Age of Burning Empires: IC

Silverbullet · Nov 6, 2021

Yeredet's Forge
Joint IC with @Mortis Nuntius

Alaric frowned as he walked amongst the fallen forms of his sons, his nephews, and their allies. The wounded were already being tended to so all that was left was body reclamation and salvage. He had made sure his Watch understood to return any of their allies' equipment they happened upon. The Mechanicum had proven their loyalty in this bloody crucible and had shed autosanguine fluid and sacred oils alongside them. The least they could do was return their wargear and the engrams of their fallen. His mind played back to the sight of Grixus's squad being cut down around him by the red armored xenos as one of Gri-Vi.o.s. 's Skitari leapt to pull Grixus from the fusilade. Whatever Mar's sins, the Mechanicum of its daughter Forges at least were steadfast and honorable in their way.

Alaric continued collecting the fallen as he tracked a narthecium pack's beacon from a fallen Apothecary. As he walked he felt his boot impact something. He knelt down and found an armored gauntlet in the colors of the Second Legion's Old Guard. His drones and servo-skulls moved directed by his will to scan the gene code of the severed hand within and in moments he found the Astartes it belonged to had yet to be found by the search and rescue teams. Alaric's helpers spread out and he stood briefly as the data feeds gave him dozens of eyes and augurs to survey the grizzly field. To an outside observer it would seem the ornately armored giant had become akin to a statue before leaping into motion as he sprinted to a nearby mound of fallen xenos, humans, and the remains of hastily erected prefab barricades. His hands joined the manipulators of his drones as they flung dead eldar from the form of an Astartes whose plate bore the mud stained colors of Savnok's old guard. As his own augurs began to probe the fallen warrior his eyes surveyed the damage. The marines left hand ended in a stump wrapped protectively around an armored case, his legs were severed at the knees, but his right hand still held onto his bolter. The drones reported the body of an Apothecary several meters away. It was Bhogar, his body mauled by xenos weapons and bereft of his narthecium case. It seemed Alaric owed this Legionnaire and these fallen soldiers a debt as they had given their own lives to safeguard his sons' progenoid glands for future Astartes. Alaric blinked as the scans showed the fallen warrior's Sus-an membrane had apparently gone active and what had seemed death was only a deep coma to repair his wounds. Alaric himself was unfamiliar with the necessary procedures to revive a warrior in such a state as his own sons' membranes were defective. Alaric lifted his fallen nephew with care as the servo-skulls and drones collected the narthecium and wargear. Another detachment gathered the ident tags of the fallen auxiliary as they would be honored by the Legion. As Alaric sprinted to the waiting Apothecaries facility. A quick data burst on the Legion's battlenet and his sons had dispatched one of their own to gather their fallen brother. Whomever the Legionnaire cradled in his arms was Alaric would craft his bionics himself. Debts would be paid.

Meanwhile his brother was doing his own post battle assessment, accompanied by two of his most trusted and troublesome leutenients. Jean Geant separated himself from his fellow senior officers of the Eternity Guard in four ways, one he wore his long blond hair in a cascade of cavalier curls that fell down to his waist , two his lovingly crafted armour and weapons were encrusted with jewels, thirdly he stood a head taller than most Astartes and finally he was always ready with a smile and a jest or a boast or challenge. He had gone through the worst of the carnage with a delighted grin hidden behind his helmet but his laughter and artful knifery were proof of his elation, witnessing the aftermath was not enough to spoil his mood it seemed as he walked besides his Primarch seemingly without a care in the world. Their other companion was more withdrawn, Reon Essling, his own Terminator armour bore many scars yet was still polished to perfection, he would have been a handsome man were it for the permanent sneer of distaste disfiguring his noble features. The Trio had emerged together from the tower yet the two officers spoke only to their Primarch and seemed carefully unaware of the presence of the other.

Alaric looked down at the Eternal Guard, Alastair Garnier, the identification markers read. He was still in a healing coma, but luckily would not require a sarcophagus. Alaric nodded to the attending Apothecary and made his way out of the facility. As he walked he pulled up a holographic projector and began setting designs for replacement limbs for the Old Guardsman. He idly noted that clean up was proceeding on schedule, and they'd be able to resume their push into the territory of Ursh. The Eldar's remains were being collected for study and he made sure to send messages to several of his cybermancers to collect plenty of samples of their armor and weapons technology. He took note of Savnok's location and made his way to him at a brisk pace. They would need to convene and decide on a strategy for the advance.

It seemed that they had similar thoughts on their minds, judging by their argument. "The Legion has fought in three wings since the unification wars, breaking us apart and mixing the Maniples among each other would be a disaster, we'd have to slow down far too much to let the Invalid and Slow Guards keep up with us." Geant was arguing furiously.

"The Old Guard may at times be called upon in the hour of direst need Lord Primarch but when I took up this command I was promised by you that you would leave it to my own design, you gave me your word that our independence would be inviolable, diluting us in penny packets across the Imperium is completely unacceptable." Was Essling's contribution.

Savnok glared at both of them thoroughly unimpressed. "The current formation is clunky and unwieldy, fitting for a parade but not a battleground. Our failure here would be amplified many times over if we do not take the opportunity to learn from it. A total reorganisation is required. Out of respect for your sentimental attachment, the designations may remain the same, I am well aware of the need for Marines to feel a full attachment to their formation but operationally from now on we shall use smaller more flexible combined formations. Your pride will not stand in the way of effectiveness."

Of course the arrival of a Primarch did not go unnoticed, but of course the elite of the Eternity Guard paid him no mind. Neither Praetorian nor Captain General seemed willing to cease arguing for even a moment but Savnok raised a fist.

"Enough, this can wait. Brother, what is it?" He asked, getting straight to the point.

Alaric was grateful for his helm obscuring him from view because he was sure his raised brow would draw comment. "Hey Savvie, you and the boys having a row about how we're going forward huh? Figured I'd come over and we could hash out how you and me, and Aurie I guess if she deigns to show herself, will put boot to face on Ursh. I'm favorable to cutting the head off the snake and heading over by the most direct means possible."

Alaric directed a drone over who produced a holo map of their current position in the Galaxy. A line formed from Yeredet's Forge to an unknown planetary system to Ursh itself. Alaric waited as the Eternal Guard and their Primarch studied the map in contemplative silence.

Consider Savnok did, after a few moments he drew a few divergences. "There are numerous worlds between us and Ursh, I believe through recon and negotiation we can potentially gain new allies and gather intelligence as well as diverting the traitor's attention."

"Father, those worlds would fall into line if Ursh falls regardless." The Captain General objected.

"We have two legions at our disposal, possibly three." Geant offered in rebuttal.

"Possibly up to four," Savnok informed them. "The Coldiron Cages are nearby and I believe it to be no coincidence given the nature of the Psyker threat."

"Then we certainly have the strength for multiple thrusts, I say we go ahead with your plan father. Conquer a swath from here to Ursh." Jean enthused.

"And waste our strength? You are too obvious, you clearly wish for an independent command, something you have no entitlement too in a single thrust. Praetorian."

"Whilst were you to remain in command you'd not stop polishing your armour and talking about some battle a hundred year's past whilst fretting over your precious derelicts."

"Enough! This bickering is unseemly." Savnok interjected, forcefully. "Praetorian you shall have the command you seek, and if it is independence you wish than it is independence you shall have for I wish for you to lead the outermost sweep, guard our flank and attempt to divert attention. As for you esteemed Captain General, you will be directly supporting my brother Alaric." Savnok turned to the other Primarch, "if that is acceptable to you of course, I believe we can spare sufficient forces to give you a strong chance of success on a direct assault and still wage these secondary campaigns. I would join you as soon as possible and either reinforce your success or salvage the situation as needed."

"Doubt you'll need to salvage things, but I'm not willing to discount a tricky bastard who gave the Emperor a solid go on Old Terra. I've recalled my eighth and ninth Chapters from their campaign against those squid xenos. They'll be forming up behind us to either rejoin our victory or reinforce the siege. As much as I'd appreciate a fourth partner in our jolly little stomp, I can't help but have misgivings. The Cold Iron were not known for restraint when they were spears and in some ways less now that they call themselves cages. Tell your psychic sons and any in our auxiliary to stay well clear of Varil and her ilk. When they scent witches their ability to tell friend from foe falls to the wayside"

Alaric pointed at arrancadora, the hammer he had crafted for Sanvok. "Did old gutripper work well enough against those knife-eared ponces?"

Savnok nodded. "It was perfectly functional, although I regret the new Xenos type escaped. It was through my own fault rather than any deficiency in your craftsmanship, though I do now suspect that modifications may be in order to improve effectiveness in future, perhaps some sort of incapacitation function?"

Alaric brought a gauntleted hand up to his helm's aurumite chin and rubbed idly in thought. He then pointed to the hammer's hilt.

"Best I can think of is to put a stun club head on the end so you can pommel strike anything into unconsciousness. Unfortunately it's a weapon of war not of oppression so unless you want to requisition some gear from the Arbites I have few thoughts. I can however begin researching a kind of tranquilizer bolt round. It'd have to use a gas cartridge rather than the current propellant as it may cause issues. I'll also need to get a live eldar to test what sedatives actually work on their biology, though I'll have the Apothecary start dissecting the corpses we have for study."

Alaric brought his hands together and looked skyward in contemplation at length he continued, "I've got the Cybermancers working on broad spectrum sensor drones to attach to every squad so we can sniff out enemy cloakers and the like. I'll test run'em with your Captain General here on our way to Ursh and hopefully we'll be able to pin these Eldar down more easily in the future. I will tell you, Sav, that I'm worried about the fact that the Eldar or Aeldari as they call themselves are at every front of the Crusade. Wherever our siblings have pushed they've met them or even humans acting on their behalf."

Alaric pulled up a report Riminar of the Culter Dei had sent him of Ahurani's rage at the foolish nobles of Idozin and their crimes against their own people. He froze the video on Runi flash freezing the bastards in her sheer fury.

"We both know Runi's not one to lose control like that, but I've got the medical reports from my Apothecaries who helped the Wardens put those people back together, and it was shit you wouldn't have seen in the worst of the old regime's labs back home. Khal's apparently fighting a collection xeno nobility in a confederation against him, and most of our siblings to the Galactic south are pushing into disparate Eldar stellar empires. We're encircled and we need to nip shit like Kalagann now and then focus on these things."

"You have my full agreement brother. I have transferred all the data that we have here to our siblings and Father but I fear it is not enough. Perhaps if I had not failed to capture that strange new form of Eldar it would have been different. But as is I am gravely concerned we are entering a far broader war than originally intended and doing so lacking vital information."

Alaric nodded and brought his hand up splaying three fingers. "I'm giving it three Terran days to finish up preparations here and then I'll be sending scout frigates ahead of our advances. In the meantime your boy Alistair gave limb to safeguard my boys' future so I'll be whipping him some flash bionics up as recompense. Call me if you or our reclusive sister desire further council."

With that Alaric nodded to Savnok and his commanders before turning and walking to the landing fields. He'd take a stormbird up to the Necessitas and start working on the bionics for Legionnaire Alastair.

Scabby · Nov 6, 2021

Hamon's Father

Aboard the flagship of the Steel Princes legion, a battle barge named Horns of Steel, the primarch Ba'al Hamon examined his childrens' work. The legion had recently triumphed against a small Xenos empire, with Hamon observing and commanding from the void. Now, on the way to their next target for compliance, was the time to repair and rebuild.

"B24, raise by five-hundred and thirty micrometers. A13, increase the angle by point zero two degrees," Hamon commanded a pair of servitors. The Sicaran Battle Tank before him was reputedly responsible for turning the tide of a battle on the world behind them, though it had been badly damaged in the process. In honor of its deeds, the Primarch himself would oversee its repair.

One of the side doors meant for the legion's serfs began to open, and Hamon stepped back from the vehicle. He glanced at the serf, who was bowing in his direction, and ordered his children to look over the tank themselves via his electoo. The serf approached a moment later as his children began their work once more.

"Lord Primarch," the serf said as they bowed again.

"Serf," Hamon acknowledged, and then asked, "What duty brings you here?"

"You've received a message, my lord. From the Emperor."

Hamon did not give any visible reaction to hearing the serf's words. The only reaction to be noticed, if one had the superhuman perception and processing speed of an Astartes, was a slight pause before the Primarch spoke.

"Send word that I will be in room 7001, serf. Continue your work, legionnaires. I must see what my Father wants."

The serf scurried off, back through the door they had come from; some among the Astartes nodded, while others saluted, before going back to their work. Hamon left through another door, one made especially to accommodate him. He began his journey to the bridge, near where the Astropath would share the message from the Primarch's father.

Father. To Hamon, he was almost always Father, a distant and respectful acknowledgement in an adopted tongue; not a word of endearment like the children of his homeland had for their fathers, or like he had once used for his adoptive mothers. Occasionally he would call the man Emperor, Master of Mankind, Conqueror of Terra, any of a dozen titles.

Not Omnissiah. Never Omnissiah.

Once, it had been a title Hamon had held. The agents of Phoenicia IV had recognized his mind and its genius, as he fashioned rudimentary guns in his feudal capital. On the Forge World, his brilliance was shown even more, and the mastery of his body's genecraft revealed. Who else could possess such a mind adapted to machinery, a body so peerlessly forged, than the avatar of the Machine God crafted by Him directly? To the Forge World of Phoenicia IV, Ba'al Hamon had been the Omnissiah.

In those days, Hamon felt mighty. He knew that the galaxy was large, and the handful of worlds he had stepped on had little meaning other than that they were his; but every victory, every celebration, every advancement had felt meaningful. Hamon was his own God, and he would restore knowledge and prestige to mankind in due time. How bitter it was, that his time ran out on what should have been a great day - the reunion between Holy Mars and one of its lost congregations. An Explorator Fleet had arrived to inform the Forge World that the Omnissiah had been found and mankind was being reunited under Him.

They had resisted at first - the fleets from Mars only carried words, while Hamon was there in the flesh. Arguments had almost become heated, in those weeks before the Emperor arrived; no shots were fired, but several priests from either side had to be restrained. Seeking peace and Hamon's submission, the Emperor had challenged him to a series of tests. For hours, they quizzed each other on mathematical problems and scientific proofs; in the end, Hamon failed. They raced to craft an assembly of weapons, to be tested vigorously for any faults; Hamon had failed that too. In the face of his father's skill, Hamon had renounced his title.

It was the first injury Hamon had truly felt, deeper and more enduring than any other. Bronze axes had blunted themselves against his skin for drops of blood, electricity had scorched him as he learned from the Electro-priests - but conceding that the Emperor was the Omnissiah was a wound to his spirit, his identity, his pride. How could he trust any other accomplishment not to be stripped away, if his most prized and honored title was a farce? What greatness could he achieve, as one of twenty serving under a man that had trounced him in his fields and in his home?

There was no balm to be found, and every day of service, every word of adulation for his Father only kept embers of embarrassment and smoldering anger alive. To call the Emperor by the title that was taken from Hamon would have killed him; small blessings that he was regarded as the man's son. Any other worshiper of the Machine God would be questioned for not calling him the Omnissiah, but none would doubt a son loyal to his Father.

Hamon's march to the bridge was nearly at an end, ferried by long strides and swift elevators across the ship. He schooled any emotion from his face as he entered the hallway, and then entered one of the rooms. Inside was a long marble table, and at the center of its length was a finely ornamented throne meant for the Primarch; opposite it were a pair of windows only able to be looked through from inside the room, and another door. Through the windows, Hamon could see a group of Astartes waiting along with the Astropath. Hamon sent a command through his electoo for the door to open, and the group filed through. They each bowed to the Primarch, who stared impassively at the Astropath.

"Rise," Hamon commanded. "Now, what have you heard from my Father?"

averagename · Nov 6, 2021

Day Terrors

Actium burned, the seat of the five hundred glittered like a gemstone as fire ravaged its surface. He watched it from orbit but even then, though he stood outside the atmosphere and within deep vacuum, he could hear the screaming. It was terrible, a chorus of voices in tortured harmony, it had been growing; each moment bringing a greater volume and depth to the maddening song. Now though it was worse, the chorus was shrinking. One by one the voices were cut off, one by one the dammed chorus disappeared. He did not know how but he knew exactly how many voices there were. As the numbers fell from billions to millions to thousands and finally to dozens he started to be able to distinguish them. He knew the voices; friends, enemies and countrymen all; all they did was scream. Then as abruptly as it started the last voice died and he was left alone, watching Actium burn in the silent uncaring void.
That terrible silence though, did not last long. Soon he began to hear whispers, wind in the form of words. Soft but sharp, he felt the voices cut into his mind, making his thoughts bleed. They spoke to him of this event's inevitability, they spoke to him of how to stop it, how they could stop it. He didn't listen.
There were no gods and thus these whispers were nothing...
... But what if they were right, what if this was true; like the times before? What if they could prevent it?
... No. There are no gods, so if they are not nothing they are something.
... The emperor said there are no gods, but did he ever say there were no devils.

And then he blinked and found himself standing in a world already burned. The tens of thousands of souls surrounding him looking up as the landers of the Emperor descended.

Another Amoeba · Nov 7, 2021

Nameless Daughter

She wasn't safe. Something had broken in. The lost child knew this with certainty, though she knew not why. She rolled from her perch with instincts born of pure terror, experienced again and again to the point that it sharpened her reactions to a knife's edge. She landed in a low crouch on the floor of the cave that served as her shelter. Her hands had scooped her flint knives from their perch as she fell, and she held them tight up against her chest in balled fists. Ice crunched beneath her feet in the frigid cavern.

The room was empty. They hadn't reached her yet. Fight-or-flight faded, just enough to let her think. She dove into her mind. The runes of protection and alarm, studded throughout the whole cavern complex, faded into perception. She systematically checked them all, but none of them were broken. She squealed out an imprecation in Their Language, and found a knife pressed against her neck instantaneously. No! She wouldn't speak it. She should have learned not to speak it.

There had to be a mistake, somewhere in her defenses. She wouldn't lay the runes wrong, she knew that. So there was some side passage, some other entrance she'd failed to ward. That meant she should leave the way she came, not try to hide. She had another place three days' travel against the motion of the sun from here. It would be a long run to safety.

Her feet slammed against frigid rock as she bounded into action. She danced across the ice and through forests of razory crystals, until she heard something new: a strange whirring sound, almost like the beating of the Flying Ones' wings. What? She stopped, grew silent, and listened more deeply. Yes, there was something up ahead. They had broken through! But... her alarms still weren't tripped. It had to be bad luck. Maybe she'd just laid those wards wrong, or there had been a cave-in that escaped her notice. So she doubled back. There was another entryway not far from here, out through a long shaft like a chimney to the top of the mountain. She didn't want to be exposed on the ridgeline, but she had to leave right now.

However, on her final approach to the skylight chamber, she heard that whirring again. Impossible. She wouldn't have failed twice like this. Her enemies must have uncovered some trick, some hole that let them bypass the wards entirely.

The girl steeled herself for battle. It would be fighting her way out, or letting the noose grow ever tighter. She slowed her movements again, and could hear that the monsters in the chamber beyond moving forward. Good, she thought, let them come to her. She settled into the shadows near the entrance to the passageway. A wall of icy stalagmites would allow her to strike at the invaders before they could strike her. The opening into the chamber beyond was narrow, and partially frozen over. No gap was too small for her tormenters to slip through, but it could still slow their advance.

