- Location
- barking
flesh is weak and sinful better replace it with the holy machine i the entire thing with the tech priest and ironhands
Echoes of Eternity: A Warhammer 40k Necron Lord Quest
- Thread starter boredblues
- Start date
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer 40k necron war
huh, i though knowledge was divinity and the human body just a organic machine to contain that divinity
For the Mechanicus, the human soul is divine, but the flesh is sinful, weak and must be replaced. Perfection is in the machine, free from doubt, frailty and weakness.
- Location
- barking
I love this line from a tech priest in one of the games I feel this perfectly describes their feelings
"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal"
"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal"
so from what i can interpret from Wikipedia for Autotheism, there's nothing stopping you from replacing the frail flesh, just that your required to continue your spiritual progression (in acquiring Knowledge)
Edit:
Made some changes to my plan
TLDR; anyone who complains about flesh being weak is someone too stupid to comprehend the fact we mastered the material universe on hard mode, new game+ is when you kill gods as difficult prey
Edit:
Made some changes to my plan
Stealing a quote from the human equivalent in strength to krork chaff during the war in heaven
TLDR; anyone who complains about flesh being weak is someone too stupid to comprehend the fact we mastered the material universe on hard mode, new game+ is when you kill gods as difficult prey
Replaced autotheism with this, meshing with the militaristic bend of necrontyr culture
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@boredblues I added some new "Archdevas"/Aspects of the machine god, how viable is this?
- Location
- yorkshire
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]Plan: Pest control
- Location
- Asia
[X] Plan Get My Power Broom!
Welp, we have a winner, it seems. Voting closed. Writing started.
Very sorry all your hard work didn't get voted. Loved the effort though.
will you be using the default key words
or will you be throwing several of the key words that you said the Necron(Tyr)/Old Mictlan/Mictlan Ascendency (likely) has?
Last edited:
Turn 4 Results Part 1
[X]Plan: Pest control
-[X]Pests
--[X]Rahotamen
-[X]The Wandering World
--[X]Ptolomes
-[X]Enemies, close by
--[X]Korissah
-[X]Tomb-Mind
-[X]Old Enemies
-[X]Empyrean
--[X]Xorathis
-[X] Open the Armories
--[X]A discrete melee weapon for Korissah, maybe something that can change length at will ?
-[X]Agents
--[X]Encourage Beta-Mu in her course
--[X]Cult of the Heavenly Guardians
---[X] Build religious hierarchy and rites (insist on the preciousness of one's soul while promoting the objective value of mechanical bodies)
Rahotamen stood on the Ascendant's bridge, looking at the enemy he came to destroy.
It had felt good to traverse the stars, once. The feeling of awe, of freedom, of endless possibilities awaiting just beyond one's sight. It had filled him, gave him purpose and energy. Once, he didn't think he would do anything in the life the Gods saw fit to bestow on him but to chart the starry night and then return to her, prize in hand to make her smile.
Once.
Now, it was all about numbers, transmissions and outputs, optimized processes and optimal results. Obstacles and problems, solutions and debugging. Whatever soaring sensation he once felt was a shadow of a shadow, a dim image barely glimpsed beyond the falling columns of data.
[Stand-by for target status. Processing…]
[Aknowledged.]
It was cold on the bridge, the gloom broken by the glow of humming machinery. Or it would have been cold for anyone with the skin for it.
Necrons didn't register the world the same way mortals did. Smells, tastes, sights, noises and touches were filtered through their metal bodies in efficient, perfected and thoroughly unnatural ways. The true cruelty was that their instincts didn't match their frames. A bad smell triggered revulsion, but there was no nose to curl or throat to gag. A vacuum sent the need to breath screaming through their synthetic neurons, but there were no lungs to fill. No matter what instincts that made sense with flesh and blood bodies demanded, they couldn't satisfy them, nor couldn't deny them. The lucky ones could lower receptors' sensibility, dim optics and muffle audio; the truly lucky ones could even speed up their chrono-perceptions to make unpleasant moments go by in a blur. All the rest, the greatest majority, had to endure the agony, conflicting impulses warring inside what little was left of their self-awareness.
