Well at least we hopefully won't have the great curse, since there are no primordials.
Deus Pater (Exalted/40k)
- Thread starter Maugan Ra
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- PA
Our 'great curse' is probably the ticking time-bomb that is the God-Emperor's approaching death-date, no doubt accelerated by our creation, given the whole 'impromptu soul surgery' thing, unless being fed 1000 souls a day can sustain him...
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
Well, the Great Curse is really just the IC reasoning for 'great heroes must have great flaws' trope, and nobody other than the old Eldar Empire embodies this better in 40k than the Emperor/Primarchs. So I suspect we'all have something along those lines, just fitted to our personality.
Second edition Exalts had Solars charms for unnatural longevity at elder essence. Lunars straight-up aged backward with one of theirs. Infernal's lifespan scaled with their essence, altho they needed to scale past Essence 5 to be capable of living multiple centuries - Devil-Tigers had immortality, even before E10 IIRC, and same went for those who turned into Yoziclone.
Dragonblooded didn't have an explicit immortality option, but it was likely possible at E10. No Dragonblooded managed E10, unless your GM decreed that Scarlet Empress managed. IIRC, before RoTSC, you were encouraged to make all kind of wild speculations about what she did and how she lived that long.
General pattern was, IIRC, you probably can be immortal at E10, or live an ungodly long live at E6-9. If you developed a charm for that, and GM isn't making frowny faces at you for attempting to break one theme of their game or another.
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Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
and in exalted if you arent breaking At LEAST one thing then your playing wrong
Anyway, on the matter of Exalts vs Primarch - alongside with all arguments already laid out, Primarch also could be considered as starting with an ungodly number of positive Mutations in addition to their Exalt-like souls. And with enough mutation points, you can run faster than commander Shepard, tank anti-tank munition, and see the invisible.
That should help to swallow whole "Primarch are srs bsns" thing in addition to them also having souls specifically constructed by Emperor to be semi-divine champions that stand above Space Marines as Space Marines above normal mortals.
[] The Sororitas.
I just want a Sororita Quest tbh
And woo how late I am
That should help to swallow whole "Primarch are srs bsns" thing in addition to them also having souls specifically constructed by Emperor to be semi-divine champions that stand above Space Marines as Space Marines above normal mortals.
I just want a Sororita Quest tbh
And woo how late I am
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- Location
- Singapore
[X] The Missionary. You have walked beneath alien suns and broken bread with people lost to the Emperor's light for millennia on end. Whole worlds have been brought into the fold by your deeds, and every time you returned home another set of scales fell from your eyes. You can scarcely bare to look upon the place you are meant to be speaking for, and while the frontier yet calls it's sweet siren song... you are done running.
[X] The Theologian. You graduated top of your class at the Schola, and donned the cassock of a priest with a smile on your face. You had studied the many and varied forms of the Imperial Faith for years on end, only to find that not one of the them reflected the actual truth. The horrors you have witnessed in your service to the mighty have strained your mind, and in the end you knew you were faced with a choice; do the sensible, pragmatic thing, or take a stand on a matter of principle few of your peers even cared to name. Put like that, it isn't really a choice at all, is it?
[X] The Theologian. You graduated top of your class at the Schola, and donned the cassock of a priest with a smile on your face. You had studied the many and varied forms of the Imperial Faith for years on end, only to find that not one of the them reflected the actual truth. The horrors you have witnessed in your service to the mighty have strained your mind, and in the end you knew you were faced with a choice; do the sensible, pragmatic thing, or take a stand on a matter of principle few of your peers even cared to name. Put like that, it isn't really a choice at all, is it?
- Location
- Singapore
Oh my god people the vote is long over.
- Location
- USA
[X] The Cardinal. You have a position of rank and power within the Ecclesiarchy, and you have done what you can to use it for good. Your teachings were always somewhat unorthodox, but you spoke to people's hearts and your support grew ever greater. Now, though, your superiors have rendered judgement, and those who trusted in your words are being condemned as heretics and sent to the pyre. Your position protects you from harm so long as you do not intervene... but you cannot stand aside and let your children burn.
- Location
- Classified
Seriously?
I doubt it, and I'd prefer we didn't. Going too meta shuts people out, and it doesn't add anything.
Act I, Chapter I - The Cardinal
- Location
- London, England
Your face belongs to a younger man.
Twelve decades have you served in the shadow of the Emperor and his Church, each a chain wrapped tight around your bones, but when you stare into the mirror the man who looks back barely seems a day over thirty. It is far too easy to think of him as someone else entirely, to construct a story about the man in the mirror and compare it to your own, inevitably found wanting.