A monster entered alone. She leapt out to attack the moment it cleared the opening. It was a creature that was shaped like her, except with a hide of black, red, and vibrant yellow, holding some strange sort of boxy club. Its empty eyes were lodged in a face still like a death-mask. It didn't fool her. She registered its surprise as she attacked.

Her knife's blade scraped across its thick scales, to no effect. It wasn't even pained, but the child had fought creatures like herself before. They were always weak at the neck, so while she still had the element of surprise on her side she stabbed at the thin gap between the monster's chest and head scales, and felt the monster jerk beneath her. A red ichor, unnervingly like her own blood, sprayed from the wound onto her and her weapons, and after three more vicious knife-swipes, it did not move. There was shouting in a language she did not understand.

An electric crackle was all the warning the girl received before a ball of psychic energy slammed into her shoulder. She howled in pain and rage, unleashed her own psychic blast in response. Pure force. The monster was vaporized, just like that. The girl realized she couldn't move her arm, and a quick check confirmed a deep, charred pit running down into her shoulder. That would not heal fast. And she had just drawn far too much attention to herself. It would be a long year.

Two more monsters had appeared in the passageway. These ones were different. They had no bony face-masks. Skin stretched, unnaturally smooth, across a face like hers, except where patches were colored turquoise and grey in the shape of stylized teeth. She felt them studying her, psychic tendrils reaching out as if to breach her mind. She felt the shock of a realization. She felt recognition. More shouting. And then she annihilated them, as she had the one before.

Nothing else came through the door for a few moments. With trepidation, the girl moved forward towards escape, halting when she saw two more figures in the skylight chamber. They were... kneeling, and when they saw her they began to speak. She did not know the language, but sensed they spoke in praises and apologies. There were only the three of them. She sensed no ambush. So she rushed the closest monster, who had an armored head like first, and ended it with another series of blows to the neck. It did not resist.

She turned to face the second one. This one had a face like hers. There was something like panic, but closer to confusion, on its features. Then some idea. Acceptance. Determination. It said a word: "Eat." It repeated itself a number of times as she approached. "Eat. Eat."

The girl didn't know the meaning of the word, but something compelled her to reach out her mind, interrogate the mind of this creature on the ground before her. Eat. Kill. Scoop out the brains and chew. Flesh to mouth. It... was asking her to do this? No. Monsters tried to 'eat' her. She did not 'eat' anything.

"Eat, please."

She raised the knife, and, crouched over the body that day, the girl learned of the Imperium of Man.

triumph8w · Nov 7, 2021

THE SHROUD AND THE GOLD
A joint IC with @Another Amoeba

The smell of death hung in the air.

Corpses littered the hill. Alien beings of psychic potential, ground under the heels of two Legion task forces. Their corpse coated the land, never entirely whole due to the devastating damage even a single Astartes is capable of putting out, never mind Legions of them. Finding the bodies of Astartes was rare. More often than not they were surrounded by alien corpses, appearing to have been dragged to the ground through desperation to enact some sort of vengeance. No matter how feeble.

The ColdIrons' grew more and more infrequent the further she progressed. The Primarch's reforms ensured that no curses followed in the lone figure's wake. Some offered nods. Those ones tended to be blanks. Most simply ignored her presence. The Coldirons slowly faded until somewhere she crossed over an invisible line. The grey armored warriors she passed had none of the reservation of her fellows. Helmeted heads turned her way, vox-clicks signaled conversation over private channels in her wake. A ceaseless alert of targeting locks appeared in her own helm, utterly ignored.

Some of the grey armored Astartes even stood from where they kneeled, shouldering Crozius and chainswords while bolters were held in clenched ceramite gauntlets. Despite the less than stellar reception, none bared her way. Deeper and deeper she walked through the gatherings of Word Bearers, noting they increased in number the more she went in a certain direction. And so she walked in that direction. The farther in she went, the higher in company numerals were the Astartes.

When she started seeing Astartes bearing the marking of the Word Bearers First company, did she see him. Lorgar Aurellian stood in a clear patch of the corpses. He was armored, head to toe, in clearly expensive and beautiful artificer power armor. It was, for a Primarch, remarkably lacking in ostentation. It was grey, like that of his warriors. Flowing Colchisian script adorned it, like his warriors. The shape was off. Different. That was where the work of the artificater came into being all its own. On his head was a grey helmet, elegant lines of Colchisian script flowing through it like carefully sculpted rivers. It held the appearance of an armor not yet formed, not yet out of the prototype stages, of what might one day be called the Mark IV maximus.

If Vara knew that, then that would've been impressive in its own right. She made to move towards him, but before she could get any further three warriors from the First company barred her way. Two of them were garbed in Mark III armor, the heavy plates shifting as they held their bolters to their chest. They stood at the sides of a man armored in the garb of a terminator elite. A stormbolter was held in one armored hand, a power hammer clutched in the other. His cataphractii armor towered over her, and his helmet rendered the Astarte's voice like a snarl of a tank's roaring engines.

"What do you want, witch?"

"I am," her helmeted head craned up so her eye-pieces met his. "Quite the opposite, actually. But it's no bother. I carry a token sent from my gene-Mother to Lord Lorgar."

None of the Word Bearers are so unprofessional to actually look at one another following her statement, but the subtle sound of vox-clicks does reach her ears. Growling servos accompany the movement of the terminator's arm as he holsters his stormbolter. In a smooth motion, for terminator armor, he brings up his hand, palm facing upwards.

"Show me." The man demanded, his helmet rendering it even more imperious than it already is.

"Come on, and be a mite serious," Vara said as the jump jets on her armor began to thrum with life. "Do you think, if I were on a mission from my Primarch, I would answer to you?" She didn't give the Word Bearer a chance to respond, because she shot up like a rocket the very next moment. The Word Bearers held their fire, as she'd predicted, as her sudden departure gave them back their senses. Just as unsurprisingly, she soon had nearly a hundred Astartes following her motion, some with their helmeted gaze and others with their Bolters. The Shroud looked down across the whole battlefield as she reached the zenith of her arc, and quickly enough pinpointed her target. It wasn't hard to spot a Primarch. With a few careful burns, she adjusted her trajectory, and landed a dozen meters away from him, in a kneel, "Lord Lorgar."

She found herself face to face with a half a dozen reaper autocannons and the suits of terminator armor that held them, just another series of guns added onto the already hundreds that had screamed at her when she launched herself upwards. The ensuing fire would've turned her into little more than chunks of meat and ceramite. Would've, if it had come. But it didn't. One of the terminators detached himself from the Primarch's side, his corpse-gaunt face sneering at Vara as his lightning claws wreathed themselves in energy.

"You dare?" Kor Phaeron snarled. "There are procedures to be seen, to protect my son. And you dare to circumvent them? To spit in our faces? Turn back, ColdIron. Turn back before I-"

A voice, infinitely more soft and kind than Kor Phaerons snarling bile, interjected. "Peace." Lorgar Aurellian said, walking forward. Whoever worked on his helm evidently put more care into the vox than what was put into regular power armor. Only a hint of its machine-distortion colored his voice, but it was not enough to taint the Primarch's soft tones into something harsher. With Iluminarium, that gigantic crozius the size of an Astartes in length, heaved onto one shoulder. His free hand reached up and undid his helmet, hissing air unsealing from it. With a smooth motion he pulled it free and mag-locked it to his side.

Lorgar's golden eyes looked upon Vara as he graced her with a smile that would be so much like the Emperor's own, if he could ever show such softness. "Ah." He said as something sparked in his eyes. "I remember you. Vara the Shroud. What may I do for you, my dear?"

She raised her gaze to meet, first Kor Phaeron, and then the Primarch. She made no other motion: not because she feared, but simply because she had no desire to trouble Lorgar more than her presence already would. Her voice also came through remarkably clear. Her armor seemed almost custom-engineered, though why Lady Varil went through the effort on her part, nobody could say. "I think you can help my Gene-Mother."

There was silence for a moment, all that could be heard was the teeth-clenching whine of the various power packs of the power armor. Kor Phaeron scoffed as a desolate breeze tore through, rattling the oath-scrolls that found themselves tied to each and every Word Bearer present--Lorgar most of all. The Urizens' eyes met Vara's for a few moments, before a decision settled in them.

"My sons, if you could give us some privacy?"

There was a hint of hesitance, some shifted, a twitch in response to the command. Kor Phaeron turned to Lorgar, reproach already on his lips. "You cannot be serious. She is dangerous and wild, to leave her alone with you would-"

A shift, Lorgar turned his golden gaze on his first captian and foster father. "Please." He said, the words somewhere in between a request and a command. This time, the gathered members of the First company moved. Their weapons lowering and target locks vanished as they lumbered away. Kor Phaeron was the last to go, his venomous stare remaining on Vara as he walked away. They were still surrounded by Word Bearers, of course. But they were armored packs in the distance, instead of an immediate presence.

"I may not be a smith, nor much of a soldier. So excuse my conclusion if it proves terribly lacking." Lorgar said, turning his golden gaze back onto Vara. His tone light, and voice soft. "But the armor you wear does not appear to be a part of any single mark. Artificer armor, is it?"

"Yes it is, Lord Lorgar." Vara had hardly seemed to pay the other Word Bearers much mind, but her mind was unreadable behind her mask, and unreadable to even the greatest of Psykers by her condition, "I am one of a number of… peculiar guardians of Varil's. It's related to the reason I came to speak to you today."

"Ahhh." Lorgar breathed in, a slight tilt to his head. "I suppose that would explain a few things. I recall that you were with her, in her own chamber when she and I first met." The Primarch moved. A slow, steady step that saw him circle Vara once in a fashion that could either be interpreted as curious or menacing depending on who witnessed it. His movement was slow, but graceful. As befitting a Primarch.

"I doubt she even knows you're asking this of me. Curious. I must say that I would only be too happy to render assistance towards my beloved sister. Though I cannot give aid if I do not know the details."

"No you cannot," Vara took a deep breath. "You know, she shares your views on Our Emperor… almost. Nearly."
Lorgar Aurellian was not like most of his siblings. He was no stoic warrior-king, to give out terse order after terse order. No grand warlord, whose cold emotions were the basis on which thousands of cultures lived and died. He wore his emotions openly. Perhaps it was a weakness, perhaps it wasn't. But surprise flickered across his face, sharp despite its briefness.

"Well," he said after he composed himself. "I cannot say I expected that."

The Coldiron looked up to Lorgar. "You have heard that your sister was found upon a Death World. That is an untruth. She was found upon a Dead World. Nothing lives upon that planet, and nothing ever did. But still she was haunted, hunted by" Her fists clenched, and she stared into them, hunting for the word, "something! Psychic somethings, sorcerous monsters--"

Vara took another deep breath, haltingly, and put an end to the outburst uncharacteristic of an Astartes, much less one of Varil's Marines. "The Emperor descended from the heavens. He helped her drive off the creatures hunting her. He saved her soul. She is as devoted to Him as any of her siblings, even you."

The hand holding up Iluminarium clenched, tensing against the adamantium shaft of the Crozius. Something dark flickered in his eyes, a swelling mix of pity and horror as his mind fully tried to wrap itself around so miserable of an existence. His fingers slowly untensed on Iluminarium, shifting and twisting as he processed the information. When he opened his mouth to speak again, his voice was dryer and some unknown emotion thrummed through it.

"I must confess," he said in a quiet voice. "That is...To be so alone…"

He floundered for a few more moments, before he drew a steady breath. "So my father found her, and saved her. Brought her into her arms and away from so wretched-" here, the Primarchs voice was like that of a snarl "-a world. I had known her early life was difficult, but this? All I can conjure is misery. Why the lie? Why not the truth?"

"The deception was her own preference." Vara explained smoothly, though her voice soon grew more troubled. "She wishes to trouble none of her siblings, which is why I hope you can be subtle." She did not wait for a response. She'd already made the play, no point asking for oaths, "By nature, I know nothing about the Warp, less than any ordinary man, but my Gene-Mother has taught me much about its dangers. You know she includes herself in that set. Me and… a number of others, she has created a manner of our slaying her, if she loses that control."

Iluminarum slipped from his grip. The great mace head, from which a single blow would be enough to kill even an Astartes, slammed into the blood soaked ground. The dust it kicked up coated both of their armored legs, and nearby Word Bearers turned to look. All they saw was their Primarch in a state of horror, a hand brought up to his mouth as if that could possibly quell his roiling emotions. Kor Phaeron seemed to do what every other Word Bearer clearly wished to but could not, and started towards them. However he was stopped, this time by a Chaplain. Given that the markings on his armor placed him at the head of their order, this was not someone who could simply be snarled at. They continued to argue, but the Primarch paid them no mind. No other Word Bearers moved.

Without regard for the shock still reverberating through the Primarch, she continued, "Only a few times in my life have I seen my Lady Varil perfectly poised, confident and controlled: in His presence alone. He is a bastion for her, a wellspring of stability. I… merely hope you can show her that the Emperor always walks beside her. None of us wish to harm our Mother."

"That…" Lorgar tried to regain his composure, to put a sleek mask of reassurance on his face. He only partially succeeded, and decided that was satisfactory enough. "I promise you this-" He said, his golden eyes lighting up with a fierce determination. A faded echo of some time past in the Emperor's distant youth. "-I will do whatever I can to aid her. None of us should live in such a state. None."

"Thank you." The kneeling Astartes said, "I knew you could help." In a flash, she was gone.

In the distance, the argument stopped. Both Kor Phaeron and Erebus moved towards the Primarch while all others stayed away. The Urizen seemed to not even notice their approach, his gaze was locked onto the distant sunrise. The First Captain spat right where Vara once stood, venomous acid burning away at the ground. Erebus simply looked serene by comparison. "What did the little witch want, boy? What was so necessary as to spit in the faces of the entire Seventeenth Legion."

Lorgar's eyes did not move from that sunrise, its whispering, distant flames. "No insult was intended." He said softly. "But I do believe I have been entrusted to save one of my siblings lives."

Skrevski · Nov 7, 2021

In Retrospect

The lights flickered in the study that Adaam had taken as his own, the low flame of candles providing the only light in the spacious room, dark shadows creeping at the sides of his vision. He calmly lowered his left hand down to rustle the head of a sleeping Cringer, the large green orange striped cat resting at his friend's side. Small wisps of smoke permeated Adaam's nostrils, his mind drifting for a few seconds back to countless worlds, visions of battles long past revised, watching those under him follow him into battle. Glory? Yes, it was had. Sacrifice? Also had. Victory? Never came cheap.

It gave him purpose, a path to follow, a reason to continue in life where so much death had come. He picked up the photo on his desk, well worn, well weathers, having been held many times over the years past. His family long gone. He now had twenty brothers and sisters, a Father, yet he always looked back on those from his past, those lost, hearts and souls now within the ether. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, settling back into his writing.

The Codex Eternia had gone out to trillions, telling how the exploits of the First Legion, the heroes of Eternia, how they fought, how they reacted, how they killed. He had heard many had rejected his writings, especially within other legions, a pained expression coming to his features, his head rocking side to side for but a moment. Yet others were embracing it, the legions upon legions of the Imperial Army and Military now improving themselves by use of his tactics, born from sorrow and taking of life, yet saving lives beyond measure. A smile crossed his face with that thought.

That smile vanished as he penned in new orders, new deployments for his sons, his own. Already some had come to him asking for the technology that now was at his fingertips, technology he feared could change everything. It haunted his dreams, yet there were other things, things he did not whisper to anyone just yet but they came to him as well. He shook his head once more, heavy the weight, yet it was a task he had chosen, a task he would make sure was held to, for he would not allow the fate of Eternia fall to another world if he could stop it. Into the vaults the technology would go, guarded by his veterans, his trusted, the Vault Guard selected and trained by himself and Duncan. Men proven over years of service.

He would be their protector, for it had been asked of him by the Fifty-Eight, an oath given and to be kept. For reasons unknown to him, he felt for them, only able to make copies of themselves to be reborn again. It was something he intended to explore, a piece of humanity lost? Or had it been found? A strange opening for a man that had known almost only war for so long. Perhaps that is why he followed his Father's word, following the mission set forth by him to reclaim the worlds lost by humanity, to bring them together once more.

Enemies floated close, some far, some close, but always looking to take apart his Father's vision, to see Humanity regain its proper place throughout the stars. He wrote more, slowly his words making sentences, his hand writing out what his family, his sons, those that had sworn themselves to Greyskull, but more so the Emperor would soon follow. Danger lay close, yet he was confident. His eye wandered to a glint from a flame, the sword of Greyskull resting on the desk near him, always near, a lifting of a hand and a head would disappear. It had happened before, it would happen again. A soft sigh escaped.

He loved his family, both families, yet as he listened and watched, he feared a split was coming, a split that could only go a way he dreaded. Did he act? Did he try and make a move to see that terrible truth halted? Would he even be listened to... he had stayed out of the political realm since the beginning. Raised for it, but never wished it. Had he isolated himself? Was he capable of changing the tide? These questions he asked in private, spoken to himself and no other. Yet perhaps he should... A simple call, would he come? He was loyal, he loved him, yet did he warrant a visit? A hope, a dream, always on his mind, should he ask?

He wrote some more...

Silverbullet · Nov 8, 2021

The Calm before the Storm

View: https://youtu.be/nLr-SQHFuJ8

Alaric watched the video file again as he placed the bionics Forgemaster Heath and he had crafted for Legionnaire Alastair's bravery. He gave the box with the Legion's sigil, and all seeing eye of gold in a black pyramid to a waiting Apothecarion. As the Astartes left his workshop Alaric sat down and took in the sight of Ahurani clasping her own throat as Malcador used his psionic abilities from a near unfathomable distance to throttle his sister. Alaric took note of the build up of electricity along his electoos as his calm was damaged. Oh he had issues with Ahurani's willful disregard for the Great Crusade, spending inordinate amounts of time and resources on ensuring peaceful compliances where he would simply adjust the planetary government. Yet it was precisely her clinging to more civilized methods which kept some shred of legitimacy to this Imperium. He was no fool. He had gone from casting down tyrants to being the enforcer of the greatest in the history of the species, and yet what he knew. Oh what he knew and his siblings could only guess at what the possible futures were.

Minerva had an inkling. Her clairvoyance giving her glimpses of the possible fates of the Imperium, and why she devoted so much time to building up her precious Tortuga as an Ark for those she could save against the coming storms that would sweep the Galaxy. It was scant comfort, and likely doomed to fail. Still it was another round in the magazine for Mankind and that was why Father and Malcador tolerated it so. As well as Axinos's pet nation of Actium. Was he any better about Rallas? Well he could say he personally commanded nothing on the world. That was his adoptive father, the planetary council, and Scribe Marius as the Adminastratums representative. Alaric was certainly not playing at rulership like some. After all this was an Imperium for Mankind, not post human weapons. The Thunder Warriors, The Primarchs, The Astartes, even the Custodes ,whether they would admit it or not, were here to prop up Humanity. Ahurani was one of the few Primarchs to internalize this message and make herself of use to the people rather than ruling over them. Certainly she was prone to gentleness and patience in her methods that were at times overindulgent, but she worked tirelessly for Mankind.

True she did it in a way contrary to their purpose, but if Alaric was being honest there would always be another enemy. In all its history Mankind had never run out of threats both internal and external. As much as he had entertained thoughts of opening a street doc clinic on Rallas after the Crusade there would never be an after. His adoptive father was looking much older in the holos he sent him and his sister had gone from hiding behind his legs to administering a Hive district in his absence. He'd likely return to Rallas one day and meet great-grandnephews and nieces who knew him only from tales and bad holo-dramas.

