To Pay The Tithe - A Warhammer 40k Quest

[X] The Nightmare of the Vales

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Nil frowns and adjusts his stance behind the sandbag barricade he built not even an hour past. Months have passed but even now the symbol of his dedication to the Warmaster's cause still aches from time to time in spite of being long healed.

His voice carries out to those around him, each clad in the dark green flak armor that once signified their service to Fort Hulm, "You think there was a traitor? Caught some vox chatter while we were setting everything up. Looks like we're facing a bunch of savages. Plate armor. Swords. That sort of thing. Hard to believe that gets past emplaced stubbers and massed las."

From right next to him comes to the distinctive sound of a heavy stubber's slide being racked. His fellow member and partner of a decade answering first, "Maybe, but I doubt it. You know how Under-Shadow is. If it was traitors they probably would've unraveled right in front of these assholes and they would've been dealing with one of those Things instead of the trench works. None of 'em would have made it inside."

"Enough," a hand claps down on each of their shoulders as the squad leader cuts in, "Question not the failings of others. Their souls have passed on and now await the Warmaster's judgement of their worth. Focus on our work now. Just got word we've lost another level to these corpse worshipping bastards."

It is in that moment that pieces click together in Nil's head. His Mark was aching.

'Last time it hurt that Commissar had us in a trap... Didn't expect there to be so many of us. And the time before that was wh-'

His thoughts stop dead in their tracks. His eyes go wide as a barely audible noise registers in his ear. Yanking free from his squad leader's grasp the guardsman whirls to bring his lasgun up, "FROM AB-"

He doesn't get the chance to finish. It all happens so fast. Dust sprinkling down from above as webs of cracks form of the ceiling. A strange orange tinted liquid dripping down from growing holes. The scuttering of something in the vents all around. Panicked motions to respond are cut short by huge chunks of the ceiling giving way in a small avalanche of rubble. Instinct pushes Nil backwards and sends him tumbling over the sandbags...

A surge of self hatred. A wave of unbridled wrath. A pain digging into his chest even with no wound.

Nil watches as the rubble crushes Vulk underneath. He watches as strange, insectoid creatures smash through vents and pounce down onto the surprised defenders. Three sets of antennae twitching violently atop their pointed heads. Double sets of mandibles crunching through flak and flesh with terrifying ease.

And then they come. Huge, monstrous creatures akin to those smaller insects but so... So much larger. As one drops down from above one of its six legs stabs through Nil's commander with terrifying ease. Upon the beast's back a rider clad in the same grey and brown shades as their mount looks down at him for a moment. Spear in one hand. Laspistol in the other.

He can see it. Feel it. His time has co-

A Mark burns.

An eight pointed star carved upon flesh by blade defiled twists and turns against the binds of the material.

Shadows shift unseen.

Tendrils spreading from beneath pull at the strings of Reality.

By Unseen Hands that which is Seen is made Unseen again.

Somehow the rider's gaze simply skims over him. Their gaze turns to the few surviving members of Nil's squad... Those not being devoured by the smaller cousins of the rider's mount. Emotion overwhelms him as he watches the rider guide his savage beast to pounce at a soldier- 'No, my friend.'

In an instant flesh is torn asunder by an uncaring beast. Frantically the remainder try to raise a resistance...

Nil scrambles to his feet. His lasgun discarded where it fell. Heart pounding in his ear. The Hate growing. For himself. For these savages that ruined the Warmaster's plan. For the corpse that sat upon a throne of lies.

Behind him bursts of lasfire diffuse almost harmless across the insect and its rider.

Some even reflecting back at the attacks.

---

Novak jerks Tip to the ground beside him just in time for the air above them to be filled with something akin to a torrent of lead. Two heavy stubbers ripping across the hastily established battle line claiming no fewer than three lives as troopers failed to take cover in time.

'Four more of them are moving up now. They'll use the higher volume of fire for suppression and start moving the other two forward. Back and forth, back and forth...'

He scowls as he pulls a frag grenade from his rig and thumbs the activator. A rune atop it turns red. Throwing off memory, the grenade sails up and over the metal barrier as his hand raises to the side of his helm, "Grenade out. Follow up with a frag each and then de-"

A small crack rings out cutting him off, "And then deploy smoke on our position. Heide, signal the rest of the First to begin fall back operations under my order. We're giving up half the guns."

Amidst a subsequent wave of explosions as his squads' frags follow his own an unexpected response comes, "But Sir, the dropships haven't fin-"

"We give half or they take all of them over our thrice-damned corpses. Give the order!"

Novak winces a little. Regret flits through his mind at the first time he's been so harsh to her.

'I'll make it up at family dinner later...'

All around him smoke begins to pour from hastily thrown canisters. Already Tip is start to crawl back towards the way they had come. Snatching his laspistol from his belt, Novak shoves it over the barricade and starts blind firing to add volume to his squad's intensifying suppressive fire.

"Well... Hopefully she doesn't tell her mom about that. Had me running full kit sprints for two hours last time."