That man is young, with bright blue eyes and coal-black hair, and his cheeks are only just beginning to show the soft lines of prolonged indulgence. That man is handsome, his face chiseled into perfect imperious lines by a master of flesh-craft, a magnet to the eye of any number of adoring partners. That man wears his robes of office well, and could convincingly claim that the shadows under his eyes came from nothing more dramatic than a night of unfortunately poor sleep.
That man is a lie.
You cannot hear the flames from here, nor smell the pungent stench of oil, for your room above the basilica is sealed tight against the air beyond and filled only with purified air. Your mind provides the sensations even so, turned to treachery by the broiling mix of fear and hate that scours your gut and curls your soft, pampered hands into fists.
A roar from outside sets the stone beneath your feet to trembling, and without conscious thought your find yourself moving to the window. The glass is specially treated, the multi-hued depiction of Saint Erasmus the Shriven permitting light through in only one direction, that you might survey the plaza beyond without drawing the attention of those below.
The crowd stands a million strong.
You can see them in the streets below, an ocean of humanity that stretches all the way out to the far horizon, packed shoulder to shoulder in streets and alleyways designed to hold a fraction of their number. They move and sway like some vast organism, pressing forwards against the barricade and flowing back down the causeways in strange synchronized rhythm, the will of the individual subsumed beneath the tidal psychology of the Mob. The sound of their collective voice is enough to shake the ground, and every time they press up against the barricade the stench grows as well, for the marshals on guard are free with their blows and a shock maul on full charge does terrible things to flesh and bowel.
The plaza itself is lost from view, the grand mural of Sanguinius Triumphant obscured beneath an artificial forest of a thousand metal spines. The roots of each tree are curled in on themselves, twisted up into soot-charred nozzles aimed at the branches above, and to each blackened trunk a linen bundle screams and writhes, begging for mercy from those who do not know the meaning of the word.
You bite your lip, and pay scarce notice the coppery tang of blood.
You are too high to see any details, too elevated in your position to get a first-hand look at the blood and death set to unfold below, but you know it well enough. No one rises so high in the Ecclesiarchy without witnessing at least one 'heretic' being executed through immolation, and though thousands wait for their turn upon the pyre today even such monstrous scale is not entirely unknown to you. No, the real change, the thing that makes this mass slaughter stand out in your mind where so many others could be tolerated or ignored, is motive.
Those people are dying because of you.
In truth, you should be down there with them; one does not typically condemn the population of a small town to death for heresy and then spare the one who poured such thoughts into their ears, but as in so many other things your position grants you rare advantage. You are a Cardinal of the Adeptus Ministorum, but one or two steps below the Ecclesiarch himself, and to send one such as you to the pyre is a step not likely taken, not even for the half-tame monsters of the Inquisition.
You will not hold such a rank for long, of course. Doubtless the petition is already circulating through the ranks of the Sector Synod, accumulating signatures and gathering the weight of will and testimony necessary to strip you of your position. Likely you will be demoted, sent off to proselytize to the heathens beyond the rim as part of such ambitious missionary undertaking, sent far away from the halls of power and left there until death claims you. It will take years, of course, perhaps even decades before you meet your appointed end, but eventually it will come, as grinding and inevitable as the gears of the Imperium can make it.
Your flock will die today.
You exhale, forcing the breath out through the cracks in tightly clenched teeth, and will yourself to turn away from the window. It will do you no good to watch what happens next, nor will it benefit those who face the fire for the sin of listening to their shepherd. Better to find something else to stare at, some other topic to snare the mind and enrapture the senses, something to occupy your thoughts until the inevitable is over and done with at last.
There are certainly no shortage of possible subjects, for your office is a spacious thing and virtually every wall and corner is filled to the brim with the detritus of a life long lived in service. On the surface of the desk is the skull of the first man to die in your defense, polished and gleaming in the candlelight, all but begging for some careful reflection. On the opposing wall hangs a selection of your favoured verses from the more recent tracts and psalms, the illuminated text just large enough to read from a distance. In the corner, are the gleaming fangs of your ceremonial chainsword, a weapon you practice with diligently but have never once wielded in battle. Mementos and keepsakes, the vast majority of no meaning to anyone but yourself.
You will not miss them.
You stop short, surprised at the turn your thoughts have taken. Slowly, cautiously, you prod at the nugget of iron-hard resolve at their foundation, following the chain of cause and effect all the way back to the original unconscious decision. Another roar shakes the room, and in the fading echo you find the truth you had sought.
You won't let this happen.
It's a strange thought to find, for there is little enough you could do now in any case; the authority of the Inquisition is beyond reproach, and any subtle influence you could bring to bear will yield fruit far too late for your flock to benefit any. You should be resigned, willing to accept the inevitability of what is about to occur, lost in regret and already mourning those who you know you cannot save… but you are not.
You are going down there.