The Crusade needed to be concluded as quickly as possible and then the restructuring of Humanity into something that could weather the multitude of threats emerging or just waking up. He could acknowledge and understand Malcador's frustration yet this!

This was foolish and would do nothing, but sow resentment and rebellion. Oh the Sigilite made great pains to stress to Father how despite the necessity of the Primarchs they, we, were unreliable tools at best. How had he worded it to Ahurani? Ah yes the failure of the batch kept around out of sentimentality. How did the old plotter fail to see this course he had taken would lead only to conflict? Ahurani had been within her rights as a Primarch to question Malcador's circumventing of her authority and distributing Adaam's Codex Eternia. Was he growing so pressured by the weight of what was coming that he had lost all control. Alaric noted the indentations his hands had left in his work table. Perhaps Malcador wasn't the only one becoming emotionally compromised by this cluster frak. Confronting Mal directly would be unwise given his willingness to flaunt his power and authority at this point. No he'd have to kick this up the chain and force his Father to do some people management. Alaric walked to his private communications room in his quarters and began his recording. He hated being formal, but his usual mode of speech would be inappropriate for this.

"To the Emperor of Mankind, Father. Attached you will find a video file of a most disturbing altercation between our esteemed regent and your daughter Ahurani regarding an honestly trifling matter escalated beyond sense by both parties. While I acknowledge there are points made by both parties it would seem that the stress of his duties is causing Malcador to act in a rash manner that will have far reaching effects among our number. I myself am having a visceral reaction to the events, but am unwilling to allow them to deteriorate further, and am asking for your indulgence to mediate this before it becomes an avalanche. I also remind you Father that despite your frustration with Ahurani's progress, you examine what her efforts have fostered."

He attached all he had of the peaceful integrations Riminar had sent him as evidence for the Emperor. As well as projections for those planets' output in materials and peoples in the near future as well as the next century.

"World's whose compliance done through peace have left populaces intact and productive. The Western Front already has dread Fonias there to leave corpses and terror in the Crusade's wake."

Another series of recordings of the odd Orks, their message, and the readings technologic and psionic readings from his Culter Dei and the Wardens.

"Do take note as well as to the odd and somewhat impressive Orks quickly approaching her position. Whether she wishes it or not the Galaxy has brought war to her and you, no Humanity will need her to shield those worlds from what is coming down upon them. You made us as weapons to defend Mankind Father, take into account that some tools are ill suited certain tasks, and though Aharuni is commendably loathe to shed the blood of men. She will not allow innocents to suffer from her negligence. You crafted that into her as surely as her other traits. Your faithful servant and son Alaric Quadar. End message and send to him priority one."

As the recording went to the astropath station to be transmitted Alaric queued up a second message. This one would be much shorter.

"Oi Mal you old codger. You poppin off is gonna get everyone heated, myself included, when we really, really need to be dealing with some more serious shit. Whatever you'se think of Runi ya don't need to be testing the stability of this house of cards we have going. Take a sabbatical and talk to your therapy clone before you go choking one of the others and we have a rebellion to put down on top of the multiple xeno empires we've apparently pissed off. I gave you Othos and fifty of me SOG to fix anything ya needed so you wouldn't be so damn stressed. I called the Emperor up so we can maybe fix this without needing to put Custodes on Runi's ship to. End message and send to the Lord Regent's Office."

Alaric walked out of the room and his quarters and made his way to the Library. He'd see what the Librarians' diviners and cybermancers' predictive algorithms gave as odds for this shitstorm escalating. Then he needed to plan with the Old Guard on how they were going to crack Ursh like an egg and behead an old Terran Warlord. This Crusade would never really end. Good thing too, or Alaric would get bored.

SteelWriter77 · Nov 8, 2021

"Very...Good...The...Great...Game...Continues…"
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"The Time of the Great Slumber Comes, may the Spawn welcome the Fifth Son in our Eternal Rest." -part of Texts found in a bound tome on Zagoth

The 5th Legion was considered one of the more distant to the Imperium at large, their cultural origins and usage of Psykers so openly in their homeworlds have given them an air of mystery and a sense of otherworldly power.

So it came as no surprise that while most other Legions made their way across the stars with other parts of the Imperium close at hand, the Warriors of Peace were left with their own Legion and the people of their Homeworlds.

The majority of the Legion found themselves at the world of Zagoth, a world that seemed a Dark Beacon of Qi in the void of space, it's presence filling many of the Astartes and mortal humans with a deep feeling of fear. But the Iron Monks, those with the talent and the sight to see the finer details of Qi, could see that there was some stability still in the world.

The Jade General, duty bound to retrieve these people and perhaps destroy what has caused this imbalance ordered that he and his Legion prepare at once for landing near the largest city on the world, perhaps there they can find some answers.

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The Largest city...was empty, much like the rest of this world, all that the Legion found was homes whose occupants seemed to have died in their sleep. The Jade General had seen many deaths, but there was something that made the Primarch unnerved with these bodies, a sentiment all of his more trained Iron Monks seemed to share with their Gene Father. Whatever had made this world so unbalanced in it's Qi has clearly brought ruin to the human inhabitants of the world.

However a simple message from some scouts had broken the silence of this dead city, a single inhabitant was found, still alive. An Old Woman dressed in ratty robes and had the look of a vagabond. The Qi that circled her was not powerful, but more stable then the rest that permeated the air of the planet. Turning to the scouts the Primarch had asked "Is she able to tell us what has happened here?"

The scout who had first found her simply shook his head and said, "She speaks only madness my Pirmarch, I don't think she has even realized we are here.

Her muttering was unending and even with his senses as a Primarch the Jade General could only make out a few words.

"...Great Slumbering...the three....falsehoods of man...the dark...don't go, don't go...Mary does not like it....eat your greens Mary, Mother will be mad...keep the slumbering away..." Her voice was raspy and hoarse, clearly she had not stopped speaking for quite some time.

It was not until he placed a hand near her in an attempt of comfort, did the mutter stop and the Old Woman looked at him, her eyes were a milky white and a clear sign she could not see. But despite this, she looked straight at the Primarch.

"The Fifth son comes....the Slumbering one awaits you to the North, find the Cave of the Spawn, Others are there.."

The Jade General was at a loss for words at this Old Woman who after this, went back to her mad murmurings unable to be brought out of it. Curious, the Jade General asked his Iron Monks if the north held other signs of stable Qi in the mass of Dark Qi. Knowing his duty must come first, the Jade General orders a ship to take him to the north where the largest mass of stable Qi lies.

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Finding the cavern entrance was simple, the Old Woman may have been half mad from whatever dark presence filled this planet, but her directions were clear. The Jade General could see that the entrance was littered with offering plates and clear signs of...not worship, no this was more akin to tribute to something...feared.

The Iron Monks of the retinue could see and feel the Dark Qi emanating from this cavern, something or someone of great strength was dwelling below. And must have been the cause for whatever fate befell this planet.

Taking with him only a small team of trusted Iron Monks and veterans, the Jade General entered into the cavern and made his way into the depths of the planet, along the way strange murals decorated the walls, images of some kind of great beast sleeping below the planet. And images of various peoples coming to the world, leaving behind others for them to be, put to sleep by some strange power.

A Symbol that appears many times throughout the images was a three eyed triangle encircled by what seemed to be three bands of some material both alive in some images and not in others.
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The long stairway ended at a chamber which was a imposing size, great statues of what seemed to be sea life dotted the walls, in the middle section was a vast underground lake whose dark water laid so still that one could have been forgiven to think it was just dark stone and more ground to the cavern.

Standing in the middle of the chamber were many corpses, all robbed and in the same state as the rest of the people in the world, appearing to have died in their sleep. All were in a circle around a stone throne with a heavily decayed corpse, adorned in robes and blindfolded facing the open waters of the lake.

A Ritual perhaps, to force the world into endless slumber, such users of Dark Qi were known to enact such vile plans for one reason or another. Searching the cavern the Iron Monks could feel that there was a large source of stable QI nearby, but they could not determine where.
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As the Jade general looked down into the Lake, trying to sense where the mass of stable Qi was located, his focus was broken by the shouts of his sons as the enthroned corpse started to move.

The corpse moved like each joint was being controlled separately, forcing a janky and stiff movement towards the Primarch; there were no weapons on the body and no sense of hostile intent from it. It continued towards the Jade General who held himself ready in case of any attack, but none came as it came to a stop in front of the primarch.

Harsh air seemed to be forced out of the body forcing sound and words to be heard by the decayed body.

"Why....have...you...disturbed...our...Slumber…"

At a loss for words, the Primarch simply stated "What have you done to this world?" hoping that perhaps this revenant is an echo of the one who may have doomed this world in the first place, giving answers to this madness.

The corpse was still and for a moment all was quiet, before it's harsh words began again. "Our...Slumber...was...ordained...by...the...Spawn...of...the...Leviathan...You...will...not..interrupt...Fifth...Son...of...the...Anathema…" Before the Primarch could even speak more, a deep rumbling began across the entire cavern, the dark water began to churn and bubble as something below began to move. His sons told him that if they did not leave, the cavern would collapse on them.

Seeing no other choice, the Jade General ordered his men to go back up to the cavern entrance, rushing past the walking corpse. The final sight of the group was the corpse sitting back down onto the throne as some...creature of immense size with many tentacles and glowing eyes rises out of the deep water, it's cry shaking the Astartes down to their very soul, bit the Primarch and Iron Monks saw that deep in this creature beyond a Mass of Dark Qi, was thousands of what could only be souls and the source of the stable Qi felt.
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Exiting the cavern, the group could not shake the feeling of dread their last sight was, The Jade General may not be one of the Masters of Qi like those on his homeworld, but none of their texts or teachings have ever spoken of something like this.

As the shuttle leaves the mountainside cave entrance, The Jade General could not shake the feeling that even now, the eyes of not only the Old Woman from the slumbering city, but that the shifting beast from below, whose eyes never seemed to fully open, was also watching deep beneath the ground.

He ordered his Fleet to remain in system and put a blockade around the planet, while he deliberated on a plan of action.

SteelWriter77 · Nov 9, 2021

"Kill the Man creatures, bring their flesh to the Hooflords, BREAK AND KILL"
-Words of one of the "Bray Shamans" of these Hostile Beastmen

It was often the oddest of coincidences that some of the greatest events occur, and in this age of expanding the Imperium's influence such a coincidence came in the form of the Crimson Gryphons Legion and the Crimson Lords Legion both came to this region of space to conquer in the name of the Imperium.

It first began with the world of Felidom I for the Crimson Gryphons and the world of Fordrost One for the Crimson Lords, both worlds requiring harsh compliance to gain full control as the Human inhabitants proved to be of a stubborn nature that would not bend for the Imperium.

It was also in these worlds that the Legions had found advanced scouts of the Steel Princes, who gave their aid in information about the region of space, along with the odd amount of Space Hulks in the Region. And while some were already being searched by the Steel Princes, they knew of others in other systems

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The worlds of Lancia and Los'Da were the first worlds to show what dwelled deep within the Space Hulks of the Region, as when the normal expiration teams of Steel Princes and Crimson Gryphons entered, they were met with immediate hostility.

The agitators being some form of Beastmen, far more savage then the normal Abhumans, seeming to glorify their animalistic appearances and toss away any aspect of civilized humanity. Their homes being on the many worlds in the sector and inside the many Space Hulks that drift in the depths of space.

And while killing the Beastmen was no issue, their numbers and spread out nature, made clearing them out in their entirety a long process that made the Primarchs unable to continue to head further without exhausting their Legion.

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The World of Darkura Rex was once a mild forest world, known to hold a sizable population as a center of galactic travel. Now it was overgrown and the worlds around it were filled with Space Hulks belonging to these Tribal Beastmen, the source of their attacks and rampant destruction across the stars. So it fell to the assembled Legions to tear down this stain upon the galaxy.

Many reports came in the months of battle, reports of brave Posid Anixum leading the charge against many tribe leaders, besting them in personal combat, the most impressive tale being his personal mission into the depths of one of the larger Space Hulks belonging to a "Gor-Cul the Five-eyed" and his tribe. The Astartes champion had fought his way to the Beastman stronghold and slaughtered each and everyone of the horde with little to no aid from others of his Legion.

Returning with the severed head of the five eyed Beastman chief as a trophy to present to his Primarch.

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Much like his Legions champion, the Primarch Bakiligi Yuvian of the Crimson Lords had showcased the might of mankind, leading the Legion in a bloody storm across the Space Hulks and facing grave threats to the invasion, like the "Great Bray Shaman Zer'vin" a Beastman Psyker whose power nearly tore the Space Hulk apart in his battle with the Primarch.

Elsewhere there were reports of The Mighty Primarch Khaldeon of the Crimson Gryphons, began to showcase his Legions might, traveling from world after world and slaying these Beastmen Hordes . A notable encounter was Khaldeon facing off against a strange beast calling itself "Kurdag the Brass Fang'' while it was of average size for the Beastmen and thus not a physical threat to the Primarch, it did have a uncanny knowledge of the local terrain and some semblance of tactical skill as it fought the Primarch in areas of large amounts of traps.

But the tenacity of the Primarch proved too much for the Beastman and the battle of Maxim was won that day. But all of these paled in comparison to the final act of the campaign, the battle on the world of Darkura Rex itself.
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When preparing for the final battle, a decision was made that the remaining Steel Princes would call for aid from their Legion, bringing with the Two Legions a sizable force of Steel Princes to aid in the battle.

At first the Legions employed their mastery over the skies, Stormbirds and Gryphons dominated the air and rained death upon the savage beastmen. While the ground was torn apart by gunfire and Steel Prince's vehicle based strategy.

But the beastial tide did not cease, so a decision was made to send the two Primarchs deep into enemy territory and fight their way to the largest concentration of the Beastmen, perhaps slaying their leadership and disorganizing the masses, much in the same vein as fighting Orks.
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The fighting to the largest concentration of the Beastmen was hectic and bloody, all Astartes and Auxiliary forces fighting tooth and nail to get past the masses of Beastmen in their path. In later tales many would call this battle "The Red Path" for legend says that a blood red path could have been seen from the sky, showing where the Two Primarchs fought.

After several days of travel they had found the site of Beastmen concentration and prepared to burst into the strange wooden fort. After The Primarchs and their retinues burst into the site, they saw what these Beastmen had considered vital for their "Great Tribe", the site seemed to be a great gathering spot for ritualist natures, with a large and imposing stone-like material erected in the middle, covered in strange markings and various pelts and skins.

Standing in front of the stone was a group of Beastman warriors, clad in leather skins and wielding shoddy weapons of iron and bone. But the true danger was their leader, a massive hunched over form, two great horns peeking out from under a massive gray cloak made of many furs. In one of its hands was a twisted staff made of wood and bone much like other "Shaman" of the Beastmen, In the other hand was a strange Axe that appeared to be both metal and bone, in the shape of a great beast of some kind.

The Two Primarchs readied themselves as the warriors charged and the "Shaman" leader bellowing out in a guttural voice "Slay and Kill, bring their skins to the Stone"

Khaldeon did not hesitate and struck first and fast, slicing through each warrior that came his way like a great Hunter slaying the beast of old legends. The fight with Bakiligi Yuvian however held no such symbolism, it was a simple and bloody fight of beasts. Ending with Bakiligi Yuvian standing victorious over mutilated bodies.
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When the last of the warriors lay dead, the Beastman "Shaman" bellowed in anger and charged the two Primarchs with reckless abandon, despite this, the Beastman was no easy fight. His Psyker abilities seemed to call the nature around him to aid in the battle, and his frenzied movements did not hinder the Axe as it's blade seemed to cut whatever it struck.

With each swing of the strange Axe, both Primarchs could feel the power of the Beastman and despite his wizened frame, power still dwelt in the "Shaman's" body. Yes it was a long and arduous fight as the Two Primarchs and the Beastman Leader exchanged blows and tore apart anything that came near, either Beastman or Astartes. This was a fight between legends and no being could enter without such skill.

The final act of the fight was something none could have expected, both Primarchs wounded and continuing to fight defensively while it seemed a miracle the Beastman still stood, missing the arm that carried it's staff and the cloak long since ripped to shreds, along with a majority of its body.

The Beastman seemed to ready another set of blows before something strange happened. The Axe that had seemed to be the greatest asset of the Beastman fell from his hand, giving the Primarchs an opening to strike a critical blow, slicing off the head and skewering the body.

It did not take long after the earth of the Beastman that reports came in that the Hordes were falling apart and that extermnation should be able to proceed with little issue, of course the matter of the Axe and what to do with this strange site would have to be discussed by the Primarchs, but for all intents and purposes, they had won.
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The battle was over and the two Primarchs went their separate ways after taking stock of their losses. And allowing for the Administratum forces to come and begin preparations for Imperium control over the worlds.

Khaldeon began a survey of the many Worlds in this sector, finding several worlds that could support his gryphons and could serve as a new homeworld, but the savage and dark forests of Darkura Rex seemed to call to the Primarch, the high mountains serving as proper roosts and fortresses. While the forests below could become an excellent tool for training Aspirants and raising strong gryphon young.

Meanwhile Bakiligi Yuvian and his Legion returned to their ships and away from the prying eyes of the Gryphons and the other Imperial Forces. Gathered with them are many corpses of the fallen Beastmen, great warriors for their kind and strange shamans who had Powerful Psyker abilities.

Once a sufficient number was gathered the Legion [REDACTED UNDER ORDER OF THE REGENT OF TERRA]

SteelWriter77 · Nov 10, 2021

Deep in the heart of the Warp, a soul drifted

It often was an odd experience regaining lucidity in the Warp, but for such a thing to be done, his masters must wish to see the fruits of his training.

"Indeed...young...one...We...wish...to...see...how...close...you...are...to...the...True...Path."

Their gifts and teaching, something his Father would have never expanded on, for he fears this power. Why?

"You must not Allow HIS influence to taint you anymore. We are the only Ones who can give you what you deserve."

Yes, what he deserves, Mankind following him and not his Father, he is...is?

"HE iss a Tyrant and not desserving of your loyalty, together we will break the Chainss HE holdss over mankind"

Right, he is the bringer of freedom, his masters have told him this, have shown him the future under his rule why would anyone deny this glory.

"Hush now Cainain, you will show them all your greatness soon."

His name, a gift his f-...HE never deemed fit to give him. Not LIKE THOSE....THOSE....

"You are the true Hunter, not those Pretenders, you are the Strong and they will listen or DIE"

Yes he is stronger then them, he was the first and will be the last.

"ALL ENDS BOY, BUT YOU WILL BE THE LAST TO FALL."

All will fall before him, none will escape his righteous destruction

"BuRn THem aLl, LEt nonE EsCApe thIR DOOm."

Yes their Doom will come and he will bring it to those that will not yield.

"Remember those who show loyalty, they are your closest, keep them forever and ever by your side."

All who are loyal will be rewarded

He feels his mind fading yet again as the lullabies of the Warp continue to drift and his future is sung to him.

He is Cainain, Chosen of the True Path.

And soon I will return to burn My Father's Precious Mankind.