Muttering to himself, Novak readies for the coming fighting retreat and starts to pray that giving up those emplacements with the worst angles on the dropships would be enough to slow the assault...

---

Silvasari is surprisingly comfortable. It adapts to some extent in an attempt to maintain the body temperature of the wearer and properly made sets utilize the chitin of Vale Wardens carved into hundreds if not thousands of hexagonal plates then fused to suits formed of the muscle fibers of their former host.

Light.

Paradoxically cool and warm.

Durable.

Agile.

The Seventh smiles as she stares at the shaped helm in her hands. It does not last long as the dropship she is upon begins to jerk and vibrate violently alongside the roar of its engines growing ever louder as it moves in to land. Perhaps far more importantly, a certain frustrating coghead continues to speak incessantly into her ear.

"-according to the schematics the central reactors should be on level B-9 in Zone C-C-1. I have sent Enginseer Talos the approximate best route for you to follow. I must once again stress how vital it is you take the reactors before they can further reinforce them. While the chances are marginal that a competent Lexmechanic or Enginseer has fallen to such foolish propaganda as them they are never zero. In fact, by my estimation of the Mechanicus forces supporting such a sizable complex there is at least a nineteen point five nine three four six nine ei-"

"Enough Oleg. I don't need the numbers. There is a chance they can overload these reactor things. There is a chance they can bring 'bring online automated defenses'. They are likely to concentrate a large portion of their forces on securing place. So..."

The Seventh jerks violently as the dropship finally touches down. Across from her the coghead Talos signals her and the other Knights gathered to free themselves from the harnesses holding them in place. Her helmet fits comfortably on her head. Plates and sinew shifting to accommodate her even as a Squire hurries forward to begin opening the containers resting in the center of the bay, "So, we do what we do best. Charge in. Kill everyone that gets in our way. Drive a lance all the way through the complex and claim this reactor of yours before it becomes a threat. Simple."

An exasperated sigh comes in response laced with static as the distance between them puts strain on the signal, "Haaaa... As you say Seventh."

Pouring out from the containers are close to forty Vale Wardens. Only a dozen of them adults while the children skitter about underneath them in twos and threes. At the head of the pack one substantially larger than the others has already begun to poke its head out beyond the open cargo bay, a couple of las blasts slamming harmlessly against it as antennae begin to twitch in an all too familiar frustration, "Squires! Knights of Caledonia! To arms I call you! The First Errantry War of the Starry Vale calls our name! Our banners await the legends we will forge on this world! The Hermits even now scrawl in their tomes the first words of glory earned!"

As her voice carries through her comm-bead, boosted through dropship bound vox-relays and further carried across squad deployed vox-casters, it reaches every last warrior of the 122nd. It signifies the beginning in truth. Her feet pound across the metal flooring as she breaks into a sprint and leaps forward.

Hands grab onto leg joints barely in reach as her muscles strain to pull her up atop the Vale Warden more than twice the size of its kin. Mandibles click furiously and antennae twitch in her direction as irritation turns to joy.

Her voice is joined by thousands.

"To war! To war! To war!"

---

Some believe themselves prepared. All throughout the fortress complex the traitors to the Imperium steel their hearts and ready their arms. Corridor intersections are turned into fortresses in miniature. Walls of sandbags and furniture and sheets of metal backed by stubber emplacements and guarded by massed by lasguns lay scattered all around. Independent squads lay hidden in rooms prepared to ambush any passer by. Lone defenders man holdouts built in the complex's conception, each positioned to allow one to hold against many time their number. Handmade tripwire mines crisscross empty hallways in webs of death.

And yet, none of it is enough for what comes.

Riderless Vale Wardens lead at the head of the charge, coordinated by the adult steeds behind, and against them improvised mines prove of little effect. Sure. Their exoskeletons are shredded by the mass of fragmentation explosions. Some few collapse and perish from their wounds... But for most they are little more than flesh wounds barely able to slow them.

Caledonian warfare is not merely that of massed cavalry charges but an exercise in ambushes, counter ambushes, tunneling, and shock strikes.

And so, when ambushers pour from rooms or strike from hidden positions as they pass it is to unsurprised defenders prepared for that and more. They are met by the silent embrace of gnawing mandibles, glinting spears and sharp blades. Desperate lasfire finds little purchase against beasts and knights clad in a material that simply does not care.

They are met with death.

And then come those makeshift fortresses. Against a conventional force perhaps they would've held and reaped a bloody toll. Against the 122nd they met instead the Nightmare of the Vale. Young Vale Wardens pour from vents as adults under the guidance of their riders dig through ceilings or floors or even nearby walls to get the defenders from angles they never even dreamed possible. It is as if the fortress they had long called home is suddenly some distant, alien land that never welcomed them.

Even in the minds of these diehard zealots the fear of what they face begins to grow as more of their defensive network falls by the minute.

And then comes that final and decisive blow.

In the very depths of the fortress complex lay the central reactors. The lifeblood of the complex. Huge, sparking relics of ages long past barely understood. Great works of metal that hum the song of the raging psuedo-stars they contain. It is from them that everything from the simplest lightbulb to the searing lances of the anti-orbital batteries call when they need power.