Your smile is, you suspect, a ghastly thing. No expression born of such potent fatalism and relief could ever be anything less, but all things considered you suppose such concerns are among the very least of all possible worries. Quickly, before your sudden resolve can fail you, you cross the room and throw open the heartwood door to the corridor beyond.
"Your Holiness?" The sentry on duty is a Battle Sister of the Adepta Sororitas, for only the very finest are suitable escorts for a man of your stature. You cannot read her face or body behind the snow-white plates of her armour, but in truth you do not need to. She cannot hope to stand in your way. "Is something the matter?"
"I am going downstairs," you say firmly, stepping out of your room and shutting the door behind you. Part of you wants to go back and don the full extent of your ceremonial regalia, just to make this little stunt as dramatic and emphatic as possible… but no, that would take too much time, and your nerves might fail you yet. "I will not cower here while the faithful die below."
The sentry falls into step behind you without protest, but there is no mistaking the slight hesitation in her tone as she speaks once more. "Forgive me, Holy One, but… is that wise?"
You snort; a most undignified expression for a man of your station, but considering the circumstances one you feel can be forgiven. Servo-skulls descend from the rafters as you advance, cold augmentic lights burning where once a brain laid at rest, but you banish them with a single wave of your hand. You have no time for the petitions they carry or the messages they bring. Let your successor sort out that unholy mess.
"Sister, it is without a doubt the single most foolish action I have ever undertaken," You say with a glee that sits in your stomach and runs electric hands across vein and muscle, "but I am going to do it anyway."
You are halfway down the main flight of stairs before the full import of your words finally begins to sink in, the sharp rhythmic clack of powered boots on stone faltering for a brief moment in your wake.
"I… your Holiness… Cardinal…" the sister tries, before at last opting to abandon all form of pretense and simply seize you by the arm, "sir, you will die!"
You stop, if only because there is no way you can move with a battle-armoured woman latched onto your arm, and instead turn to face her at last. The reflection of your burning eyes in the crimson mirrors of her helm is a sight fit to still the heart.
"No man who died in his service, died in vain," you say softly, finally beginning to understand the words you have parroted without thinking for oh so many years, "so shoot me now or let me go, Sister, but either way this travesty will not continue unchallenged."
She releases you.
You continue.
The great doors at the front of the cathedral are closed, but in the interests of just this kind of moment you always made sure to keep the hinges properly maintained and the hydraulic systems in good working order; mortal strength alone could never hope to move such massive slabs of wood and granite, especially considering the gold leaf that turns the portal into a work of devotional art in its own right.
You place your hands against the doors, feeling the contours of the artificial skulls beneath your palms, and with a shrug of your shoulders throw them open.
The noonday heat washes over you like a tide, followed a second later by the hammer-blow of a million roaring voices. The sun sits high overhead, scorching your scalp and shoulders even through the flickering enviro-shield high above, but you allow none of this to stop you as you advance out onto the steps.
"Enough!" you roar, the vox-bead sewn into your collar overriding and commandeering every speaker horn within range until your voice echoes a hundred fold, "This madness ends today!"
The steps before the cathedral are carved of pure white marble quarried far across the stars, and each step you take is supported by legions of martyrs immortalized in the stone. You can feel the eyes of the mob turn towards you, feel the thundering cocktail of relief and exhilaration that flows through the veins of your doomed believers, and despite it all you find that a smile both grim and true blossoms swiftly upon your face.
Fear not, my children, for I have not abandoned you. Take solace in that if nothing else.
At the foot of the stairs, the Inquisitor turns.
He has a name, of course, one he was so kind as to inform you of when this whole sordid mess began, but you were never good with names and his seems almost beyond the point of relevance. It is not who he is that matters here but what; an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus, a Witch Hunter and scourge of heretics, a laughing bear of a man with the will to order you strapped to a pyre without a second's hesitation and the authority to see it done.
"Cardinal," he says, and his tone is strangely jovial for the situation at hand, "I thought I told you to stay in your room? There's no need for such an exalted personage as yourself to attend to such matters personally."
"Be silent," you retort, striding down the steps to meet him, heart thundering in your chest, "you know well that this was not my doing, and I will not see it continue."
At the Inquisitor's side, one of his lackeys raises a gun in your direction; an Arbitrator, you think, though the marks of rank have long since been stripped from the matt black suit of carapace armour he shares with the rest of the Inquisitor's retinue. The man himself pushes the barrel back down with a casual gesture, then begins walking up the steps towards you, the forest of unlit pyres at his back.
"Oh but this is your doing, Cardinal!" He proclaims boldly, spreading his arms wide in a gesture that pulls open the heavy leather coat he wears. Beneath you can see a suit of armour that seems strangely insectoid in appearance, strung with thick belts each bearing a minor relic or weapon of war close to their master's hand. "It was your foolish preaching, your unwitting heresy that swayed these poor fools from the path of righteousness! What I do now is what must be done for their own salvation, and we both know that the fate of a man's soul outweighs by far the suffering of his material body!"