Mortis Nuntius · Nov 11, 2021

The Strike Cruiser Resolute was one of the oldest in the fleet, its once gold now bronzed hull scored with countless dents, rents and black plasma scars. The Astartes and chapter serfs who made up the heart of its crew of countless thousands had originated from Albia on Terra and carried forwards the Ironclad Clan belief that the only battle honour worth having were the marks on one's armour. After two centuries on the frontline of the Great Crusade the number of ship's similarly 'honoured' to the Resolute could be counted on one hand. That was why Louis Fer had chosen it to be his flagship during the impending campaign.

There were larger and newer and more powerful ships in Battlefleet Infinite, there were ones whose captains had more influence or higher station but Louis Fer liked the old girl. He had served on her previously and knew that she would never let him down. That was not a given with anyone else. There was another added advantage, the old cramped interior of the voidbitch meant that his newly expanded staff had to rough it. Astartes could endure anything, years of sustained combat, deprivation, injury, the vast horrors of the Galaxy but what no one in the Eternity Guard could stomach was a slight…such as being thrown into old undersized multi inhabitant sleeping chambers.

Louis sat upon the throne of command not even pretending to feign interest in the complaints of his new subordinates, to a man they were of the Young Guard, bold and eager and ever hungry for advancement and glory, prickly as Thornweasles of the feral world of the Praetorian's birth. And that was exactly why they needed the reality check. He lazily waved his Praetorian's baton silencing the mewling sons of noblemen.

"Gentlemen of the Young Guard." He began reasonably "I insincerely regret that the accommodations are not to your lofty standards. I assure you that your plight has moved me to laughter. But jokes aside, and be certain that I find each and every one of you to be a joke, they are what they are and this is what it is and you would all do well to remember what you are. Astartes, Warriors of the Emperor, members of the Eternity Guard the greatest legion in the entire Imperium. So my suggestion is that and pardon my language, frak off and waste someone else's time with your whining. Thank you for the entertainment, you may leave now."

The glares of pure hatred moved him about as much as the complaints of the assault on their dignity. He offered them a little wave. "Well? Off with you all now before someone notices the empty rooms and directs the serfs to occupy them."

"Lord Praetorian, if I may" a voice called out from amongst them.

"Sweet Prince." Louis offered in return.

The speaker was one of the younger Astartes present, a Centurion by the name of Rollo who looked disconcertingly like the Emperor himself and had the easy charm and skill to gain cheap popularity across the newly formed Commitas.

"I just wished to thank you for your consideration."

"Oh, think nothing of it my young battle brother." Louis offered, these lot of fops truly thought mild sarcasm was the height of defiance. Brats.

"That we are packed together like skaven will encourage us to get out into the ship and train as every Astartes should. Truth be told it would be all too easy to lose one's edge away from the Young Guard, if we shared the luxury of our elders we'd go soft within cycles."

There was a wave of sniggering across the ranks, Astartes officers, deadly warriors to a genehanced man, indistinguishable from naughty mortal children. Very well, no more nursemaiding the little vermin.

"What exactly are you implying Centurion?" Snapped Louis.

"I don't mean to imply anything Lord Praetorean, I am quite happy to show exactly what I mean after this meeting in the dueling ground. I will try any man in the legion who can manage to pull themselves out of the hoverchair for a bout." The Scout announced, his fellows offering up hoots and jeers of support.

For a moment Louis wanted to break his smug insolent little skull right there and then and for a moment they sensed it on his features as the rage filled him, the same hatred that had pushed him through decades of snubs and obstruction. To the Warp with the rooms, he would put these arrogant rakes in their place the old fashioned way.

"An excellent idea Centurion though I hope you enjoy the taste of your blood and bullshit." He allowed his blunt features to reveal a ferocious, almost shark like smile.

Of course the brat seemed unmoved, smiling carelessly with perfect teeth.

"I cannot say I have ever had the pleasure, which old man will be failing to introduce me to the taste first?"

The Iron Praetorian rose from his throne. "This old man." He announced, the looks on their faces almost felt better than breaking them would. Almost.

Mardil · Nov 11, 2021

A Brief RP About Antheia.

Isiana-1 had long followed along her mother's path across the stars, far from the warmth and comfort of the sheltered roofed rooms she had long grown accustomed to in her youth, far from the familiar faces and talk of Councils and mutant movements on the distant surface, far from the blissful days when suns and stars were but distant phantoms, with their unwieldy and uncontrollable forces which scarred and mutilated the bodies of the constant stream of mutant dead, which came as a constant torrent to lay still upon the bright steel slabs, and not forces which reached out their hot, sickly, distorting rays upon the skin, and cast blinding brightness over the scorched surface. The land of Dryskal spoke to the scarring of the sun, a scarring which Isiana always feared; the power of that great phenomenon which seemed as precarious and fickle as the life granted and destroyed in the horrid history of the Tyrants of the Forum, who had but for a time seen fit to wipe out in full all experiments they had deemed failures, both things gave a lesson which had no moral to her, save that those who give life can be the most callous in destroying it.

Her room might have seemed humble in size, yet it was not to her, the bed, the desk, the bookshelf, the small colorful paintings, delicately crafted by slight and deliberate movements, all spoke to her of home; wide corridors and spacious rooms had little appeal to her, slight and small were the movements of the vaults, precision always had won over the grand sweeping movements of those far off looking out at empires rather than inwards towards the perfection of humankind. That was what she was taught, that empire was a vain endeavor, that however many hunks of rock were conquered, however many flying spheres were submitted to her mother's forces, they were not worth a single one of the vaults, and were to be considered as freely granted to the Terran Emperor as one might freely grant fine silks or a book of poems to a friend; they only had eyes for what was to be learned.

Mother had forbid an alarm. She expected her to go to bed promptly at night and get enough rest to awake in the morning. She had, for the most part. When she did not,

"Are you feeling well Isiana?" It was mother's voice. She had slept in. An hour, they were used to meet an hour before now.

"Yes mother," came the drowsy deferential reply. The reply did not stop the primarch from checking her temperature.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes mother."

The hand moved from her forehead. "Did you stay up much later than usual?"

"Yes mother." The echo of the phrase seemed to disappoint her, though it was always hard to tell.

"What kept you late?"

"I was reading."

"Reading what?" even as she said it her eyes turned from the girl onto the table, onto the desk, where the worn volume lay.

"History." A weak reply.

"Any in particular?"

"Yes," she paused before catching herself in her briskness, "the history of the drowning, where I am at in the book."

Antheia picked up and examined the book, "you know you really shouldn't stay up so late."

"I know," she meant it "I lost track of time."

"Make sure to always try to reply in complete sentences as well. Do not forget your eloquence."

"I apologize. I forgot myself this morning."

She seemed satisfied at that, "that friend of yours gave you this no? Kayara-7."

"Yes, it was a present. She gave it to me before I left."

"Have you been enjoying it?"

"Yes."

"I hope you learn all it has to teach." She puts the volume on the desk. "Get ready for work, you have much to learn, unless you're still too tired."

"I'll be ready soon mother."

"Good. I expect to see you soon." Antheia departed, turning round, leaving the girl to get ready.

Silence always had a presence in conversations with mother; it seemed to hang so thickly with her, a woman who could speak just as much in what she did not say as what she did; Isiana-1 though even in the coldest days of her heart, could never quite say she lacked for affection, nor claim that she felt slim affection for her, it was a strange affection that dwelt between them, one which spoke little, and rarely in terms of smiles or hugs, at the end of the day though, if she did not care at all, it was quite clear to Isiana that she would not attend to her at all. Still, in mornings like this she seemed such a strict school mistress, her eyes forward, posture perfect, her movements all speaking to thoughts that wore no expression on her stern and silent face. She seemed more a statue sometimes than a living being, and ever since Isiana was old enough to learn, she taught; it was in these lessons more than anything that the woman revealed herself, it would be tempting to say that the appearance of her was but a cover, a carefully constructed façade, and yet those who knew her well, knew that the surface went deeper than the skin, that she had taken her lessons to heart, that Antheia was presenting but herself, a quiet, introspective woman, who thought no words could carry the weight of actions, and that all that hadn't any to back them up were empty, and all that did certainly did not need stating.

Isiana was never quite sure what it was about her that her mother had seen so clearly that had led her to gain such favor of her sisters. Antheia had long toiled ceaselessly in the very heart of all civilization, where she had put all her efforts into the creation of the next generation of mankind, her daughters the result of careful study, of looking into the very mechanisms of creation, both that which guided the destiny of humankind and set to motion their origin, pouring over that which had been learned over the eons. All her sisters were with her, they had much recourse to seeing one another aboard the Raven, and often did, yet it was she who was the scribe to her mother, she who was made to attend to her in these matters, and she who by far spent the most time with her; the question of why was one that had oft come up, yet Antheia never gave answer, she never gave answer to her marines either, why it was that they were overlooked for one not of their number, nor to the mortal auxiliaries, nor to her sisters, and if Uncle Soter knew of it, well, she would know by now.

The silence of her mother's departure did not leave with her, and Isiana was in little mood to do anything but get ready, which she did. She departed.

Mortis Nuntius · Nov 16, 2021

Respite and Reflection.

Gadise Oruna sucked in sweet poison deep into her lungs as she watched the world burn. The horizon beyond the camp was split between the blinding light of a thousand suns and smothering darkness of a continent's worth of ash and dust. She regarded the Lho-Stick in her left hand, this entire world was nothing more to the Imperium than the half spent narctube was to her, light it up, breath in the smoke, toss it away afterwards maybe stomping it into the ground for good measure. Maybe they'd remember to get her and her comrades off world first.

"Thinking again Biowire? Pretty sure they'll shoot you for that." Phos interrupted her thoughts, the wiry, red haired Lance-Sergeant scaling up the glacius to the base of the South wall that she'd taken to leaning against. From up here they could see the whole camp sprawled below them and over the Northern Wall to their front to the ongoing war front.

"They're going to shoot me for a lot of things, what's it to you?" She asked, spitting some narcwash down into the ditch beneath.

"Guess who is next in line once they finally get around to filling out the forms? This Trokik here and I'm not in any rush to promote, too much work."

"Yeah well when I confess I'll say until I met you I was a good little soldier-girl and never thought of any treason even once so its really all your fault. Just cause I'm nice like that and love you so very much Phos." She joked darkly.

"Frak you too Wire." He responded good naturedly.

She raised the Lho-Stick in salute.

"So what were you thinking of?" Phos asked as he removed his helmet and slipped out of his webbing, leaving his gear in a pile at their feet besides her own. Like her he kept his Lascarbine in his right hand, not even thinking of placing it down. One in a hundred million ordinary Lasguns the precious light weapons were worth thousands of guardsman, being seen without it to hand actually was a death sentence.

The Magellanic Marauders were privileged to be entrusted with the precious specialist weapons and like every privilege in the Imperial Army it carried the risk of unbearable agony and a death too terrible to contemplate.

"You're doing it again." Her number two warned her.

"How do you know?" She demanded between puffs.

"You've got a 'treason' face." He told her seriously.

She flicked the now spent 'stick in his direction.

"If I did I'd be dead. Besides I will have you know that I was reverently contemplating how fortunate we are to be in the Emperor's Service in a unique capacity. How many trillions would kill to stand where I am now talking to the Galaxy's biggest producer of mouth fertiliser?"

Phos laughed, he had a good laugh. Compensation for his personality.

"Beyond Count Sarge, beyond count. Let's consider something a bit more relevant however…you got any more of those?" He gestured the discarded tube.

"Not enough to share with deadbeats."

"Don't be tight Biowire. You know I'd give you one if I had a spare."

"Yeah and one day the sun hidden behind the atomic bombardment will go Nova, but it probably isn't happening for a good long time."

"Hey, not all of us are good looking enough for the storeman to do favours just for five minutes of drooling and twenty secs of conversation."

"Yeah but if you gave it a try you could filch all the Narcotics whilst he was puke laughing himself to death."

"Couldn't do it, I know how you get when you're jealous."

"Jealous of the dead guy…yeah that's about right." She teased as she removed two more sticks.

He nodded his thanks as the pair lit up, watching a heavy transporter descend through the clouds towards the hastily crafted landing strip, joining the two others already landing.

"More firewood. Right on time"

"The more the better, the less likely to be our turn." She offered optimistically.

"Nah too late, got a brief in an hour, bound to be sending us out again. These guys will need days to sort their shit out. Look at them. What do you want to bet that they were using bows until they got their Lasguns on the ship?" Phos asked.

"A lot of dead Feudals?" She suggested. "What's the deal? The ones that don't die will figure things out. In the meantime everything they catch is something not being thrown at us."

"You're all heart Sarge." He rebuked likely in response.

"Yeah so I want it to stay in my body. Anyway, weren't you fertilising Voxally about me 'thinking' a few minutes back?" Gadise demanded of him mildly annoyed.

"Maybe you infected me." He offered.

"Well I'll infect you again with bootinthearseitis in a minute." She threatened. "We've got a job to do, they've got a job to do. Our job is to kill stuff, their job is to be killed. You wanna trade I'll ask about a transfer just give the word."

"And break up the dream team? Never."

"Then lets get our gear on and get out of here, break's over. We need everything squared and some shuteye. Firewood or not we'll be handling the night work.

"Going to be a pretty bright night with all those fireworks." He noted.

He had a point, just not one anyone important would care about. The Marauders were considered an elite Regiment and a single piece of their gear was worth more than the entire Regiment they were watching unload. That meant better pay and rations, it meant more carefully planned ops, it meant reinforcements and artillery when things went bad if only to secure their corpses before the enemy could loot them. What it never seemed to amount to was five seconds' consideration by anyone that blowing a planet apart whilst they were standing on it would complicate their missions.

"Wear your eyeshields then." She advised him.

"Always do, die with style right?"

"That's the spirit."

Mortis Nuntius · Nov 20, 2021

Descent I

They called it the Pit, the rotting corpse of the old city serving as fertiliser for the new, those tenement slums and apartment blocks not knocked now to make way for the foundations of the Starscrapers and Megablocks that towered above them lay in permanent shadow. Brama was going to be Stormgard's first Hive City, and the Pit was going to be the first under-hive. Abandoned to its fate, a dumping ground for the detritus human and otherwise. That was the future, you could see it now wherever you looked, the grey faces, the suspicious eyes, the extra ear or nose or eye as the less obvious mutants began to congregate, the escalating gang wars, it almost seemed inevitable. But this was Stormgard, delaying the inevitable was in the blood, and the Strategic Committee had declared that no one would be left behind so every night the Civic Guard waged an endless and merciless war against the rising waters of chaos.

The Pit was a war zone. In the upper levels of Brama and across almost every city and township on Stormgard Civic Guardsmen patrolled in ones and twos, they rode around in unarmoured and unarmed vehicles, they could go an entire career without ever drawing their autopistols from their holsters in anger. In the dark guts of Stormgard's metropolis they patrolled in Chimera's and attack bikes and they did so in force, almost never less than a full squad. Sweeping through with Autoguns, grenade launchers and shock mauls leaving a trail of broken bodies in their wake. Respect the Law and Die was their motto. The bodies piled up for collection and the citizens learned to be more afraid of their protectors than the gangers preying on them, on a good night. On a bad one the Guardsmen would be besieged in their own barracks clinging grimly to tiny embattled islands of sanity in a maelstrom of anarchy.

Good Night, Bad Night. There was one constant, Andromalius. He'd been patrolling the streets for half a century, long enough to remember when they had been streets, long enough to know there were still good law abiding citizens down here, and they needed him more than ever. Every day and every night he rode out alone on his old and slug scarred lawsteed bike. He'd prowl his old beat, speak with the cits, hit up the hotspots, tear through the rotting hab blocks and wage a one man war of his very own. The Hiver-Gangs, the juves, the mutants they all knew him, he was a legend to them as much as he was to the Cits and the Guards. Barely a night went by without a gun duel or chase or bombing. He'd lost count of the time's he'd been dragged out half dead, body riddled, bones broken, lungs and blood poisoned. Lost count of the amount of times he'd pulled his battered form back into uniform and gone out again. The Streets, where he belonged, where he was needed and could find everything he needed.

Tonight was a 'good' night for Pit. No mega riots, no genocides, just a thousand individual tragedies. The fetid brown rain was falling from the upper levels, the squelching sound was almost as bad as the stench and every now and then something more substantial would drop, punching through rooftops, stalls, and the odd denizen. Official scavengers raced the unsanctioned variety, both were equally ghoulish. Sometimes they would meet and crude battles would be fought over the salvage. It was one of these brawls that was Andromalius' first stop of the night.

The officials were outnumbered three to fifteen, they had their scoops and claws, the other criminals had knives, clubs and crude autopistols. Andromalius had his bike's autocannon. Six crims wasted, half and half in the fight or the flight, the rest with the sense to throw down their weapons and fall to their knees. One of the officials brought his scoop down hard on one of the prisoners. Andromalius brought his own baton down hard on *him*.

"Assault is assault creep." He warned, turning on the vox to summon a 'chain train' it would take a few minutes to arrive. Executions were more efficient but he'd not killed anyone who did not need killing in fifty years and he wasn't going to start now.

"Asmod was just enthusiastic is all guard Guard. Thought he was helping." The junior overseer tried to interject.

"Bet you think you are helping too, want to be an accessory?" He offered, he'd learned sometimes a softer touch was what was called for. "Only warning. Shut it before I do it for you."

Sometimes people took the hint, sometimes they needed the hit. Tonight was the former, satisfied Andromalius turned his attention to the object they'd been fighting over. A corpse…no two corpses. He moved forwards, examining the scene with practiced eyes, something was very wrong here. The unlikelihood of someone being killed by a corpse thrown from above? No that was not it. That the body was unusually intact from such a height, there was something there but not the whole. It took him a moment to realise, the second body was clean, immaculate even, something that could be said of nothing and no one else there. He reached a hand out, gauntleted fingers stopping just short of the body, the hairs on the back of his neck stood out. Personal force field. Fancy. Only the top gangers in the proto-underhive had anything like it, and none of them were teenaged girls.

He turned to the junior. "When did she land?" He demanded.

"..." the man hesitated, clearly recalling his last command.

"Do I need to pull out your tongue to check its there?"

"I don't know…we saw the street scum here first, Guard we were trying to chase them off when you uh…helped."

He ignored the lip for now, turning on the huddling prisoners. "Withholding information will only make things worse for you and trust me they can get much worse. Someone tell me when she landed."

"Ten minutes ago, we were fast Guard. Real real fast. Got here way before those slow assholes. Way before. We should be 'fissial not them. One particularly rodentlike scavenger boasted.

"Yeah you should be, then you would not be a penal for ten years." Andromalius spat unsympathetically.

He examined the body again, then he took out his personal vox. "Control, this is 53 message over."

"Roger 53, Control here, send message over. "

"Roger Control, I have got two times dead Cits here, going to need assistance retrieving the body. EMP Lance and lift gear minimum, full tech team as well to be safe, Over.

"Say again 53? Suppose you'll want that delivered to your Spire on Terra?" Came the inevitable sarcasm. "Tech won't be moving for two hundred stiffs, you finally cracked? Over."

Andromalius gritted his teeth. "Control, one of them is from the upper level, way upper, she has a forcefield and spiretop clothes. Over."

A long pause. When the vox crackled into life again suddenly the voice was all business.

"Roger 53, secure the scene, detain all witnesses, await back up. Tactical units are being redirected to your location. Tech and SIUs have been informed. Do not, say again, do not allow any witnesses to leave or any interference with the crime scene, acknowledge over."

"Understood control. Securing scene and detaining witnesses, no interference or departures. Over and Out." The veteran law officer complied, looking at his vox in disquiet.