It is here that Oleg's fears are found worthy ones. Under intensive guard a small cadre of hereteks work ceaselessly atop the mangled bodies of their former companions. Bodies twitch and writhe as errant electricity lashes out from broken capacitors. Smoking shells of servitors sputter in and out of life before being put out of their misery by soldiers clad in black and red.

A few hundred strong. Their armor covered in the eye watering and mind warping symbols of the Great Enemy. They stood ready to safeguard those who would either see Complex Seven fall properly into traitor hands... Or turned to a smoking crater to deny even the smallest asset.

Again the enemy finds themselves unprepared for what is to come. Increasingly urgent reports putting these elite soldiers on ever higher alert as they hasten to secure the sector. Heavy stubber emplacements are brought to bear. Doors welded shut and booby trapped. Walkways connecting to the reactor platform are sent hurtling into the depths below as chokepoints are formed that can be held by mutually supporting fire positions.

They face instead that which haunts many a Caledonians' nightmares.

Doors are smashed open by Vale Wardens at full charge. Tripwires dealing only minor damage even as gun emplacements tear trenches through chitin, living and plate armor alike, but ultimately do little to stop the charge. Distracted by these initial invaders they fail to notice the far greater threat.

They come from above.

They come from below.

Crawling along conduits and cooling pipes. Clambering along cliff faces and up fallen walkways.

The Seventh is at the head of the host. Dropping almost ten meters from the darkness above her steed crushes a heretek underneath even as her spear skewers another. Its body jerks and sparks as mechanical limbs lash out futilely towards a target both out of reach and beyond the capability of malfunctioning cogitators. The bark of a handcannon sounds. Six shots ringing out as the hereteks are exterminated to the last.

Some rush forward to stop her and save those who would give them even a sliver of a chance to survive. Not one can get past her Vale Warden as it lays about with active fury upon realizing their goal. Entire men are bit in half and others slung into the dark below where the telltale glimmer of compound eyes await.

Following the Seventh are almost a hundred Knights and behind them hundreds of young Vale Wardens. Attacked from seemingly every angle even these elite troops hold for mere minutes before their guns are silenced to the last.

In the relative quiet that follows a voice can be heard swapping rapidly between synthetized and physical, "The reactors have been captured High Enginseer. Reporting eight heretics who have turned from the Omnissiah. Beginning to take control of the systems now. Requesting assistance."

Meanwhile, far above the traitor guard are met with the full might of a drop regiment as hundreds of soldiers descend from on high in a storm of hellgun fire and jet flares. In an instant a unified defensive front is turned into dozens of isolated pockets of resistance as the First deploys across almost every inch of Complex Seven's battlements. Anti-air guns fall silent as their operators are struck down or forced to man suddenly compromised defensive positions. Under the thorough command of their Colonel, the First make short work of the enemy destroying them piecemeal and then uniting with other elements to bring ever greater portions to bare.

It is as the noose of the First begins to tighten and the lightning assault of the 122nd has shattered the defense in depth below that the unyielding will of the Enemy begins to show. In mere minutes decisions are made. Short bursts of vox-comms between the enemy turning a large scale defense into an ordered retreat.

Entire platoons of the traitor guard willingly sacrifice themselves to give their comrades the cover they need. On Complex Seven's battlements any idea of conservation is thrown aside as heavy stubbers let out streams of constant fire that soon warp barrels and lasguns turned to full-auto empty battery after battery. In the corridors beneath the 122nd finds itself faced with suicidal counter charges. Entire squads of traitor guardsmen sprinting down hallways with bayonets attached to meet the Caledonians in kind.

Such acts are met universally with an outright slaughter with heavy losses on the traitor side and yet they are more than enough as large elements of their forces begin to disappear into Complex Seven's depths. By the time units can be deployed to follow them they have already largely disappeared into what is soon revealed to a vast underground network of tunnels and caverns seemingly prepared for this.

While many from the 122nd and even the First would soon call for immediate action to pursue the events to follow would put those ideas to rest. Arriving just in time to avoid any real fighting is the Planetary Governor and his regiment of personal guard. Both regiments will soon finds themselves under the Governor's direct command in operations to come, but for now?

The Battle for Fortress Complex Seven has come to a bloody close.

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And with that the first Crisis comes to an end and I get to unveil the rewards you get for throwing the 122nd off cliffs! By surviving a Crisis the 122nd gains you all Fate which can be spent between Crisis in order to manipulate things (not always to the benefit of the 122nd). As Crisis get more dangerous the reward for surviving them is greater, of course. In this instance Only A Moment Of Weakness was the least dangerous Crisis and rewards a base 2 Fate for surviving it.

Beyond that Twists of Fate and how well the 122nd performs will generate more Fate to be spent. In this instance a very well performing 122nd nets you all 2 Fate and your choice of The Nightmare of the Vales provides 1 Fate. In total that will leave you all with 5 Fate to spend in the next update.

I'll update the regiment and glossary informational post later today, but the next update will likely be in a day or two.