There is a threat in those words, a glint of malice backed up by the look in the hunter's eye, and you know full well that even if you back down now even this ghost of defiance has earned you hours on the rack beneath the tender mercies of this man's interrogators. The thought does not trouble you as much as it otherwise might, for you also know that such a circumstance will never come to pass. You will be dead long before it could.
"Spare me these false mockeries of theology, Witch Hunter," You snarl, balling your hands into fists as you descend, well aware of the multitude of cameras fixed upon your position even now, "we both know this has nothing to do with faith. This is a matter of politics, commanded by your wretched masters who cannot bear to see the masses they grind underfoot attain even the smallest hint of liberation. You would rather crush the souls of billions than risk the loss of even a single Throne's worth of extorted tribute in the segmentum coffers!"
The Inquisitor's teeth are capped in silver, you note, and they flash in the sun as he bares them in a snarl. "Be silent, you insipid fool, or would you condemn millions more to the fate reserved for these wayward sheep? If you seek to stoke the flames of rebellion in some childish attempt at revenge for your impending fall then I promise that death itself will not save you from my wrath!"
There is much that you could say here, whole speeches worth of rhetoric that come boiling up from the depths of your mind in the face of such presumption, but in the interests of clarity you opt to set that all aside. You are all but nose to nose with the Inquisitor now, and from such a range can finally employ that oldest and purest of mankind's multitude of communicative techniques.
Your fist catches the Inquisitor square upon the chin, and silence falls like a shroud.
A million souls watch in silence as a Witch Hunter of the Ordo Hereticus topples backwards on the steps of the cathedral, his arms flailing wildly as balance deserts him. The clatter of armour against marble is the only sound for miles around, and you stand there proud with arm outstretched, watching this monster fall.
"The Emperor," you proclaim in a voice of thunder, "protects the virtuous."
There is a scraping sound as one hand is flung out to arrest the fall, and with a display of athleticism to put gymnasts to shame the Inquisitor rolls back to his feet halfway down the stairs. One hand dips beneath his coat and comes back up clutching a weapon; a strange wand-like device with pearl-handled grips and a metal barrel riddled with holes.
"Then he will see you burn!" The Inquisitor roars in reply, and with a scream of super-heated air the Inferno Pistol spits death.
Everything stops.
The world is frozen, locked in that one perfect instant like a masterwork preserved in amber. The beam of the Inferno Pistol hangs motionless in the air, a horizontal pillar of brilliant light extending out towards your chest. You turn your head and see a flock of doves suspended in flight, spiraling out from the bell tower in coiling formations of white. You can turn your head, but not move from this spot, and as you watch your end approach a sense of peace settles upon your heart.
"Was it worth it?"
There is a man by your side, tall and cadaverous, wrapped in a robe of gold and blue at least five sizes too large for his diminished frame. The skin of his face is pulled taut against the skull beneath, highlighting his patrician skull, and in their darkened sockets twin orbs of midnight sky regard you with infinite sorrow.
You have known him all your life.
"Yeah, I think it was," you say softly, mind adrift on tides of senseless euphoria that leave you blind to what you surely should be feeling. "The ending's a bit shit, but I guess there are worse ways to go, right?"
"Yes," the old man says, turning to look down the stairs in turn, "there are."
He lets you contemplate that for a moment, in this instant that stretches to eternity. Then he speaks once more.
"If you had the chance," he says, gesturing vaguely at nothing that mortal eyes can perceive, "would you do it again? Knowing where it leads?"
You consider that for a moment, weighing up all the myriad paths your life has taken in the endless journey up until this point. There has been suffering, true, and compromise in act and principle alike you never would have tolerated in your youth… but there has also been joy and satisfaction, an honest pleasure in improving the lives of billions.
"You know what?" You say thoughtfully, "I think I would."
A hand of sinew and bone closes on your shoulder, and eyes that burn with strange fire stare deep into your own. The breath that washes across your face is cold as the grave and rank like carrion.
"Prove it," the Emperor says, and time marches on anew.
The melta-blast takes you high in the chest and swallows you in flame. Your robes ignite, not so much burning as ceasing to exist in an explosion of ash and ember, and your flesh and bone follow suit in swift succession. The sheer force of the impact sends you staggering back, feet catching at the temple steps.
You do not fall.
The fire fades, and your soul burns with light.
You open your eyes, and in their depths blaze fires from beyond the mortal word. Your body straightens, flame-charred spine hidden from view beneath a layer of fresh-woven meat, and where others would lose blood you shed only light unlike any this mortal world has seen in ten millennia. It gathers around you in a cloak, a halo, a great pillar of divine fire that reaches for miles into the air and reaches out to touch the horizon with its light.