Special Investigative Units, these days it was getting harder and harder to tell the Guards from the Crims. That wasn't a problem with the SIUs, they had no competition for being the worst. When they showed up, people died, sometimes by the thousand. When the tops wanted an example made, when a Guardsman got too corrupt or the streets needed to be quiet for a Primarchial visit or some such it was the SIU that dropped the Phosprex.

He looked again at the body, improbably immaculate for a corpse, no sign of the injury that had killed her. She was thirty years old by appearance, but you could not tell with the elite anymore, age and infirmity were for the mortally impoverished. The necklace in her hand alone was worth more than this entire sector combined. The necklace…that was odd, jewelry was a decadence reserved for offworlders, no one on Stormgard, not even the richest would wear something so impractical. Andromalius was not one to read the fashflashes but still…it was odd. He knelt closer for a better look, his eyes were not what they used to be. The chain was snapped clean in two…and some of the links, yes flecked with blood. Whoever had gifted this woman with the item had not done so willingly, and the chain was just long enough. Carefully he reached down, yes, outside the field, he pulled slightly and the necklace shifted, revealing the design on its front. One no one on Stormgard could mistake.

Fifty years on the job, he'd never experienced a debrief so very much like an interrogation as the one the SIU gave him upon taking control of the scene, nor had he seen a crime scene cleaned up so quickly. But it was a day for firsts, he'd never improperly removed evidence before, and he'd never seen an item of jewelry with the blazing fire crest of the richest family on Stormgard on it in the hands of a murder victim either.

SteelWriter77 · Nov 20, 2021

A Meeting of Faith and Despair
(A RP with the wonderful @triumph8w )

It was the center of what could have been considered the capital city of Lulmocury, the Primarch Lorgar Aurelian of the Word Bearers stood, watching as the many symbols of this worlds faith were torn down and the people rounded up so that they may answer for their crimes, he watched as reports of a heavy mist seemed to be approaching the city.

The Air was tense as the mist came in, the screaming of the prisoners cutting the previous silent prayers the people were committing. Lorgar's sons were at a loss at what the cause was, as wounds and sickness seemed to appear at random upon the people, starvation and dehydration making their frames weak and screams even worse. The commotion was almost enough to make Lorgar miss the mists closing in as he felt a crack in his very being, like something Wrong was approaching, and he would be proven right.

What came from the mist was a procession of robbed creatures, four legged insect like humanoids with a pale white chitin coating their bodies, their movements reminiscent of mourners of a funeral, but in their hands were blades and whips, tools of tourture. Trying to peer under their robes showed their faces were blank, but what led the Mourners was what drew the Primarch's eye the most.

A massive pale creature with wings of a great insect and four arms, each grasping a item, two hands held jagged blades the seemed to warp and twist at each glance, one hand held many pendants and other items that depicted different symbols all tarnished and obviously twisted and broken and the final hand held aloft the Symbol of this worlds faith, it watched with a twisted glee as the symbol seemed to break apart and deform before it's eyes, unconcerned with the Primarch and his Legion that surrounded it and it's twisted group.

It's face was almost human at a glance, but it's two sets of eyes and a fanged maw gave away this creature's inhumanity. On its chest was a carved symbol, Two Squares intertwined with two jagged points in one square and two less harsher points in the other, but they looked as twisted and deformed as the symbols the beast carried.

It continued it's walk till it reached the exact center of the area, finally tearing it's eyes away from the running symbol as it placed it with the others in the grasped hand. It looked around with a look of patronizing pity at the crying humans begging it to please forgive them and to take it back. When it's eyes locked on Lorgar a smooth deep voice came from the fanged maw.

"Hello, Seventeenth son, I bid you welcome to my world, apologies must be in order for the...poor state of my flock, they have been without something for a long time and having it returned to them has been a traumatic happenstance."

Fear is not a thing known to Astartes. The biological processes which allow them to feel it having been wiped away in the series of surgerys that turned them from frail children to the peak of human potential. Its biting sting wiped clean, in order for the Emperor's superhuman warriors to stand all the taller against the darkness of the universe. But even with fears bite gone, that did not mean they could not be unsettled. Feel some approximation of dread or apprehension.

The only reason the Word Bearers didn't open fire was because of the sheer oddity of the situation, and how quickly it had turned on them. All of them had their weapons trained on the strange creatures that walked from the mist. Some were looking at the screaming, pleading mortals. Others the creatures. But most had their attention on their Primarch as the creature addressed him. Lorgar Aurellian slipped Iluminarium from its rest on his shoulder, the massive crozius was as long as an Astartes in full armor. It's spiked head almost touched the ground, were it not for the Urizens' easy grip.

He was almost entirely armored in the simple artisan armor that was his right and curse, but his head was laid bare. Unlike his sons there was nothing to separate him from the world as it was, filled with the screams of pain and begging. His features, youthful yet impossibly old, regarded the creature with narrowed golden eyes. Kept trained on its face, for its other features were unnervingly hard to comprehend.

"Greetings." His voice was soft, gentle, but a thrum of a hard edge ran subtly through it. "They had professed that their god would save them…" His gaze drifted off the creature, onto a mortal officer of the Followers who was now writhing on the ground, before coming back to the monster. "I must admit, I didn't think a xenos breed such as you would be on this world."

The being smirked at this "Hmm not even considering that they may be telling the truth about myself, my Master was right about you Lorgar Aurelian." The Mourners around the being twitched and were clearly waiting for their leader's word. "Well I suppose an introduction would be proper, an agent of the divine and a messenger for his own misguided faith should at least know each other's name. As these wretches have no doubt screamed out, I am Calimixis, God of this world and it's judgement."

One of the Followers crawls towards Calimixis, their legs burned and broken. Their voice a harsh raspy tone "P...please...my..l..lord...take it...a..aw...away" Calimixis looks down at the miserable soul and smiles at the sight before continuing to converse with the Primarch. "And as for saving them, i have no need to do so, I have fulfilled my end of our arrangement and have returned all I took. They have no need for me and my Masters power with...you leading them." The tone is both cruel and sharp, like a savage beast being denied their favorite food. "A shame, I had hoped to let this continue for at least thirty more generations to let the faith and hope truly ripen before I tear it away."

"A god?" Lorgar blinked in some surprise, doing a quick scan of the creature as if to take it all in for a second time. "There is only one God." Lorgar said, his voice like iron. "Hear this, Calimixis. The God-Emperor has decreed that the galaxy shall be his. As an instrument of His divine will, I will make this so. The darkness and the false things that cling to it shall be swept away by His illuminating truth and will. In the face of His light, there can be no other gods."

The creature began to laugh at this "Hahaha Such faith you have in your progenitor, how amusing. Tell me boy, how much do you know of your Father really, what the details of his plans are. Because I can tell you this much, he has no love of the Gods, he despises such truths of reality and seeks to wipe away not what you claim as false faiths, but all faith. This much he has told me himself long ago." Before Lorgar could answer, one of the Mourners approached a Follower and raised its whip, a Sharp hiss from Calimixis stops the Mourner, as The Word Bearers prepared to open fire. "I apologize for my parish, they are of a simpler nature than myself, far more suited to short term torment and agony, I still wonder why my Master created them as such, but I am not one to question the Gods."

The sound of bolt rounds being loaded reverberates as the Mourner approaches, but no shots are fired by the assembled Astartes as Calimixis halts its advance. For his part, Lorgar looked somewhere between amused and wary as he adjusted his grip on Iluminarium. "Such is the nature of conversations under such...tense airs." His gaze, so much like the Emperors, softens in a way His never could as he turns his eyes back to Calimixis. "I cannot believe you know what lies in His mind. He would destroy you upon sight." Though his words are harsh, an undercurrent of uncertainty worms its way into his tone. Like a vile sliver.

A small smile crosses Calimixis's Lips "Would he? He and I have fought many times, and while I have never beaten him. He has never destroyed me, and yet he continues to try and destroy my masters, what a foolish notion. But of course you don't know what I am talking about, you and your siblings are stuck fighting the pointless war while the Great Game goes on around you, unaware of the true stakes at play." His own gaze hardens as he looks directly into the eyes of Lorgar "You claim I do not know what is in his mind, but I can say the same of you. A puppet unaware of his strings." The mist around the group seems to thicken and envelopes many of the Followers, their cries becoming silent "It seems our time is coming to a close, so i leave the final act up to you Son of the False one, shall we clash and you see just how powerless you are, or you let me leave and you can claim this dead planet." The being grips it's twisted Blades in anticipation, the warped symbols clattering against each other and a near silent buzzing noise can be heard.

"If you are so powerful," Lorgar says slowly, his voice low and dark. Iluminarium crackles with a sudden, fierce light. "Then why do you need my permission to leave?"

A fierce grin appears, the fangs of Calimixis offering a brief shine of light before his voice shifts to a harsh and far more cruel tone "I had considered you would prefer a polite conversation, I suppose simply tearing you and your spawn apart piece by piece would have sufficed." With no other word the Buzzing noise explodes as the many Followers bodies explode out with a swarm of insects, the Mourners rushing to the Word Bearers whips and daggers in hand. As Calimixis swings one of his jagged blades towards Lorgar in a burst of speed.

As the Word Bearers open fire, joining in battle as their training and experience demands, Lorgar Aurellian strode forth to meet Calimixis in battle, his face a rictus of tense focus as he prepares to defend himself against a creature far more in every way imaginable than he would truly understand.

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The fight was brutal in every sense of the word, the Mourners charged forward, unhindered by the Bolter fire of the Word Bearers, the bolts chipping away the chitin of the Mourners but they continued on their path. Crashing into the Astartes and tearing into them with daggers while others used their whips to hold back the Word Bearers with surprising strength.

The Swarms of insects surrounded many of the Word Bearers, landing on the amour and burrowing into them, even Astartes could not withstand the pain that coursed through their veins. But the Astartes did not give in, fighting with all their might, crushing the insects they could catch and smashing the Mourners into a state even they could not resist.

The battle between Lorgar and Calimixis however was not a battle of glory or victory as the beast's blades broke through any defenses that the Primarch could bring, Iluminarium swung with purpose and struck true, but the blows did little to the beast who had claimed to face the Emperor. The battle worsened when the free hand of Calimixis caught one of Lorgar's arms and dragged him forward, his face coming towards one of the jagged blades, with quick thinking Lorgar brings Iluminarium upwards catching the beast in his own swing. However this did not stop the second sword from hitting it's mark and slicing into Lorgar's chest.

Calimixis snorts with annoyance and simply lowers his Blades after this attack and throws Lorgar to the ground bringing his foot down onto the Primarchs head, keeping him down as he then crouches down to Lorgar, his voice dripping with hate "You only live, because you will bring HIM great misery with your failure. Goodbye puppet" at that the Mist closes in and swirls around the battleground and the warriors within. When it clears, the battle was over, none of the Xenos remained, only the dead and the dying of his Legion, it became clear that Calimixis kept his word as the only ones left alive on the world was the Word Bearers legion and their auxiliary. The Legion Found Lorgar and his guard, badly wounded and needing to be taken to the Apothecary.

SteelWriter77 · Nov 22, 2021

Artistic representation of a future armor model for Apothacaries, Presented on Actium during the Symposium
-Written By the Wonderful @Silverbullet

The Classical architecture of the Symposium was supposedly reminiscent of some Ancient Terran Empire. Techmarine Ag Pe of the Cold Iron Cages couldn't say, but she had been bid by her mother to share their hard won knowledge with their kin, and she was a dutiful daughter.

"If you would direct your attention to the display you will see the current psy rating system in use by the Imperium and codified by the Lord Regent and Adeptus Psykana. A psy rating of one, also called rho or pi, is the baseline for a non-psionic human. Disturbingly this means on only the most basic level the majority of Mankind is in fact psionic. It is only on levels Omicron through Alpha-Plus that are capable of manifesting their abilities in any meaningful way. It is by our species nature as psionic or potentially psionic that we come to the attention of the dangerous predatory xenos of the Immaterium as they feed off of the energies of even an unexpressed psionic mind."

A Dove raised their hand in question. Their mutant breeds feathers puffing from beneath their armor's gorget as they asked her, "Yet there are those humans who show no connections to the Immaterium and others whose very presence negates it? Foremost among your own sisters if I am not mistaken?"

She was grateful for her helm blocking her expressions from the sight of others and her voice was carefully neutral as she addressed the Dove.

"Yes indeed we have through our studies and experiences discovered those with such characteristics. Indeed they have been known to Humanity at large for millennia as blanks, untouchables, and pariahs as their ability to nullify the Immaterium causes them to elicit reactions of instinctual visceral disdain and often violence among the majority of Mankind's varied flock. The majority of such individuals rarely make it to adulthood and many develop antisocial behaviors. We of the Cold Iron ourselves had issues with the duality of our own gene seed either leading to psionically active recruits or the opposite. Through the guidance of the Emperor and our Lady Priamrch we have reforged ourselves to better accommodate these individuals and turn their abilities to the service of Humanity. There are some among the Legion who express it is only natural for Mankind to have found a new predator in these strange Xenos for us to evolve those capable of avoiding or destroying them. In any case my allotted time is at an end. I will close with this request to my esteemed cousins. Take heed in the Crusade for individuals among the liberated populaces who match the descriptions of Pariah's for they are rare indeed and of great use to the Emperor's cause. Thank you."

With that she stepped down from the stage and her servitors gathered up her equipment to take it to storage. Aga Pe herself made her way to the Mechanicum's Archmagos Biologis who had deigned to attend the Symposium. Doubtless they would be a more enlightening conversationalist than any of her cousins. She took care to have several slaved servo skulls and scribe servitors take notes of the remaining exhibits. She had orders after all.

As Apothecary Rhys took the stage he bowed at the waist to the audience.

"Beloved Cousins, esteemed guests, and honoured representatives I will begin by imparting the knowledge the Crimson Lords have gathered from our campaigns. As well as speculation to aid our Kin in their own campaigns."

A holograph of the average Astartes appeared before the Symposium.

"While the function of many of the workings of the nineteen organs are known to most present we of the Crimson Legion are hopeful to share our insight into the workings between the organs and their tolerances for damage. For example as most of you know the Oolitic Kidney is responsible along with the Multi-lung for filtering and neutralizing toxins and venoms that enter our systems. Through exhaustive testing we have determined the most extreme tolerances for each before an astartes will enter a healing coma and become invalid before being treated…"

As the Crimson Lord's representative finished his presentation he bowed graciously.

"And with that method for reviving a fellow astartes rapidly from a Sus-an membrane healing sleep in a combat scenario I must come to a close. However if any have further questions I will be delighted to entertain you at our designated area. Thank you all for your time."

Polite if subtly uneasy applause came as the Crimson Lord left the stage. Many among the Astartes were unnerved by the thoroughness of the Crimson Lord's knowledge in how to heal and harm an Astartes. It was a reminder of their own mortality for they were gene-forged heroes true, but even they could die in the right circumstance and Lord Yuvian's Sons were apparently masters of deducing those circumstances.

A subtle, yet noticeable air of relief spread amongst the attendees as Chief Physician Galen Jenner of the Lightbringers took the stage and saluted with his fist over the primary heart to the assembled crowd.

"Greetings beloved Cousins and Honoured Guests. I hope the accommodations have been to your tastes and the events enlightening. Our dear Cousins of the Doves asked for us to precede them as they put the finishing touches upon their own presentation. I am sure we all eagerly await the knowledge the Twin Primarchs have gleaned, but alas we must share our own paltry efforts in their stead."

The Hololith displayed a young man strapped to a medical slab as an Apothecary of the Lightbringers, and his medical servitors were undergoing the implantation process.

"Dear cousins as you know, for many of us recruitment of aspirants is among our chief concerns. Some Legions are blessed with steady acceptance rates among their hopefuls while others suffer fatalities in the dozens before a suitable candidate is found. Through our own studies we have determined the best time to begin training an aspirant is shortly before the onset of puberty. It is ideal however to begin cultivating potential recruits in their infancy. We of Actium have instituted a system of universal health care and aside from the obvious benefits to registering and monitoring the health of our citizenry we have been able to readily identify ideal recruits whose chance of organ rejection is markedly low. While each of our respective Legions maintains its own venerable traditions in this regard we hope the offered information will help increase the number of Astartes of each Legion by a significant margin."

As he continued detailing the optimum time to implant each organ and the warning signs of potential rejection the Doves contingent finally emerged with several stasis coffins in tow. As they gathered at the side the Lightbringer's Apothecary drew his speech to a close. He thanked each and every person for their attendance and bade them enjoy the fruits of cooperation and the wonders of Actium.

The Doves contingent bowed low as one to the Apothecary as he passed, and he in turn offered them another salute and nod before taking his place by his brothers.

As the stasis coffins were placed on the stage they were turned upright and lights within showed the grisly spectacle of several Doves in various states of harm. Some were missing limbs, others had abdomens ripped open showing the organs within.

The lead Dove stepped forward and their voice was harsh coming from their helm's vocoder.

"Beloved Cousins, Honoured Guests we stand before you with the fruits of years of research by our Primarchs and kin. Those of our siblings before you suffered grievous injury in service to Mankind and most would surely be consigned to either extensive bionic replacement or the noble yet tragic sarcophagi of a Dreadnought chassis. We however have found a way to mend flesh, tissue, and bone at a hitherto unheard of level with zero chance of cancerous growth or degradation of the cells."

At the conclusion of their speech the stasis coffins whirled to life and before the stunned hosts' very eyes tiny mechanical limbs began cloning and piecing the Astartes back together. Limbs were regrown in minutes, injuries that would have condemned even the transhuman physique of an Astartes were mended in a mere few hours before their rapt gazes.

At the conclusion the tanks removed the fluid within and their occupants were deposited onto the stage. They fell into the waiting arms of their siblings and the reunions were sweet indeed. As the newly healed Astartes were robed by their siblings the Apothecary began speaking again.

"As you can see we stand on the precipice of a wondrous discovery. I invite my cousins to come forward and examine the healed subjects and verify with their own eyes and instruments the mastery of our Legion!"

The rush by the assembled marines and savants was almost unseemly in its haste. However as much as he was wont to Chief Physician Galen Jenner could not join them in studying this miracle of science. One of his brothers came to him and in a closed vox conversation detailed an unfolding situation of base treachery. The Chief Physician was unnaturally still as he absorbed the news before he barked out a series of orders. Within moments the Symposium was sealed and Lightbringer and actium forces began scouring the building and surrounding area. The Starport was sealed and all traffic halted as search parties were organized.

In a sterile medical bay the assembled Astartes of the attendant Legions looked over their murdered kin as the situation was laid out. Whilst the Symposium was going the quarters of the various legions were assaulted and their contents raided. No alarms had been raised and aside from several dead Legionnaires and Actium staff in the facility no others had been found. Jenner weathered the accusations of treachery and broken faith and laid bare all known in the on-going investigation as well inviting the attendees to include their own resources to the hunt. Though the wonders of the Symposium would no doubt be a boon to the Legions who attended, the bitter taste of the assault upon them and theft of their knowledge would taint the proceedings.

Chief Physician Galen Jenner prepared himself for the response of his Gene-Sire at the insult of the unknown parties. His own bitter failure at security for the event, and the insult to Actium and Imperium as their hospitality was flaunted. Vengeance would come and those who had shed the blood of, and stolen from their kin would receive a reckoning when they were found.

