to control, fortunately.

Some of the insects are strange, some of the people are strange, there's another power tugging at your mind and itching to be used and a voice in your head that has descended into mindless babbling, but you'll think about all that later. For now a small flying insect finds it's way into the eye of the woman holding your right leg, allowing you to free the limb with a frantic kick. You stop pulling with your right arm and instead push, jabbing clawed fingers into the wrist tendons of the woman holding that limb, freeing your right side. This allows you to roll to the left, twisting off the crate and splashing into a pool of blood on the ground, while also knocking over the man standing over you and dragging your remaining arm free from it's captor. The last woman keeps her grip on your leg, holding it even as you fall, but that just keeps your lower body elevated enough for a solid kick to her throat.

"Daemon, by the power of these runes I bind you!" a man says.

He's not speaking English, but you still understand him. This is concerning, and you force a bug down his throat under the assumption that he might have some kind of spoken Master power. The man you toppled seconds ago catches himself as he starts tumbling off the box, turning a drop into a painful kneeling motion that jars him long enough for you to rise, grab his wrist, twist it sharply and bang it against the edge of the crate until the dagger clatters to the floor.

His swearing is also not in English, and you can still understand it. You might need to revisit your theory about the first speaker being a Master.

You scoop up the dagger and stand, turning frantically as you try to keep the potential hostiles in sight. You are, unfortunately, still surrounded. There's at least thirty people in this room, crowded around you and with their heads turned to face you, although they're also backing away from you now that you're armed. Your vision is currently swimming too much to do a proper visual count by the dim candlelight, so you have to rely on your swarm-sense. You're still moving bugs through the room, tagging people who haven't caught the lice infestation as you find them.

At least fifty now, likely more, you don't have enough flying insects nearby to have done a proper grid-search yet. You're getting an idea of your surroundings though. It's an empty warehouse, full of empty crates. Large stone pillars supporting a stone ceiling indicate that you're likely below ground. Practically no time has passed and your swarm is still dispersed.

Your vision fades out completely and you see a girl in a cage of silver light screaming at you to give her body back. An effort of will clears her from your vision, but now that she's drawn your attention... You approach her again, brushing aside her feeble attempts at resistance to wring brief answers to your questions from her unwilling mind.

Who? Slaves. What? An escape attempt. When? Sometime in Nachexen, 2450, a calendar date that holds no meaning to you. Where? The Tower of Gorgoth, slave labor camp and slave trading hub of the Dark Lands. Why? Desperation.

The woman, Elva, thinks you're a daemon. Vicious and vile and about to torture her soul for all eternity. Her panic isn't helping anyone, so with a twist of will you send her to sleep until you have time to convince her otherwise.

The crowd has backed away a little more now and your eyes are adjusting to the dim light. You can see the rags they wear, the red marks on their wrists from shackles, the thin figures and the hopeless longing in their eyes. They don't seem so threatening now. The blood from the pile of corpses beside the makeshift altar still trickles across the floor, but now that you've calmed down you're starting to think that this isn't as simple as some crazy cult you can arrest and then go about your day.

The man who spoke of binding you finally coughs out the bug you made him swallow and forces a thin, fake and bitter smile.

"Maybe… maybe we can bargain? My name is Farrah, what do we call you?"

Taylor, Skitter, Weaver… there were a number of responses you could give, but they'd all be lies. You remember being shot twice by Contessa. You remember dying, then you remember being towers of crystalline computational matter, then you remember dying again. You'll ponder the existential crisis later. For now, with your abysmal skill at coming up with names on the spot and with the bugs pouring in from outside brushing past armoured figures carrying a heavy battering ram…

You don't trust these people, naturally, but you've worked with people you don't trust before. You won't just let them die, not if you can help it. You also won't let them engage in human sacrifice again, which requires a position of power within whatever organizational structure they possess.

"If you want me to save you, then you can call me Queen," you tell them.


AN: Please vote on your secondary power.

[ ] Data Package: Glaistig Uaine
You can grow four, six foot long segmented limbs from out of your back. They are slim, black and covered in hard chitin. Your spine is reinforced to better bear the weight. Each limb ends in a grey hand with three fingers and a thumb. The hands all possess a wiry strength, with each limb fully able to lift the weight of a grown man. If destroyed it will take several weeks for these limbs to reform.

If someone is choked to death by one of these hands you will gain something from the deceased. The lower-left hand grants you their knowledge, the lower-right hand grants you their skill, the upper right hand grants you the supernatural powers they wielded, while the upper left hand grants you the natural strength and durability they possessed. Using more than one hand to kill your victims is possible and even necessary to gain certain abilities that are a mix of the above, but each hand can hold only one imprint at once.

[ ] Data Package: Chevalier
You can grow four, fourteen foot long, heavily articulated limbs from out of your back. They are made of iron initially, but the arms have the ability to adapt to become other metals if you have them 'eat' a large enough sample. Your spine, pelvis, legs, neck and rib-cage are all greatly reinforced to ensure you are not crushed or damaged by the weight or the high speed maneuvers these limbs are capable of. Each limb ends in a large four-prong pincer. These pincers are strong enough to casually throw around horses. If destroyed it will take several months for these limbs to reform.

Each pincer is able to 'absorb' a single weapon, biting into and merging with it until such time as you choose to spit the weapon out. There are size constraints, but these limbs are are able to consume just about anything short of artillery, provided it is a physical object that can be used in combat. The limbs are then able to merge with each other, granting them increased strength and allowing you to create unique weapons with traits from everything in the merge. An example would be absorbing a grenade, a net and a rifle into three limbs, and then merging them to create a single limb with a gun that shoots bullets that explode into a tangle of rope.

[ ] Data Package: Teacher
You can grow four, twenty foot long tendrils from out of your back. They are thin and whip-like, with only a small spike on the end. Your spine, ribs and neck are reinforced to ensure you are not damaged by the high speed maneuvers these limbs are capable of. These tendrils require momentum to be effective, but can reach high speeds and are capable of throwing/dragging you around if used correctly. If destroyed it will take less than a day for these limbs to reform.

Each tendril has a 'rule,' and each rule grants a power. In order to inflict a rule upon someone, that tendril has to strike the victim directly on their skin and draw blood. The lower-right rule is 'Do Not Murder,' this makes the victim pathologically incapable of killing another sapient being, they will also become capable of sensing within a short distance people who have killed sapient beings. The lower-left rule is 'Do Not Lie,' this makes the victim incapable of directly lying and allows them to sense lies as they are told. The upper-right rule is 'Do Not Die,' this makes the victim unable to take actions that may directly result in their death, and gives them a short-range danger-sense. The upper-left rule is 'Do Not Teach,' this prevents the victim from willingly passing on information regarding a subject that they consider themselves expert, they also gain a pseudo-Tinker power that makes them a genius at their chosen field, or sets them decades or even centuries ahead of their time if they are already a genius.

All rules are permanent once inflicted.

[X] Data Package: Simurgh
You can grow four, eight foot long wings from out of your back. They are white and angelic in appearance, and they feel like soft down to the touch. These wings allow you to fly and are strong enough to throw around a grown man with ease. If damaged they will grow back in a few months.

Every time you cause complete terror to a sapient being you will randomly gain one hour of use of one of the following powers: You gain powerful telekinesis, though only within five feet of your wings. You gain three seconds of precognition. You can sing beautifully and your songs will powerfully inspire the emotion of your choice. You become much stronger. You become much more durable. Your scream causes fear and confusion to your enemies. You become inhumanly beautiful. You can intuit and reverse-engineer technology. You can intuit and reverse engineer magic.

Stored time is lost if it isn't used within two months.