Deep within the glow, the double-headed eagle flares its wings and screams with the pleasure of victory long deferred.
You look upon the world, and see a flawed creation in dire need of judgement. The architect of some small facet of such suffering stands before you now, an Inquisitor rendered speechless at the sight of his own hubris, and in a voice of thunder you do what you were put upon this world to do.
You Judge.
Twelve decades have you served in the shadow of the Emperor and his Church, each a chain wrapped tight around your bones, but when you stare into the mirror the man who looks back barely seems a day over thirty. It is far too easy to think of him as someone else entirely, to construct a story about the man in the mirror and compare it to your own, inevitably found wanting.
That man is young, with bright blue eyes and coal-black hair, and his cheeks are only just beginning to show the soft lines of prolonged indulgence. That man is handsome, his face chiseled into perfect imperious lines by a master of flesh-craft, a magnet to the eye of any number of adoring partners. That man wears his robes of office well, and could convincingly claim that the shadows under his eyes came from nothing more dramatic than a night of unfortunately poor sleep.
That man is a lie.
You cannot hear the flames from here, nor smell the pungent stench of oil, for your room above the basilica is sealed tight against the air beyond and filled only with purified air. Your mind provides the sensations even so, turned to treachery by the broiling mix of fear and hate that scours your gut and curls your soft, pampered hands into fists.
A roar from outside sets the stone beneath your feet to trembling, and without conscious thought your find yourself moving to the window. The glass is specially treated, the multi-hued depiction of Saint Erasmus the Shriven permitting light through in only one direction, that you might survey the plaza beyond without drawing the attention of those below.
The crowd stands a million strong.
You can see them in the streets below, an ocean of humanity that stretches all the way out to the far horizon, packed shoulder to shoulder in streets and alleyways designed to hold a fraction of their number. They move and sway like some vast organism, pressing forwards against the barricade and flowing back down the causeways in strange synchronized rhythm, the will of the individual subsumed beneath the tidal psychology of the Mob. The sound of their collective voice is enough to shake the ground, and every time they press up against the barricade the stench grows as well, for the marshals on guard are free with their blows and a shock maul on full charge does terrible things to flesh and bowel.
The plaza itself is lost from view, the grand mural of Sanguinius Triumphant obscured beneath an artificial forest of a thousand metal spines. The roots of each tree are curled in on themselves, twisted up into soot-charred nozzles aimed at the branches above, and to each blackened trunk a linen bundle screams and writhes, begging for mercy from those who do not know the meaning of the word.
You bite your lip, and pay scarce notice the coppery tang of blood.
You are too high to see any details, too elevated in your position to get a first-hand look at the blood and death set to unfold below, but you know it well enough. No one rises so high in the Ecclesiarchy without witnessing at least one 'heretic' being executed through immolation, and though thousands wait for their turn upon the pyre today even such monstrous scale is not entirely unknown to you. No, the real change, the thing that makes this mass slaughter stand out in your mind where so many others could be tolerated or ignored, is motive.
Those people are dying because of you.
In truth, you should be down there with them; one does not typically condemn the population of a small town to death for heresy and then spare the one who poured such thoughts into their ears, but as in so many other things your position grants you rare advantage. You are a Cardinal of the Adeptus Ministorum, but one or two steps below the Ecclesiarch himself, and to send one such as you to the pyre is a step not likely taken, not even for the half-tame monsters of the Inquisition.
You will not hold such a rank for long, of course. Doubtless the petition is already circulating through the ranks of the Sector Synod, accumulating signatures and gathering the weight of will and testimony necessary to strip you of your position. Likely you will be demoted, sent off to proselytize to the heathens beyond the rim as part of such ambitious missionary undertaking, sent far away from the halls of power and left there until death claims you. It will take years, of course, perhaps even decades before you meet your appointed end, but eventually it will come, as grinding and inevitable as the gears of the Imperium can make it.
Your flock will die today.
You exhale, forcing the breath out through the cracks in tightly clenched teeth, and will yourself to turn away from the window. It will do you no good to watch what happens next, nor will it benefit those who face the fire for the sin of listening to their shepherd. Better to find something else to stare at, some other topic to snare the mind and enrapture the senses, something to occupy your thoughts until the inevitable is over and done with at last.
There are certainly no shortage of possible subjects, for your office is a spacious thing and virtually every wall and corner is filled to the brim with the detritus of a life long lived in service. On the surface of the desk is the skull of the first man to die in your defense, polished and gleaming in the candlelight, all but begging for some careful reflection. On the opposing wall hangs a selection of your favoured verses from the more recent tracts and psalms, the illuminated text just large enough to read from a distance. In the corner, are the gleaming fangs of your ceremonial chainsword, a weapon you practice with diligently but have never once wielded in battle. Mementos and keepsakes, the vast majority of no meaning to anyone but yourself.