Silverbullet · Nov 22, 2021

Initiation

View: https://youtu.be/n5s7tm3mvQg

Ezzy ran through the fetid water of the drainage pipe clutching the machine pistol to his chest as his package bounced on his back. The info he'd given his last ration bar had better be good, and the break in the pipe leading to a disused maintenance corridor had to be there. He could hear the snarls as the muties and other things caught his scent, but they weren't close. He just needed to drop off the package and then he'd be opened up to other jobs, maybe something in the lower hive. He'd dare not hope for mid level. The bosses may have changed, but the game didn't. Corporate Council or Planetary Governor Quadar the Underhive was the Underhive. So Ezzy ran jobs and errands to get by, and an old twist catcher had even taught him how to use the machine pistol he'd pulled off that dead ganger. The rats didn't eat metal, flesh, bone, and sometimes plastic but not metal. He saw the blinking red light from a lumen globe in the crack of the pipe and sidled his way through. He was glad he'd gotten some fresh filters for his mask because the mold was thick in the tunnel. He ran through the map he'd memorized and quickly shuffled through some side passages in the labyrinthine maintenance tunnel structure.

He was thirty yards from an exit hatch when he began hearing the constant plop of something wet following him. He didn't look behind him. He did however slowly grab a magnesium flare from his belt. Flipping the cap he tossed it over his shoulder and turned with his gun raised. The thing might have been human once, but the various fungi growing on its rotting skin and its pain filled scream at the sudden brightness was all Ezzy needed to squeeze the trigger. He hadn't braced himself properly so his shot started at the things abdomen and walked their way up to its face as he emptied his magazine. Thankfully the creature fell, but the roars that echoed from the gunfire shook the tunnel.

Frak, frakking, frak he had disturbed a nest! He turned and sprinted to the exit hatch. He ripped off the desiccated door controls and began pulling wires to plug into his implant. He'd have to brute force his way past the countermeasures and hope he didn't fry himself. He heard the roars and yelps getting closer as the flare died out. Standing there in the red glow as the muties closed in he yelled in exaltation as the door guttered open. He didn't wait for it to open fully before ducking through. The control panel on the other side was still intact if covered in rust so he smashed it. No response was forthcoming so with a curse he pried off it's cover and began closing the door manually. As it ground shut he heard several wet thumps and roars from the other side. Counting himself lucky Ezzy reloaded his machine pistol and started moving again.

He'd been jogging for what felt like hours, but he dared not stop. Up ahead was an access ladder out of the maintenance tunnels and he was so close. Of course that was when he heard the roaring again. The muties must have found an alternate route and their bile was up. He made it to the ladder and started climbing. He had one last surprise for the beasties though. The homemade nade was little more than some metal shavings in a water can with a blasting cap, but he'd made it himself after sneaking into Larr's workshop. Old bastard should have tipped him for the fresh components he'd dropped off. It was his fault really if you thought about it. The hatch at the end of the ladder was still functioning but it was unsealing itself so slowly and loudly as mechanisms unserviced in who knows how long squealed open.

Ezzy clung to the ladder with one hand and dropped another flare down the dark shaft. Just like he'd thought the muties had found him and something with multiple arms and eyes like a fly was skittering towards him. It shrieked as the flare landed on it, and Ezzy braced his arm around a ladder rung while he used his free one to fire the machine pistol. His aim was atrocious but quantity of rounds and the narrow confines meant enough hit to make the thing fall writhing down the tunnel. Other figures soon began ascending the ladder and the walls of the shaft after him. He couldn't reload the pistol one handed so he dropped it. He pulled out his bomb and set the timer. In thirty seconds he'd be dead from the muties or the door would finally open enough to slip through. Either way he was going to leave a parting gift. Sweat poured off him as he watched the approaching figures when by some miracle the hatch slid open. Ezzy dropped the grenade and scrambled out. He heard it go off and the roars of pain and rage from the mutants. He ran.

He ran faster than he ever had before and as he saw light pouring in from an opening onto the streets he almost sobbed in relief. After making it StreetSide he quickly oriented himself at a nearby tram junction and started his path to the meeting place. The flickering neon sign read Dirge's Dance Club and quick conversation with the doorman had the filth covered juvie being led to the back office past the revelers on the main floor. Dirge was an ugly bastard in a cheap plastic suit designed to mimic an old exec, but it was better than the fools wearing robes to imitate the Terrans. He took the case and after inputting the code examined its contents. After a moment or two he re-sealed the case and placed a cred chit on the table. Ezzy snatched it immediately and was about to leave when the old ganger spoke up, "Gotta job for ya if you're interested boy?"

"I'm listening?"

"How'd you like to join up with an outfit needing Juve's of resourcefulness like yourself?"

"A gang? Pass again, I've been burned before on that. Solo is the way to go."

"Can't trust no one but yourself huh? I respect that, but these guys aren't a gang. They're more...exclusive than that."

"Still pass, Now I gotta rest and gear up. If you need another run done you have my contact id."

"Sorry kid we can't be taking no for an answer on this."

With those words, hands seized Ezzy by the shoulders. He had his shiv out in a flash and one of those hands was missing some fingers. Unfortunately the taser Dirge put to his spine did the job well enough.

Ezzy woke up later sore from some no doubt enthusiastic kicks from the thug he'd cut, but he was clean? He ran a hand through his hair and found it shorn off. He was wearing some kind of plain black jumpsuit. He took in his surroundings. The area was dimly lit with only candles and he heard groans. He noticed a dozen other young boys dressed as he was and their hair shorn from their heads. Some even had the tell tale scars of gang tats removed by laser surgery. It seemed this outfit was in the business of press ganging. One of the boys, a head taller than him with one eye partially shut from an old wound, started cursing and looking around for a weapon. He walked over to a folding metal chair by a desk alcove and began disassembling it to make a club or some such, smart.

Ezzy and the other boys set about destroying their surroundings to make what weapons they could before a cough interrupted them. The Skull faced statue in the corner then spoke in a harsh static laced voice, "Please Aspirants refrain from damaging your quarters. Though your initiative to arm yourselves is commendable."

Ezzy answered by tossing an edged bit of metal he'd pried from the decorations at the figures eyeholes while one-eye ran up tried to jam the chair leg in his throat. The other boys followed suit by attacking joints in his limbs. The Skull-faced giant let out a throaty chuckle before placing his gauntleted hands together. "It would seem discipline is to be instilled, what fun."

Ezzy woke up from unconsciousness again as a skull filled with medical syringes and scanners hovered over him. He tried to lash out, but he was strapped down.

"Such aggressiveness and resourcefulness amongst this flock, quite promising"

The voice was back and then the table turned vertically and the straps receded depositing Ezzy in a heap on the ground. He lay for a moment before the voice spoke again.

"Oh do get up boys we all know you are awake."

With a curse Ezzy got to his feet and saw several of the boys had had his same idea on playing dead. They eyed each other warily and kept the giant in view. Wait a minute, Ezzy knew what this sump sucker was!

"So why is one of the Watch kidnapping boys eh?", Ezzy asked.

"Kidnapping? No, we are recruiting. Though some of you were recruited in a manner more typical of the Imperial Navy." Came the Watcher's reply.

"Damn straight you frakker. This is kidnapping and we got rights now according to Governor Quadar! You can't just be press ganging lads off the street.", One-eye exclaimed. He was still coiled up ready to pounce the moment the Astartes showed weakness.

"We cannot. That is true, but before you elect to return to your squalor, allow me to show you what you may yet earn should you accept our offer."

"What makes you think we'll accept eh?", Ezzy retorted.
Then several of their stomachs groaned in unison. The damned Astartes radiated amusement as he spoke next. "Why free food and board as long as you follow our rules and accept our offer."

The boys were still hesitant though a few seemed to be weighing his words. Then Skull Face spoke again, "I offer you something few will ever know. The chance to ascend to greatness and make your mark on history. The chance to become as I am and spread the light of Unity to the Galaxy, or you can go back to your petty small lives and die forgotten and alone. Glory eternal is in your grasp aspirants. You have but to reach out and take it!"

The boys looked among themselves for a moment before a few stepped forward. The reaction from that had all the boys standing in front of the armored giant in a ragged line.

Nodding to himself the giant spoke again, "Welcome Aspirants to the Umbral Watch."

SteelWriter77 · Nov 23, 2021

(A RP with @Orange Boy )

The Tenth Legion's ships had exited the Warp, finding themselves in what their old maps would call Rylulrit Beta. In what must have been a chance, the Iron Hands Fleet appres in front of a small Fleet of unknown designation and design.

It did not take long for a Vox Message to be received from this Strange Fleet.

"Attention unknown fleet, please state your purposes here and identity" The Voice that speaks seems to be human, but has a far more gravelly tone then what should be normal, perhaps Abhumans of some kind. The message continues.

"We Ask again, state your name and purpose here."

Aboard the Iron Hands flagship, the Fist of Iron, activity was buzzing as orders to assume a defensive formation in response to the unexpected fleet suddenly in their way were deployed across the Iron Hands Fleet, while others conducted analysis of the fleet of unknown origins.

''You are speaking to Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the X Legiones Astartes. We are here on behalf of the Emperor of Mankind. Perhaps you would care to enlighten me with your name and purpose.''

It takes a few minutes before any response is heard "I am Thane Kurdath Iron-Vein of the Last Holds of the Dawi Federation, my purpose is to ensure the safety of my people from intruders, now I will ask, are you here for diplomacy or for blood Primarch Ferrus?"

After a few minutes a response is finally transmitted ''That is yet to be determined, Thane. The Imperium of Man welcomes all its long lost brothers and sisters of Mankind. Let us open up our video feeds so that we may see friend...or foe.''

The Image that appears on screen is of an older man, a full grey beard adorning his face. But while he has human traits it is clear that he is of Abhuman stock as he is a far stouter being. "I hope this is to your liking Primarch Ferrus, I again introduce myself as Thane Kurdath Iron-Vein, a proud member of the Last holds of the Dawi Federation, but in your language I believe you know us as Squats."

SteelWriter77 · Nov 26, 2021

The Rain of Jakarith- A piece of art taken by Cosmo Corsair Astartes as a trophy, it depicts a Famous Archeon leading a "Grand Dance" as a Rain of Blood falls on the world

The Eldar, a strange xeno race whose purpose seemed to be naught but enslaving all other peoples and causing unjust suffering. They have long been a blight upon the galaxy, the realms of the Bladed Whip and the Drowned Blade are no different, long they have been a thorn to the Imperium and the Primarchs of the southern sectors. So when the Emperor ordered that they be destroyed, many answered the call to attack.

It was an attack of combined force of six different Legions, all providing their skills to the erasure of the damned Eldar and the salvation of Human lives.
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The first part of the plan was simple, using the long history of the two Eldar polities fighting amongst themselves to the advantage of the crusade, so with actions of The Crimson Lords and the Cosmo Corsairs they managed to agitate the two powers enough to bring them to conflict yet again.

Their method of doing this was to gather all the information they could about the rivals and make small scale attacks on targets only the "Other side" would know about. Forcing the two to believe the other had attacked them.
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As the two Eldar nations fought, the Imperial forces began to make their way past the unclaimed space between them, convincing many worlds to join the Imperium with the offer of ridding the Eldar from their lives, these long suffering human worlds of all kinds jumping at the chance and adding forces of their own to the battle.

Yes it seemed that things were going well, but of course overconfidence is the enemy of success.
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Ushah has seen much in her life, her service to the Wardens has been long and while she is one of the Legion who has...had disagreements about how her Mother has led them, she as an Apothecary knows the value of human life. But the plans of the other Primarchs made the preservation of said life difficult, while she and her other sisters were to aid the freed slaves and tend to the wounded. It seems the Eldar had no issue with targeting their camps to "Reclaim" what they considered theirs.

The diversion tactics of Lord Memnon seemed to only work for so long as waves of Eldar attempted to attack, luckily the defenses held as lord Heracleides's plans kept the attacks from going on too long. But she had to take the brunt of some attacks given how slippery the Eldar can be and passing by the Auxiliary defenses often proved to be a simple task for them. She had taken many blows, but as she treats the old, the scared and the young children of the slaves, she knowns she would take any blow so that these innocents would not have to suffer one more time.

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At first the plan to distract the Bladed Whip forces from their homeworld seemed a risky play, but it was needed for the attack to work, so when she sent the Umbral Watch to feign an attack on a nearby mining complex in an asteroid belt. To which they performed expertly. And when Lady Minerva launched her attack on Jakarith, it was assumed to be a hellish task. The capital world of the Bladed Whip while diverted from most of its main defenses. Still would contain many horrors in the streets. An assumption that remained true as her forces battled various monstrous beasts and their Eldar handlers, they fought towards the large and imposing palace in the center of the city, the defenses of the planet were controlled from there and kept a majority of the invasion force from attacking the world. And after many hours of combat she reached the palace and entered into the dread place.

The palace was filled with the familiar kind of Opulence one would expect from the prideful creatures, the halls were filled with finery and objects denoting of some kind of familial prestige that became a blur as Minerva rushed through the halls to find the leader of these Eldar and end this battle. She eventually found a group of Eldar who seemed to guard an entrance to a sort of chamber, making quick work of them.

Smashing into the chamber, she and her squad had found a group of strangely dressed Eldar and Humans as they poured a purplish liquid into a large basin, before anyone could respond a deep rumbling voice rang out from the shadows. Dripping with Pride and Malice.

"So the spawn of the Anathema has come to MY Domain, very well. I suppose I should interfere with the slaughter of my servants, perhaps I can make a fine Gift to my Eternal Master with this one's broken body. After my soaking of course, one must indulge in the tempered spirits of a Slaves labor to truly be content with this filthy material plane."

(To Be Continued in...A Matter of Pride)
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The loss of communication with Lady Minerva had been a point of concern for the Strike Force, but they had their orders and continued the attack on the world. Some like the heroic Siegfried of the Umbral Watch had attempted to enter the palace and find what had happened to the Primarch, finding that the distracted forces had returned and made any attack a slog.

When Minerva resumed communications her orders were simple and confusing to many, they were to leave the planet and begin preparations to bombarded the planet until it was naught but a glassed orb in space. Not willing to explain Minerva ordered again with more force that this world be destroyed, her orders were obeyed and the world of Jakarith became naught but a wasteland with no life.
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The battle was over, but the campaign still required work, as administratum workers and colonizers began the long process of reclaiming these planets for mankind and tearing away the foul nature of the Eldar who had ruled them. But Memnon of the Bronze Shields had his own work, with great ease the world of Cybax Two was selected and a great auditorium was constructed so that a play recalling the great campaign would be performed and memorized by all who attended.

The play was both a joyous occasion by the assembled Legions, and a somber affair as none of Lady Minerva's group seemed to partake in the festivities, those who had disappeared alongside her. Remaining as close to their Primarch as they can, Lady Minerva herself seemed to have her thoughts occupied and while performing her parts admirably, she would not disclose what had happened on Jakarith.

Despite his worries, Memmon still had to do what was expected of him as a leader of his people after the Play was done, bringing out Wreaths of melted Eldar weaponry to bestow upon those who had showcased true heroism in the campaign. It would be these eight who Memmon would personally gift their Wreaths

Keteus of the Bronze Shields, who led a daring attack on one of the largest slave camps of the Drowned Blade, freeing thousands of innocents from the harshest conditions. Awarded with a Wreath made from the broken chains of those he freed.

Phrynikos of the Bronze Shields, who slew one of the leading members of the Drowned Blade in personal combat who nearly landed a fatal blow upon his commanding brothers. Awarded with a Wreath made of the Eldar's personal blade, so that he may carry his victory over the xeno scum always.

Tulah Yngven of the Cosmo Corsairs, who fought against many slave beasts of the Bladed Whip to defend her sisters and other fallen of the Wardens and Crimson Lords, so that their Geneseed would be reclaimed and legacies secure. Awarded with a Wreath of dark metal, flecked with personal signs of each of the fallen she protected.

Ushah of the Wardens of the Blessed Hearts, who threw herself into the acts of salvation of the innocent humans keeping many from harm at the expense of her own well being. Awarded with a Wreath of Golden simplicity, invoking the image of her Gene Mother's Namesake of Angel

Norian Zuroctian of the Crimson Lords, who had personally fought off an Eldar attack with only his squad, defending an important supply point for the battle and slaying a champion of the Drowned Blade. Awarded with a Blackened Wreath with the symbol of the Crimson Lords adorning it, showcasing his Legion's Brotherhood.

Aphael of the Umbral Watch, who had truly showcased his Legion's resolve when he faced Eldar incursions onboard the Lady Penelope , it was his quick thinking that had saved not only the many lives of the crew, but perhaps even the campaign itself. Awarded with a Wreath combining the Colours of the Umbral Watch and the Colours of the Hellenic League.

Siegfried of the Umbral Watch, who had gone above his duty to retrieve Lady Minerva when she had gone missing, fighting through masses of Eldar to find her last known position. Awarded with a Red Wreath to denote his courage and the blood of the Eldar that coated his armor.

Util Cicero of the Lightbringers, who led the defenses against Eldar attack and personally held the line against a massive incursion of Eldar slave beasts. Awarded with a Wreath reminiscent of Actium's style but with elements from the Hellenic League, a showcase of the newfound comradery between the Legions.

And so with these gifts given and no more Eldar to fight as the remaining members had fled when their capitals fell, the campaign seemed to be over but the Crusade marches on, unaware of the Dangers awaiting them in the Dark. Those they have already met and those who remain a mystery.

SteelWriter77 · Nov 26, 2021

The Lightbringer scouts had reported Orks, but they were not the only scouts that Day, what they had met that day was no fleet, but a scouting part of a far more dangerous power.

"DA TWINFIST IS COMING FOR YA UMMIE'S HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

[2nd Power met.....]