You will not miss them.
You stop short, surprised at the turn your thoughts have taken. Slowly, cautiously, you prod at the nugget of iron-hard resolve at their foundation, following the chain of cause and effect all the way back to the original unconscious decision. Another roar shakes the room, and in the fading echo you find the truth you had sought.
You won't let this happen.
It's a strange thought to find, for there is little enough you could do now in any case; the authority of the Inquisition is beyond reproach, and any subtle influence you could bring to bear will yield fruit far too late for your flock to benefit any. You should be resigned, willing to accept the inevitability of what is about to occur, lost in regret and already mourning those who you know you cannot save… but you are not.
You are going down there.
Your smile is, you suspect, a ghastly thing. No expression born of such potent fatalism and relief could ever be anything less, but all things considered you suppose such concerns are among the very least of all possible worries. Quickly, before your sudden resolve can fail you, you cross the room and throw open the heartwood door to the corridor beyond.
"Your Holiness?" The sentry on duty is a Battle Sister of the Adepta Sororitas, for only the very finest are suitable escorts for a man of your stature. You cannot read her face or body behind the snow-white plates of her armour, but in truth you do not need to. She cannot hope to stand in your way. "Is something the matter?"
"I am going downstairs," you say firmly, stepping out of your room and shutting the door behind you. Part of you wants to go back and don the full extent of your ceremonial regalia, just to make this little stunt as dramatic and emphatic as possible… but no, that would take too much time, and your nerves might fail you yet. "I will not cower here while the faithful die below."
The sentry falls into step behind you without protest, but there is no mistaking the slight hesitation in her tone as she speaks once more. "Forgive me, Holy One, but… is that wise?"
You snort; a most undignified expression for a man of your station, but considering the circumstances one you feel can be forgiven. Servo-skulls descend from the rafters as you advance, cold augmentic lights burning where once a brain laid at rest, but you banish them with a single wave of your hand. You have no time for the petitions they carry or the messages they bring. Let your successor sort out that unholy mess.
"Sister, it is without a doubt the single most foolish action I have ever undertaken," You say with a glee that sits in your stomach and runs electric hands across vein and muscle, "but I am going to do it anyway."
You are halfway down the main flight of stairs before the full import of your words finally begins to sink in, the sharp rhythmic clack of powered boots on stone faltering for a brief moment in your wake.
"I… your Holiness… Cardinal…" the sister tries, before at last opting to abandon all form of pretense and simply seize you by the arm, "sir, you will die!"
You stop, if only because there is no way you can move with a battle-armoured woman latched onto your arm, and instead turn to face her at last. The reflection of your burning eyes in the crimson mirrors of her helm is a sight fit to still the heart.
"No man who died in his service, died in vain," you say softly, finally beginning to understand the words you have parroted without thinking for oh so many years, "so shoot me now or let me go, Sister, but either way this travesty will not continue unchallenged."
She releases you.
You continue.
The great doors at the front of the cathedral are closed, but in the interests of just this kind of moment you always made sure to keep the hinges properly maintained and the hydraulic systems in good working order; mortal strength alone could never hope to move such massive slabs of wood and granite, especially considering the gold leaf that turns the portal into a work of devotional art in its own right.
You place your hands against the doors, feeling the contours of the artificial skulls beneath your palms, and with a shrug of your shoulders throw them open.
The noonday heat washes over you like a tide, followed a second later by the hammer-blow of a million roaring voices. The sun sits high overhead, scorching your scalp and shoulders even through the flickering enviro-shield high above, but you allow none of this to stop you as you advance out onto the steps.
"Enough!" you roar, the vox-bead sewn into your collar overriding and commandeering every speaker horn within range until your voice echoes a hundred fold, "This madness ends today!"
The steps before the cathedral are carved of pure white marble quarried far across the stars, and each step you take is supported by legions of martyrs immortalized in the stone. You can feel the eyes of the mob turn towards you, feel the thundering cocktail of relief and exhilaration that flows through the veins of your doomed believers, and despite it all you find that a smile both grim and true blossoms swiftly upon your face.
Fear not, my children, for I have not abandoned you. Take solace in that if nothing else.
At the foot of the stairs, the Inquisitor turns.
He has a name, of course, one he was so kind as to inform you of when this whole sordid mess began, but you were never good with names and his seems almost beyond the point of relevance. It is not who he is that matters here but what; an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus, a Witch Hunter and scourge of heretics, a laughing bear of a man with the will to order you strapped to a pyre without a second's hesitation and the authority to see it done.
"Cardinal," he says, and his tone is strangely jovial for the situation at hand, "I thought I told you to stay in your room? There's no need for such an exalted personage as yourself to attend to such matters personally."
"Be silent," you retort, striding down the steps to meet him, heart thundering in your chest, "you know well that this was not my doing, and I will not see it continue."
At the Inquisitor's side, one of his lackeys raises a gun in your direction; an Arbitrator, you think, though the marks of rank have long since been stripped from the matt black suit of carapace armour he shares with the rest of the Inquisitor's retinue. The man himself pushes the barrel back down with a casual gesture, then begins walking up the steps towards you, the forest of unlit pyres at his back.
"Oh but this is your doing, Cardinal!" He proclaims boldly, spreading his arms wide in a gesture that pulls open the heavy leather coat he wears. Beneath you can see a suit of armour that seems strangely insectoid in appearance, strung with thick belts each bearing a minor relic or weapon of war close to their master's hand. "It was your foolish preaching, your unwitting heresy that swayed these poor fools from the path of righteousness! What I do now is what must be done for their own salvation, and we both know that the fate of a man's soul outweighs by far the suffering of his material body!"
There is a threat in those words, a glint of malice backed up by the look in the hunter's eye, and you know full well that even if you back down now even this ghost of defiance has earned you hours on the rack beneath the tender mercies of this man's interrogators. The thought does not trouble you as much as it otherwise might, for you also know that such a circumstance will never come to pass. You will be dead long before it could.
"Spare me these false mockeries of theology, Witch Hunter," You snarl, balling your hands into fists as you descend, well aware of the multitude of cameras fixed upon your position even now, "we both know this has nothing to do with faith. This is a matter of politics, commanded by your wretched masters who cannot bear to see the masses they grind underfoot attain even the smallest hint of liberation. You would rather crush the souls of billions than risk the loss of even a single Throne's worth of extorted tribute in the segmentum coffers!"
The Inquisitor's teeth are capped in silver, you note, and they flash in the sun as he bares them in a snarl. "Be silent, you insipid fool, or would you condemn millions more to the fate reserved for these wayward sheep? If you seek to stoke the flames of rebellion in some childish attempt at revenge for your impending fall then I promise that death itself will not save you from my wrath!"
There is much that you could say here, whole speeches worth of rhetoric that come boiling up from the depths of your mind in the face of such presumption, but in the interests of clarity you opt to set that all aside. You are all but nose to nose with the Inquisitor now, and from such a range can finally employ that oldest and purest of mankind's multitude of communicative techniques.
Your fist catches the Inquisitor square upon the chin, and silence falls like a shroud.
A million souls watch in silence as a Witch Hunter of the Ordo Hereticus topples backwards on the steps of the cathedral, his arms flailing wildly as balance deserts him. The clatter of armour against marble is the only sound for miles around, and you stand there proud with arm outstretched, watching this monster fall.
"The Emperor," you proclaim in a voice of thunder, "protects the virtuous."
There is a scraping sound as one hand is flung out to arrest the fall, and with a display of athleticism to put gymnasts to shame the Inquisitor rolls back to his feet halfway down the stairs. One hand dips beneath his coat and comes back up clutching a weapon; a strange wand-like device with pearl-handled grips and a metal barrel riddled with holes.
"Then he will see you burn!" The Inquisitor roars in reply, and with a scream of super-heated air the Inferno Pistol spits death.
Everything stops.
The world is frozen, locked in that one perfect instant like a masterwork preserved in amber. The beam of the Inferno Pistol hangs motionless in the air, a horizontal pillar of brilliant light extending out towards your chest. You turn your head and see a flock of doves suspended in flight, spiraling out from the bell tower in coiling formations of white. You can turn your head, but not move from this spot, and as you watch your end approach a sense of peace settles upon your heart.
"Was it worth it?"
There is a man by your side, tall and cadaverous, wrapped in a robe of gold and blue at least five sizes too large for his diminished frame. The skin of his face is pulled taut against the skull beneath, highlighting his patrician skull, and in their darkened sockets twin orbs of midnight sky regard you with infinite sorrow.
You have known him all your life.
"Yeah, I think it was," you say softly, mind adrift on tides of senseless euphoria that leave you blind to what you surely should be feeling. "The ending's a bit shit, but I guess there are worse ways to go, right?"
"Yes," the old man says, turning to look down the stairs in turn, "there are."
He lets you contemplate that for a moment, in this instant that stretches to eternity. Then he speaks once more.
"If you had the chance," he says, gesturing vaguely at nothing that mortal eyes can perceive, "would you do it again? Knowing where it leads?"
You consider that for a moment, weighing up all the myriad paths your life has taken in the endless journey up until this point. There has been suffering, true, and compromise in act and principle alike you never would have tolerated in your youth… but there has also been joy and satisfaction, an honest pleasure in improving the lives of billions.