1. The Skull Legion
Leader(s): Adaam Primus
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 48,680/100,000
Astartes Navy: Greyskull, 10 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 14 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 3 Navy Groups

2.
Leader(s): Savnok
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 96,000/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 22 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 8 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 6 Navy Groups

3.
Leader(s): Memnon
Ideology: Imperial Truth (Emperor Worship:3)
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 98,059/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 21 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 27 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 17 Navy Groups

4.
Leader(s): Myrmidia
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion:73,840 /100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 18 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 10 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 11 Navy Groups

5.
Leader(s): TJG
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man (Five Paths)
Astartes Legion: 99,985/100,000
Astartes Navy: Gloriana, 20 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 20 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 20 Navy Groups

6.
Leader(s): Alaric
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 48,890/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge,14 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 8 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 7 Navy Groups

7.
Leader(s): Minerva
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 48,700/100,000
Astartes Navy: FM, 18 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: None
Auxiliary Navy: 17 Navy Groups

8.
Leader(s): Zyanya
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 74,250/100,000
Astartes Navy: Space Hulk, 10 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 34 + Titans
Auxiliary Navy: None

9.
Leader(s): Khaldeon
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 97,050/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 22 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 16 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 14 Navy Groups

10.
Leader(s): Ferrus Manus
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 99,700/100,000
Astartes Navy: Gloriana, 15 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 10 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 10 Navy Groups

11.
Leader(s): Sampson
Ideology: Imperial Truth (Emperor Worship: 2)
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 200,000/200,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 15 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: None
Auxiliary Navy: None

12.
Leader(s): Varil
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 47,900/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge,15 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: None
Auxiliary Navy: None

13.
Leader(s): Foniás/Kólasi
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 100,000/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 25 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: None
Auxiliary Navy: None

14.
Leader(s): Ba'al Hamon
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 75,000/100,000
Astartes Navy: 20 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 25 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 20 Navy Groups

15.
Leader(s): Axinos Bruti
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion:180,000 /200,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 20 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 27 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 26 Navy Groups

16.
Leader(s): Antheia/Soter
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 73,000/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 18 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 5 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 10 Navy Groups

17.
Leader(s): Starscream
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 80,000/100,000
Astartes Navy: Gloriana, 15 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 25 Battle Groups +Titans
Auxiliary Navy: 6 Navy Groups

18.
Leader(s): Ahurani
Ideology: ???
Faction: Imperium of Man (Forced)
Astartes Legion: 23,500/100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 10 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 28 Battle Groups
Auxiliary Navy: 15 Navy Groups

19.
Leader(s): Bakiligi Yuvian
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion: 97,450/100,000
Astartes Navy: Gloriana, 13 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: None
Auxiliary Navy: 10 Navy Groups

20.
Leader(s): Aurelia Verona
Ideology: Imperial Truth
Faction: Imperium of Man
Astartes Legion:18,000 /100,000
Astartes Navy: Battlebarge, 18 Navy Groups
Auxiliary Army: 30 Battle Groups + Titans
Auxiliary Navy: 24 Navy Groups

AMTurtle · Nov 27, 2021

The Gourmand and the Scoundrel

(Joint IC with @Uniquelyequal )

When the Eternity's Maw broke Warp at the edge of the system, it caused a considerable amount of alarm. There were two reasons for this, chief amongst them the fact that she was plainly brand-new: the Gloriana-Class, for all it's size and splendour, did not show up in any of the databases of the ship, and her form was different enough from that of her sisters that it she was identified as an unknown and therefore hostile contact for several minutes. The second reason was different, more ephemeral: the ship seemed to exude an aura of murder, a wake of Terror that preceded her even beyond that which might have been caused by the mass of her weaponry or the Heraldry she carried: a Snake devouring it's own tail, depicted in the bright red of arterial blood on the dark red of a scab. Perhaps it was the nature of the vessel's Machine Spirit, or the psychic resonance of the blood spilled in her making or the past and future weight of her deeds: perhaps it was simply the fact that she was evidently a ship of war second to only very few others: still, several vessels around Port Tortuga simply made to run, while others formed up to organize a defence, confident in their ability to stop it though grim at the prospect of the losses it might take to do so.

It was then that the message arrived, one that seemed entirely at odds with the very evident nature of the vessel: "We come in peace," it said, static encompassing the words as though the very soul of the vessel was protesting against them, and neither in the vessel's past nor future were they ever spoken again.

Other words were spoken after, identifiers and formal greetings, the tedious protocol of any vessel of the Maw's size making an approach, let alone requesting to dock. Still, those the most relevant were those transmitted first. "We come in peace;" Bakiligi Yuvian spoke, a smile upon his face as he gazed upon Port Tortuga, and for once in his life, the words did not sound like a lie.

Tortugan flight control responds over vox giving the green light to the ship for land followed by a statement of the rules of all are welcome however the Port is a neutral institution it will allow feuds outside of it to enter inside. Then the vox begins rapidly going over notable sights and deals at the markets.Not even the Eternity's Maw, a ship with such an aura was immune to the efforts of the mercantile mindset of the Port. After a while the ship would be directed to a special hanger where an impressive honor guard of the Corsairs stood at attention.Ornate symbols of their wealth proudly displayed on their banner, capes and other sigils put upon their armor. The blare of music played by the band was all songs of the glory of the Legion and their Primarch who had built this very city through her own wit.

Standing at the back of the honor guard the Proud Host stands her staff waiting for who dares arrive at her city unannounced with no warning. When a ship such as this arrives it is customary to give them this procedure, often they are humbled by the effort and if they intend to make problems the forces present can easily reject any boarding efforts. Minerva's appearance was not always expected however she always was interested to see who came to her port so made the effort when she could. A messenger stands in front of the exiting party of the ship bowing quickly giving a practiced smile, " Welcome to Port Tortuga, the greatest marketplace across the Imperium. How may we service you today?"

The Last Tyrant of Xurog was making an effort to impress, that much was plain. Twenty of his Astartes preceded him, split into teams of four, each bearing on their shoulders crates large enough they would have toppled lesser men. These, they set down on the deck before them, stepping back to stand at attention behind them: a blood-red row, still as statues between the ship and the Corsairs, leaving in between them a single gap, directly opposite the docking port. Then came the Honor Guard: twenty more Marines, their armor polished to a mirror shine, Chain Glaives inert in their expert hands. They marched in two rows towards their comrades, before turning about smartly, forming a corridor towards the entry. Then, a single Servitor arrived, though it too was well-made and richly adorned: dressed in a way that would have been fit for a King, and a crown set upon its head to complete the picture. It lurched forwards in between the standing Honor Guard, trailing behind it a carpet in the same blood-red as their armor, the ouroboros of the Legion embroidered into its fringes. The Servitor came to a halt at the front of the row, trying and failing to straighten itself out, before launching into a voice that was surprisingly lacking in monotony, a pleasant, booming Baritone. "The Primarch Bakiligi Yuvian of the Crimson Lords'', it announced, and only then did Yuvian make his appearance.

The Primarch was not dressed for war, when he stepped onto the Carpet. Instead, he wore a Chiton in the color of his Legion, kept closed by a clasp fashioned once more in the manner of an Ouroboros. The Primarch walked past his Honor Guard with measured steps, wearing upon his face an expression that bordered on amusement, as though he himself regarded the entire preceding display as a bit much. Upon his outstretched hand sat a marvel: a strange bird, it's plumage shimmering in color of the Cosmo Corsairs, it's conical bill fashioned from a metal that seemed akin to bronze. Bakiligi Yuvian reached the end of the Carpet, and with a word and a wave of his hand set the bird to flight.
"Permission to come aboard, Sister?", he asked, a smile on his face, as the bird performed a lazy circle through the Hangar and made to land on Minerva's shoulder.

The Host was not in combat attire either dressed in a large fur coat as she often did though without the armor. The fur came from a beast no longer living and was ludicrously expensive to have enough to fit a primarch could bankroll a ship. Leading them down the procession towards the lift that led out of the procession the two of them stood with a small number of honor guards each mostly due to constraints of the platform's size. Stroking the bird's head gently with it cooing in response Minerva looked pleased with the gift, " Permission granted brother. Tortuga and its markets are open for business to your Legion and yourself. The bird is appreciated and will be cherished for the rest of its days but it was not required for entry. I believe I shall name it Treasure for that is what this little creature is."

Tapping her finger on her chin in a performative manner she pretended to be thinking. " Unless there was some reason that you have come all this way with this gift and unannounced. Perhaps there is something that you wish to obtain here at these markets that you do not want anyone else to know. If this is the case have no fear my guards are sworn to secrecy of all deals. Tortuga cannot function in any such manner. Rest assured as well there is no record of your visit in the flight logs, you are not the first person to make such an entrance. Certainly hope that you will not be the last. So how dear brother may I help you?"

Bakiligi Yuvian's smile only grew, at these words: "Straight to business, Sister? Very well. Our Father has recently gifted me this beauty of a ship. The Mechanicum of Mars obviously asked me for my opinions on what I wished for, and tried their very best to fulfill them, and they fell short in this. I am here to rectify this. I heard this was the place to go, for such"

" You heard correctly well if you have come here I assume that price is no object. Rest assured however you will get the best deals in the galaxy. Have to keep the people coming back somehow and that seems the best to go about it. Now how unique do you intend for your armaments for your ship to be? Armaments that you never got from here, you found them while on your Crusade? Think creatively brother, your limit here is your ambition."

Bakiligi Yuvian smiled, retrieving from the hands of his kingly Servitor a Data Slate. "Oh, a lot of internal work, a prow-facing Lance Array, a couple of touch-ups to the exterior. I've written down the details for you" he waved the data slate, "it's quite an extensive list." He gave a grave nod. "As for the price…" With a snap of his fingers, the lids of the crates set down by the Legionnaires sprung open, a golden gleam suddenly filling the platform. Within were a multitude of treasures, some in the form of gold, some in the form of Artifacts plainly of some significance: Crown Jewels set to a mask fashioned in the likeness of some great predatory cat, and this set next to a great sword made of platinum and beset with Emeralds. Four Crates such as this stood across the deck, all filled to their brim with precious materials. "Will this do?"

The selection of treasure was scanned over with Minerva's experience in these matters able to determine their suggested value though some pieces would require a specialist to look over them. Moving closer to the chest her fingers glide across the edge of the blade with her hand resting upon the mask. Picking it up she feels the mask taking in the texture of the jewels, the edges of the jewels pushing against the skin. Putting it on she smiles, " Oh yes this will do quite nicely. A fair trade if I ever saw one." In the manner of the Jinkovs before her she spits in her hand and gestures it to her brother to seal the trade between the two.

Bakiligi Yuvian spat into his own hand in turn, showing no hesitation at all at the habit, and shook.
"A pleasure doing business, dear Sister. Now, do you have anywhere that we might eat?"

He snapped his fingers, and at his silent command, vast plates of steaming food were carried from the Eternity's Maw, each carried by no less than a dozen serfs, all buckling under the sheer weight of meat and vegetable piled on atop it. All of it smelled delicious, and all of it looked impossibly fresh, given it had to have been prepared aboard a Space Vessel under way.

"I've taken the liberty to have something prepared", Bakiligi Yuvian spoke, a note of amusement rumbling deep within his voice.

"I trust that you don't mind?"

Pleased with what she has seen the Trade Queen gesturing towards the large estate seen in the distance.

" Something of this tier could only be enjoyed at the Great Hall. Come, let us partake in this feast you have prepared for us."

Skrevski · Nov 27, 2021

Father and Primus

(Joint IC with @SteelWriter77)

Adaam Primus was nervous. It was not for the person coming to visit it, but for the subject matter that he wished to speak on. So much had taken place recently, many questions, and far far few answers had come after his campaign into the League of Cloners, answers he hoped He would have.

While Castle Greyskull always made use of pomp and circumstance, a holding over from before Adaam's rising as a Primarch, today it was in full view. Adaam had not only his personal guard, the full First Chapter of the Skull Legion but also his commanders and old friends standing next to him as the ship bringing the Emperor of Mankind to his doorstep. He could see the men around him tense up and come to strict attention as the final landing sequence was begun, the ship coming down to land on Adaam's personal landing pad, it locked down from the hundreds of others that doted the great Fortress Monistary, deemed Castle Greyskull.

As the ship landed, those with the talents of a Psyker could feel the immense presence of their Emperor. The hiss of the craft's doors opening brought those feelings back to attention as the near mechanical steps of the Custodes guard made their way, making a path directly to Adaam. And with precise movement, the Custodes turned to the left and right walking to provide an outlined way of gold for their Emperor.

Adaam saw as his father walked with the grace of royalty and the strength of a warrior both as he made his way towards him. He saw as the giant looked down at him with as always a stoic expression, but one that held a face that has lived a great many lifetimes of battle "Hello my Son, it is good to see you, even if circumstance dictates otherwise."

More out of habit drilled into him from a young age Adaam instantly kneeled before his Father and Emperor, it amusing himself as some things stuck with one after centuries. "Welcome, Father! Indeed I wish the circumstances were different, but over the years it seems it is these situations that bring us together once more."

Adaam paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts as he broached speaking once more. "A great many things have transpired that has caused… I guess concerns and questionings that I hope you can answer. Some are easy enough, more jovial even in nature, others, well let's just say, things were found."

"Well let us not waste any time my son, please show me what you have found." with a slight motion of his gauntleted hand, the Emperor's guard planted their weapons to the ground and became as still as statues. "It would do well to remember to tell your sons that my guard are not to be disturbed as they wait for my return."

"They have been informed Father, they have learned from last time." Adaam actually chuckled as he shook his head at the last time one of his men had tried to strike up a conversation with Father's Guard. It had not ended well. Adaam nodded to his Generals and friends, dismissing them as he turned to walk side by side with his Father, proudly showing off his sons as they stood at rigid attention, not one wishing to look foolish in front of the Emperor.

Adaam lead his father down the corridors, making a beeline for the Vault that held so many secrets and a few unanswered questions. "I had… well what was found moved immediately after it was found, barely voicing anything to anyone but those handpicked by me to guard the vault. You shall see what is there shortly. But before then I am happy to report that the Cloners are integrating with the Imperium nicely, actually quite nice once you get to know them and they aren't trying to kill you."

While no one will ever say the Emperor can smile, there does appear to be something akin to that on his face. "That is good to hear, learning the legacy of those who I knew long ago has survived and will continue to thrive." But soon his stoic face returned "And it is good to have those who you can trust with such secrets, but it can be a straining thing to keep some secrets my son, remember that as we discuss what you have questions about."

Adaam nodded solemnly as they walked quickly through the halls, passing paintings of victories of the past, places of old, many of them of Eternia, a place that Adaam would never forget. Actually. "Father, as you of all people know, the loss of Eternia has always been on my mind for many years, thus I have a small ask, would you grant me if finding a place suitable, to reclaim a world as a homeworld? It would honor myself and my Legion greatly, but if you feel we have yet to achieve that honor we shall strive to achieve such goals." It was very clear that Adaam was a bit unnerved asking for such a lofty goal…

To any other being, it would appear that the Emperor had not broken his stride, but Adaam could tell that the question had surprised his father. "...My son, I can not say that I do understand the pain of losing a homeworld, Terra has always been my home. But forgive me for saying this, it is not my place to decide where you call your homeworld, that is up to you and your people to find and decide where Eternia's legacy shall continue, if you wish for aid in this matter then I am sure I can persuade Malcador to give up some uncolonized world for you and your people to settle if you wish."

The tone was as even as always but Adaam could tell that his father had left one of his many walls guarding his more compassionate side down, if only for a moment.

Adaam smiled, he a bit surprised by the answer but more so by what was said. "Actually Father DI do believe I have found a world that might suit myself and my sons. It has yet to rejoin the Imperium but I do believe they shall do so, hopefully without bloodshed. A world known for its knowledge and philosophy, a world much like Eternia. Actually is one place I hope to find some answers to my sword, as information has been hard to come upon…"

The Emperor nods "Very well then, I wish you the best on that endeavor, my Son. Now, what other question dwells in your mind."

Adaam stopped as they arrived at the Vault, nodding to the Vault Guard of the Second Chapter, he moving up and putting in the code and sequence to open it. "I think some of them better be shown then asked Father. Though I do admit, I am worried that some will be coming for the secrets that I hold and even what the Mechanicum are doing. I have been asked by the Cloners to keep their technology safe and gave them my word that I shall."

Adaam let out a soft sigh at that. "I wish there was a way to help them, while extremely intelligent and certainly willing to fight and die in droves, it still pains me to see so many, more of one face, die so much. I know we will need them in the fights to come, especially with the appearance of the Orks now, but I do wonder if we might find a way to help them so it is not the same over and over…" Adaam held out his arm, welcoming and open to allow his Father to walk into the Vault, a place very few we allowed to go.

As the Emperor walks into the vault he speaks plainly "Often the hardest decisions are those that come at the cost of lives, I understand that struggle well. Perhaps we will find a means one day so that they might become more than what they are now. To truly live as Men and Women of Mankind." His eyes look over marvelous artifacts of Eternia and various objects of importance for the First Legion.

Adaam nodded, perhaps he would talk to the cloners himself and see what they had to say as well as perhaps his newest target might help shed some light on it as well. As they walked through the Vault a small smile crossed Adaam's features, memories, mostly good, but some pained crossing his mind as he looked over the relics and artifacts, allowing the Emperor some time to look over them, having been far too long since his last visit, as he did and they neared what he wished to show him, in fact, while he was called in the first place Adaam spoke. "Father, do you have any more leads on my sword by chance? I spent some more time trying to find information, but so far everything alludes myself, experts, and well everyone."

Without looking back at Adaam, the Emperor looks contemplative for a moment "Yes your Sword is an enigma, I had my own fair share of troubles finding a piece of information from what you could tell me about it. I do have a lead for you my son, but it is a perilous journey given its current location. And while I have the utmost confidence in you and your Legion, it may still be hazardous. It was known as the World of Limuria, a world holding ruins that bore a resemblance to the design of your sword, I had thought it lost many years ago, but if reports are to be believed it has recently come under the occupation of the Ork Empire. I do not believe I need to tell you what will have to be done to reach that world now."

"I will have to consulate the star charts and see about liberating that world, as I already planned to hit from the west and advance on that flank to secure that avenue. Though I worry with it being possible within the range of some of my sisters, one that doesn't exactly get along with myself and my legion." Adaam smirked again, his mind trying to find answers to the problems that now seemed to be swirling in his head. He shook his head, hiding those thoughts, they arriving at the spot that Adaam had had cleared and put under heavy guard, guarded by those that had been with him the longest. "We are here. It was found here on Greyskull, I awesome under the care of its former owner…"

The Emperor's stoic face betrayed no indication of any other emotion. " I assume this is the main reason for my arrival here today?" He looks over the defenses, clearly impressed at the level of security being put in place "Please show me what this holds my Son."

Adaam took a deep breath and nodded to his men, they stepped away as Adaam once more approached and unlocked the security centered around what had been found, a special vault having been made to hold it. After a moment the door opened and Adaam walked inside, still shaken by what was inside the tubes that now dominated the room. Unexplained, unknown. "Only myself and ten others know of this, the guards and Orko, but nothing has been touched, nothing disturbed but for moving here."

The Emperor walks into the room and stands before one of the Tubes, the murky liquid obscuring much of the view inside. He is silent for a minute before he turns to Adaam "Do you wish to know what is in these containers my son? I am prepared to tell you, but you must be the one to decide if you wish to know."

The Emperor's words seemed to darken the room leaving only the faint glow of the tubes and a vague outline of their occupants, all different body types and clearly of Xeno origin.

Adaam stared at the tubes, his feelings going both ways as his insides trembling. Whatever they were, Father knew what they were. Maybe this is why he had come all those years ago? All Adaam knew his vaunted enemy, Skelator had planted these… things... Xenos depend within the bawls of the mighty Fortress Monastery that he now called him. If Skelator had them, could others exist? Could they strike against worlds as they had Eternia… "I do Father. If Skelator had allied with them, worked for them… then they are a threat we might keep secure and checked. I take up that responsibility."

The Emperor gives a deep sigh and waves his arm, the murk obscuring the beings fades away as they are truly seen for the first time by Adaam, They are reptilian in nature but the four seem all different. "You do not have to worry about them my Son, these might be the last of their kind, something that is...difficult for me to understand how to feel about. Let me tell you what I know of them, they are known as the Old Ones by all who do know of them, they were perhaps the first living beings in our galaxy. Ruling for an unknown amount of time, before other life came into being, one of these new lives rose to such prominence that they threatened the Old Ones, thus a War Began, the greatest War the galaxy has ever known, one that shook the heavens. A war that no one won." He places his hand on one of the tubes looking at the seemingly slumbering being.