"You know what?" You say thoughtfully, "I think I would."
A hand of sinew and bone closes on your shoulder, and eyes that burn with strange fire stare deep into your own. The breath that washes across your face is cold as the grave and rank like carrion.
"Prove it," the Emperor says, and time marches on anew.
The melta-blast takes you high in the chest and swallows you in flame. Your robes ignite, not so much burning as ceasing to exist in an explosion of ash and ember, and your flesh and bone follow suit in swift succession. The sheer force of the impact sends you staggering back, feet catching at the temple steps.
You do not fall.
The fire fades, and your soul burns with light.
You open your eyes, and in their depths blaze fires from beyond the mortal word. Your body straightens, flame-charred spine hidden from view beneath a layer of fresh-woven meat, and where others would lose blood you shed only light unlike any this mortal world has seen in ten millennia. It gathers around you in a cloak, a halo, a great pillar of divine fire that reaches for miles into the air and reaches out to touch the horizon with its light.
Deep within the glow, the double-headed eagle flares its wings and screams with the pleasure of victory long deferred.
You look upon the world, and see a flawed creation in dire need of judgement. The architect of some small facet of such suffering stands before you now, an Inquisitor rendered speechless at the sight of his own hubris, and in a voice of thunder you do what you were put upon this world to do.
You Judge.
Article: The crimes of this man are many and varied, his guilt beyond all doubt or question. All that remains is the sentence that must be passed, and it is as follows:
[ ] Death. A million hands stand ready to enact your will, and the world you would create has no room in it for such treacherous monsters. Let him reap what he has sown, and die as he would have condemned others to die in his place.
[ ] Exile. You find this man unworthy, and banish him from your sight. Let him go forth and spread the word of what happened here today, the first of many heralds that you must send forth to better enact your will upon this world.
[ ] Mercy. His crimes do not deserve forgiveness, but this is not about 'deserve'. Spare his life, bend his knee, and give the man a chance to atone for his failures with loyal service in your name.
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Lord Scoro
Welding Dragon
- Location
- The void
Yes yes yes. His holyness is here time to bitch slap some fuckers.
- Location
- Germany
[X] Mercy. His crimes do not deserve forgiveness, but this is not about 'deserve'. Spare his life, bend his knee, and give the man a chance to atone for his failures with loyal service in your name.
We direly need him. An Inquisitor can be many things, enforcer, information-source, even champion in some cases.
If we can hold him we should certainly recruit him.
We direly need him. An Inquisitor can be many things, enforcer, information-source, even champion in some cases.
If we can hold him we should certainly recruit him.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[X] Mercy. His crimes do not deserve forgiveness, but this is not about 'deserve'. Spare his life, bend his knee, and give the man a chance to atone for his failures with loyal service in your name.
- Location
- va
[X] Death. A million hands stand ready to enact your will, and the world you would create has no room in it for such treacherous monsters. Let him reap what he has sown, and die as he would have condemned others to die in his place.
DanBaque
Let's Have Fun
- Location
- Occupied Catalonian Countries
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Exile. You find this man unworthy, and banish him from your sight. Let him go forth and spread the word of what happened here today, the first of many heralds that you must send forth to better enact your will upon this world.
[X] Mercy. His crimes do not deserve forgiveness, but this is not about 'deserve'. Spare his life, bend his knee, and give the man a chance to atone for his failures with loyal service in your name.
Let's fight against grimdark.
This is exalted man of faith. A beacon. Something that let's other to believe. Corrupted Inquisitor finding his faith would require a miracle. But that is exalted - miracles can happen.
Let's fight against grimdark.
This is exalted man of faith. A beacon. Something that let's other to believe. Corrupted Inquisitor finding his faith would require a miracle. But that is exalted - miracles can happen.
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MooGoesCow21
Just Listen to me....
- Location
- US Washington
[X] Exile. You find this man unworthy, and banish him from your sight. Let him go forth and spread the word of what happened here today, the first of many heralds that you must send forth to better enact your will upon this world.
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- Location
- The United States
[X] Mercy. His crimes do not deserve forgiveness, but this is not about 'deserve'. Spare his life, bend his knee, and give the man a chance to atone for his failures with loyal service in your name.
Even the blackest of souls can be cleansed in the Emperor's light. Let us allow the Inquisitor an opportunity to atone for his crimes. He has committed many sins against humanity, let us allow him to right his wrongs or die trying.
Even the blackest of souls can be cleansed in the Emperor's light. Let us allow the Inquisitor an opportunity to atone for his crimes. He has committed many sins against humanity, let us allow him to right his wrongs or die trying.
- Location
- United states of america
[X] Exile. You find this man unworthy, and banish him from your sight. Let him go forth and spread the word of what happened here today, the first of many heralds that you must send forth to better enact your will upon this world.
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