"I believe that these four might be the last hope of their kind stored away either in their last days or in their war as a hidden trap for their enemies. It seems that Eternia simply became the land for which they slumbered."
Adaam stood there, horrified, a knot deep in his chest, a War for the heavens? Simply known as the Old Ones… and why had Skelator had them. He looked upon them again, having done so before, yet now in a new light, if they were rulers before… then they came before his own father. Adaam glanced back at the Emperor, holding his expressions in check the best he could. While he had asked for the information, the fact Father had been willing to tell him sent waves of emotion through him. He could ask for more, as he was sure there was more, but from his read pressing now would not be wise, not yet…

"Father, while I wish to know, I shall not press. I shall guard this knowledge, keeping them safe, allowing known to know they exist if you wish. I understand having to keep knowledge from those you love, I have done it before, as pained as it was. I… I am thankful you trust me enough to hold this knowledge, this secret into our past." He looked back at the creatures again, all four different, yet mysterious and mystifying, grateful they were no longer among the living. "There is no way for them to return yes? These I mean, or I guess them." He wasn't sure he really wanted to know the answer to that question on both levels.

The Emperor sighed deeply and for a moment, Adaam could see his age and the weary man behind the guise of the Master of Mankind "I don't know my son, perhaps they could just from these four, or perhaps they are already dead and just prolonging it, there is so much I do not know of them, of what they can do. In many ways, I wonder how would they be our greatest ally or the doom of man."

He takes a deep breath and returns to the normal state of himself and turns to look back at Adaam "We cannot allow the what if's to distract us my son, you have done well so far with keeping this contained even without the knowledge you have now. And I am sure you will make sure this area is well contained after this day."

"More so than I had in mind before yes Father." Adaam paused, giving one last look, the knot in his stomach finally, ever slowly, starting to unwind. "Security has been on my mind of late, more so now than ever. I have several plans to keep them safe and watched. Only those with my utmost confidence shall know, even then they will not know all. That is my word to you Father." Adaam drew a deep breath, exhaling and finally turning away. "That was my pressing question Father, but I have another, this one far simpler, and I pray ease on your mind. Do you have any other tasks for me, ones you need to be done that I have the means to assist with?"

"I must applaud your diligence my son, but I have no such task for you, simply that you continue the Great Crusade and continue to contain such potential dangers with duty and courage." The Emperor looks one last time at the Old Ones, before turning and leading Adaam away from such a place back into the main vault.

Adaam quickly exited the vault, feeling the pressure slide away as he immediately closed and locked the vault glancing at the four-man team he had guarding it, giving a look that only a had seen from him. Guard this with your life. He took another breath, another nod, turning back to his Father. "Then your will shall be done Father, as I said earlier I believe I have a path planned out, operations readying, turning to the threat the Orks hold towards us, but watching our west and south, many worlds held in the middle ground yet reclaimed for you and the Imperium. They shall be brought back into the fold, hopefully peacefully, but if force must be used, used it shall be. Mankind will be united once more."

The Emperor nods and looks towards Adaam "I know that your future battles will give you and your Legion Glory my son, I wish the best for you"

"That is all I need Father." Adaam Primus smiled.

Bark · Nov 28, 2021

New Foundations

Khaldeon stood on a newly constructed rockcrete outlook upon the many crags, overseeing the former planet of Darkura Rex, now rechristened as Azulii. Cadres of servitors and their accompanying techpriests arrived by Martian ships and the agents of Malcador arrived bearing materials, and the two organizations meshed into a flurry of administrative and technological prowess.

The Azulian colonists had made planetfall a month prior and now as building pieces were dropped down from the skies, the large modules could be dragged around to build their homes, yet foremost would come the construction of a stationary fortress monastery, built into a great mountain. A portion of the Ninth's wild griffins had been released, having been cooped up for a few years in the fleet's chambers, now free to fly in the clouds. A new homeworld finally.

The rest of the griffins would be taken to the surrounding worlds in the former Beastmen region, now Gryphon space. Designated as habitable and feral, the new Roost Worlds would contain the griffins but also fortress-outposts of Crimson Gryphon squads to ensure security and oversee any potential recruits that could come from the worlds with minor Azulian colonies founded upon them as well.

Azul, once contained to a single planet, would see it's people, culture and wildlife spread to systems in the northern Imperium. It's civilians building new lives, of martial might and wisdom from the void. Splinters of the united military and soldiers formed mortal garrisons on the planet, swearing to guard, while the majority remained on their civilian voidships to follow the Ninth's crusade fleet.

Khaldeon left behind these efforts to his capable allies, and traveled to a future bastion he found a glimmer of worth in.

Cadia.

A world of humanity, made into a remnant of itself by the Aeldari Empire in the north. They were decent fortification builders, and in their eyes of purple hue, Khaldeon saw might. He had called upon the Mechanicum and the Administratum to pour resources into the world to construct a Fortress World and to make their men and women into fine soldiers. Cadia would be the bulwark, and staging ground, for the Ninth Legion's strike into the Eldar.

The banners of the Crimson Gryphons flew among these worlds, and Khaldeon's heart soared. He felt ascendant. And now, his legion would truly find their mettle among such an enemy, his sons to taste blood and glory, and him to make a mark in his father's Great Crusade.

Princess_Hex · Nov 28, 2021

Faith in Each Other

Written with: @Another Amoeba

The Litany of the Blizzard rarely felt so festive, in fact a mood of joyous anticipation was palpable throughout the ship. The guests from other legions were confused, as were the many auxiliaries and menial, because they didn't understand the significance of receiving this guest. After all, she wasn't the Emperor, or even a primarch, surely there was no reason for an entire room to be set aside just for receiving her?

And yet the bond between the Coldiron Cages and the Wardens of the Blessed Heart ran deep. Even the newer Legionnaires who hadn't been with the legion while the two worked closely together could feel the importance of this in their blood. If perhaps some of the room's decorations were clumsy, or slightly crumpled by Erethe's misguided attempts to help, or the shapes were wobbly because the children had been involved, these small errors could hopefully be forgiven. Soft pastel colours dominated the room, the anxious crowd waiting around a pair of tables that they hadn't been able to move. Bunting crisscrossed the room in several places, just adding to the colourful display. The topic of how much this should be a party had been fiercely debated in the days leading up to their guest's arrival, but ultimately joy had won out over reason.

The center of this was the Primarch herself. The joy that filled her heart made Ahutani shine radiantly even under the sterile warship light. Unusually for her, she wasn't hidden away in voluminous robes and instead wore lighter clothing, something more suitable for a walk, albeit one in the arctic. There were splotches of paint on her hands from the last minute preparations she had been helping out with, but she didn't seem to notice or mind. In fact, no worries seemed to weigh on her at all as she tried to keep the crowd quiet and focused while they waited for their guest to be escorted from the hangar.

Philia emerged through the doorway, escorted by the violet-armored Coldirons and black-clad Wardens in equal number. She cut a strange figure. Unlike her escort, she wore no helmet. Her eyes shone with the same compassion they always had, but the rest of her face was statuesque: held perpetually in an expression of serenity. Her armor was accented in a manner uncharacteristic of Varil's daughters. Splashes of lilac and metallic gold highlights ran across the armor, placed efficiency to provide the appearance of liveliness and vibrancy. The effect was compounded by comparison to her escort. "Lady Primarch Ahurani," she said, and began to bow.

That bow was doomed to never be finished. Ahurani had told herself to behave plenty of times before today, and yet the moment she heard Philia's voice the reaction was immediate. In an instant she was across the room and wrapping her arms around Philia, lifting her in the air armour and all. "Oh it is so good to see you again! It's been so long."

Ahurani squeezed gently, more for herself than anything as Philia's armour made the gesture pointless. Afterwards she set her guest down and stepped back, a bashful look on her face. "Ah, my apologies. I got swept up in my joy of seeing you again. Please, don't stand on ceremony, you are welcome here like family."

"Lady Primarch." This time, Philia bowed just her head. The ghost of a smile played across her features, "I beg you not apologise. In truth, I expected no less." She brought up a fist in simulacrum of a boastful young hero, "It was by the speed of your strike alone that I did not reciprocate! How have you and your daughters been?"

Philia's antics earned a giggle from Ahurani, which also helped put her at ease. "Well I am sure I will not surprise you twice." It was when the question of how her and her daughters were that her expression sobered. "I cannot say we have faced the worst of things here, but it has still been difficult. We will persevere, because we must. With you here the burdens will be easier to bear."

The Astartes advanced a half step, close enough that she could place a power-armored hand upon the Primarch's arm. Her lips moved, and she spoke words that bordered on quivering silence. It was an old trick. Nothing but a Primarch's hearing could pick up on the minute vibrations through the air she created as she spoke. She did not even hear herself, "Lives of struggle are our lot. I am overjoyed to be with you again."

Philia allowed silence to linger for a moment, enough to ensure the Primarch knew that she meant it, that it was real. All of a sudden, her hand tightened slightly, and became a more performatively friendly one, as she turned to look across the wildly-decorated room and asked, "And I suppose you have a plan for us?"

Ahurani silently mouthed the words "thank you" to Philia, the message received loud and clear. It was a touching gesture, even if it didn't erase the worries that weighed on her so visibly. "Of course, everyone was so looking forward to your arrival that we prepared a celebration, you and your sisters should take some time to relax and meet friends, old and new."

"Of course, Lady Primarch." Philia made a gesture with her finger, from her chin to the top of her head, and the Cages in attendance removed their helmets. They were all familiar faces, but drawn mostly from either the Tactical Marines or the Librarius. Only Philia's second was of rank, a Champion named Zagreus from the Sixteenth Company. They spread out among the Wardens with the awkward gracefulness of Navis Nobilite visiting a dive bar, and congregated around old friends they'd known even before Lady Varil's return.

They exchanged flowing words with the Wardens, with neither bostfulness nor humility in excess. They were soldiers telling war stories through a mirror, darkly. Truthfulness: that was the word to describe their stories. They spoke truly, and did not overstep the truth too much. It hardly made the Coldirons the life of the party.

Somebody decided to start piping in music, and eventually the menials and some of the Auxilla likewise decided they had stood around for long enough. Together, they turned an otherwise empty portion of the room into a dance floor. Around that time, either by prompting by their fellows or simple curiosity, younger Wardens began to approach their guests. The Coldirons managed their questions ably and, sometimes with glances spared towards Philia, agreed to meet the Wardens later at the firing ranges or obstacle courses.

The Handmaiden remained close to Ahurani, though she spoke with delight whenever former companions braved their Primarch's shadow to share a word. Otherwise, her lips began to draw down into a frown, memories flashing behind her eyes. After a long while, prompted by nothing in particular, she turned to the Primarch, "I will discuss the particulars of my mission with you in private, later."

It was some time later when Philia received an invitation to Ahurani's private chambers. It was a high honour, and not one she had ever received before. In fact, she couldn't remember hearing of anyone being invited to the chambers, and certainly nobody who had gone past the audience room. Not even Vara had gone that far. There was a tacit understanding that that room was special, and entering it uninvited would be a step too far. It would be a grievous understatement to say Philia was honored by the invitation, but of course it did not spread to her features beyond a thin and serious smile. She had forsaken her armor in favor of a voluminous purple-and-gold robe like a toga, which flowed freely around her marble features.

A pair of wooden double doors dominated the entryway to Ahurani's bedroom. They were plain, no intricate carvings or great pieces of art, a more natural feel for an entry than the normal doors on the ship. They opened silently to reveal the room, a single square chamber larger than any of the bedrooms on board, but also not so large as to evoke awe. Rugs covered the hard metal flooring, and wood paneling hid the bare metal walls in order to keep the cold impersonality of a naval vessel at bay. The walls were of particular interest, as they were covered in tiny carvings that were difficult to make out, but Philia would soon recognise them as names. Thousands and thousands of names carved with painstaking precision into the walls.

The room was sparsely furnished: a writing desk, a book shelf, a nightstand, a small terminal to receive messages, and the bed. Only the bed stood out as being of special make, it was Primarch size, and circular, set some distance from the wall. It looked very comfortable, with fine sheets and blankets and plenty of pillows. Normally those would have been hidden by a translucent cloth veil that surrounded the bed, but that had been pushed to the side for this visit. Ahurani sat on the bed, smiling warmly at her guest.

Of course, perhaps the most notable thing about the bed were the thick iron bars set into the ceiling, designed to be lowered down to trap its occupant in a cage. It would not have taken a Primarch, or even a particularly observant mortal, to see Philia's eyes follow those bars up to the ceiling. Ahurani hadn't needed to see the emotions to guess that those eyes flashed with recognition and concerned curiosity, but she did not address those thoughts now.

Philia turned to close the door by hand. "Lady Ahurani," she spoke at an even clip. "My orders are particular so I will repeat them in full: insofar as my capabilities allow, I am to enact those policies which Lady Varil would enact, should she have the capability to attend to you personally. Moreover, I bear her personal recommendation that you call upon her in person as soon as you have the liberty."

"As if anything could stop me from seeing my favourite sister should I have the opportunity. She can rest assured I won't waste any time visiting her again." Ahurani patted the bed next to her, inviting Philia to sit. It's not like there was anywhere else to sit nearby, beyond the chair tucked away at the writing desk. "Varil is sweet to send you here to take care of me as she would, and there are none better suited to it. Tell me, what kinds of policies do you think to enact? Perhaps I can help, after all you'll find things much easier if we work together."

"Your offer is gracious," and without a moment's hesitation she crossed the room to sit on the bed as Ahurani had indicated. Of course, she sat like a statue, facing forwards, arms resting over her stomach, head rotated to face the Primarch. "My remit is broad so I may act as the need arises, but I am here primarily to guide you in light of the revelation about which you wrote my Gene-Mother."

Ahurani looked downcast as the inevitable topic came up. "Ah yes, my powers. I feel terribly guilty for not contacting Varil about it sooner, and I worry that I may have hurt her, or hurt her relationship with Soter. I really hadn't a clue, I never asked for them." She looked down at Philia, seeking something in her eyes. "What do you think of all this? Not you as my sister's representative, but Philia, my friend."

"You could do nothing to hurt her relationship with Soter, Lady Primarch," Philia spoke truth to give her a moment to reorient. Her next speech, in a voice heavy like an anvil, was no lie either. "I had trained Coldiron Psykers for decades before my Primarch returned, long before we had ever met you. Relative to them, you will be a difficult case indeed. I am told you manifest your powers when you experience intense emotions. To me, this is highly undesirable. A Psyker should exercise their powers with dispassion, and should refrain from exercising them because of a passion. My Gene-Mother still believes you should learn to control yourself, and nothing more. Only your personal appeal could change her mind."

"I.. I see." Hearing that she was going to be difficult was not what Ahurani was hoping for, but she took it in stride. "I will do everything in my power to follow your instructions and gain the control I need to make sure I do not hurt anyone. That is all I want, to be able to stop my powers from becoming dangerous, I have no desire to use them elsewhere. It is simply that they are a part of me, and I should at the very least understand them."

The conflict was clear in her voice as the primarch was caught between two wants. She sighed, and resigned herself to be honest with Philia. It was only fair, when Philia had done the same for her. "It frightens me, so much. I feel caught between desires and influences, and between my role in the Imperium and what my heart wants me to do. Not only that but my current foe is sure to push me to my limits, and just being in the same system as him fills me with an unnatural rage. None of these things can possibly help with my training, but I can't just give up either. I fear you may be right, and this will be a difficult task indeed. You have my apologies."

Philia lowered her head. In a similar situation, she could only imagine Lady Varil would turn to the… beyond uncomfortable but far from unwelcome presence of a Blank. Ahurani had treated her Null-souled siblings well, when she had campaigned with the Coldiron Spears, but their immediate presence to comfort in the heat of battle? Philia couldn't say, and she knew little about this foe they were to fight, "Ahurani, that I will be with you on campaign, you can be assured. I, too, feel conflicted. As an old friend, I wish to place my faith in you. As Lady Varil's confidant and servant, I know there is one path down which you should walk. In any case, I believe that you can only be helped by learning what I have to teach."

Aurani placed a comforting hand on Philia's shoulder and tried her best to smile. "Then I will put my faith in you to steer me true. Thank you for your honesty, Philia, it's what I needed to hear. Just, promise me one thing?" She shut her eyes and concentrated on what she was about to say. "In this coming campaign, I will be taking the battlefield myself. It's just something I must do, but I fear what you may think of me afterwards. Promise me you won't judge me too harshly for what I will do?"

"Thank you," Philia unclasped a hand and placed it over the Primarch's own, "for asking me not to judge you too harshly, and nothing more. I could not promise not to judge you, if I am to help you. But I swear to judge you evenly." Her eyes fluttered shut, "Your sister calls upon me to be such a judge of her own temperaments, you know. I have seen her in a rage, in despair, poised and confident. If I may be frank, I expect you may surprise me, but you can do nothing to strain our faith in you."

SteelWriter77 · Nov 29, 2021

"Those who seek enlightenment often do not know the Cost of such a pursuit"

Lorgar found himself floating in a deep void, his last memory was the battle with Calimixis. A memory that filled him with shame, but he must not focus on that for now, this strange void was more pressing.

He floated about aimlessly for what seemed like an eternity, before he saw something in the distance, a kind of light. As he approaches the Light he sees it as a column of light with a vast web of some kind of string in front of it, curious about this he floats closer and closer until something emerges from the column. It was immense in size and power, Lorgar could not help but compare it to the might of a vast and ancient Star, outshining and overpowering him with its presence.

"Lorgar Aurellian, you have been brought to ascertain your place in the Plan." When it spoke, it was like the Wrath of his father directed itself onto him. He tried to speak but no words came as it reached towards Lorgar, the light it gave off intensifying as he could feel all of his being was judged by this creature. It shifted slightly and with a wave of it's arm Lorgar could feel nothing but Dread.

"You are a hindrance to the Great Plan Son of the Young Watcher, Begone from my sight"

Before Lorgar could respond to this creature one of the strands of light from the web coils around him and digs into his flesh. For what seemed like an eternity Lorgar felt his essence being torn apart, he saw the vastness of reality and the path the Crusade was on, with his final act, he wept for his Family as he saw what will become of them…

The Primarch had faded away, his essence flowing into the great abyss, the Being of Starlight looked away to pluck a new string from the vast column of light and added it to the vast web before it.

"The position will be maintained, this one will fulfill our needs, The Great Plan must be accomplished." It then returned to the column and all was silent.
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Starscream opened his eyes, seeing his two high commanders Hektor and Sonus watching over him, the battle with Calimixis had been difficult, but he still lived.

Across the Galaxy, those who have great power of the Warp feel as existence itself seems to shift, and various worlds glow with great power as old ruins long forgotten shift and move like clay as power moves through them once again.

The Emperor drops a data slate as he approaches the world of Yeredet's Forge, his face betraying shock and slight fear, and if one was to look closely they could see tears.

On Terra, Malcador the Sigillite looks up from his work, brow furrowing. His gaze turns to the other occupant in his chamber, Elias Dradmire who looks fearfully back. He rushed out of the room to his own projects as Malcador continued his work, if tenser than before.

Deep in the Old space of the Eldar Empire, old beings watching the strands of fate, suddenly scream out as a power they long since thought gone had shifted Fate's path. Orks across the Galaxy stop their endless fight for but a moment as something deep inside them stirs...a name...or Title? The feeling fades as they remember their fights.

Deep in the Warp, beings who plot the destruction of order wail and scream at this power as it undo's their plots. One such being feels a great dissatisfaction as his quarry seems to fade away, and a new face replaces it. And somewhere in the Galaxy a long slumbering race stirs as they feel their great enemy's power

Deep in the castle of Greyskull, a figure floating in a tank stirs only slightly as a faint glow under their eyelids fades away, before becoming still once again.

Age of Burning Empires: IC

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