At that moment, Rahotamen's mind screamed at him that he felt cold, despite his metal body being above such paltry needs. Phantom needles danced across his touch receptors, the ghost of sensations that didn't belong to him. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, nonsensical reports flooding his processors.
He could have dimmed his receptors to shut it off, but he endured it instead. He faithful Lychguards lacked the wherewithal or frame complexity to dim their own sensors, and he wouldn't let them suffer alone. A good ship commander always shared his troops' discomfort.
Wisdom of another age, made for other people. It helped nobody and had no meaning now, but he was a creature of tradition and rituals. They were the only thing holding him together.
[Process Completed. Status target status: Currently holding orbit above X0R5. Designation: Gas Giant. Note: Ahakara Battle-Station. Long-range scans report contingents of organics have landed on the Station and are currently battling automated defenses. Standing by for orders.]
"Let them bleed," Sekath mumbled. His second held a resolute pose, his halberd held vertically. With the cold starlight glinting off his frame, he looked like a statue of ancient times carved in metal. "We shall pick the rest."
"Ssslow," Naba slurred. The Lychguard's fingers ran over his shield. Whatever he intended was lost as he turned his short attention to weapon maintenance.
Rahotamen watched impassively the image projected by the bridge's holo-scanner. The planet, a giant of orange gas streaked with earthy tones, was depicted in greenish light, the scanners cutting deep through its misty interiors to show currents and agglomerations.
The organics' fleet was shown by targeting markers and vector approaches. The glimmer of him that remembered the admiral felt disdainful at watching it. It was a ramshackle assemble, ungainly scraps of corroded metal that only corrupted Uhn'Saekh could call space-worthy. Still, he wouldn't underestimate it. Scans showed that there was plenty of human cargo inside, and Chaos had a way of turning even the most pitiful Uhn'Saekh into a killing machine.
The Ahakara's Battle-Station was a reversed trapezoid floating among the planet's misty interior. Designed for orbiting the world as a shield, it had been sunk into its ward to sleep away the millions of years, protected by arcane machinery from the colossal winds and electromagnetic storm racking the planet. It had done so remarkably well, if the first readings were to be trusted, but now its sleep had come to an end. The corrupted Uhn'Saekh's ships had somehow infiltrated the station and were now fighting against its defenses. The projection bloomed with energy readings where the fight was at its thickest.
Rahotamen suspected sorcery. The fleet he saw before him had nowhere near the technology prowess to breach the planet's fury, or the station's shields. And that made underestimating them even less wise.
He grunted. Saba was right. They had been slow. The optimal engagement would have seen his forces destroy that fleet before the station was disturbed, so that its inhabitants could be brought into the fold without fuss. But it was too late for that, and recriminations were pointless.
"Move in," he ordered, grimly.
[Aknowledged.]
The engines of the Ascendant's Judgement rumbled in obeisance. Like a leviathan of deep space, the massive ship coasted the planet's curve, starlight glimmering through its hulk.
Cloaked in its powerful stealth field, the ship was slightly out of sync with that reality layer, a predator swimming just beneath the dimensional currents. It didn't make it entirely undetectable. Powerful Uhn'Saekh auspex and warp-based scrying could still find it, but only through a great struggle and only if they were focusing their efforts. Combined with the other stealth systems, Rahotamen doubted there was a more effective method of concealing in the known universe.
Still, he was not taking chances.
"Power to weapons systems," he rumbled.
Sekath twitched. "They could see us," he pointed out. Even Naba took his attention away from his shield to blink optics at his commander.
Rahotamen didn't take his gaze away from the enemy fleet. True, the spiking energy reading made stealth less effective. But he had his reasons.
"They have sorcerers," he sentenced. "Powerful ones possibly. I gladly trade the chance of being discovered sooner for weapon readiness."
The two Lychguards didn't argue. They couldn't. They just registered the command and started to ready themselves.
[Pathing set. Stand by for approach. Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 10%]
With forbidding grace, the Judgement coasted the planet's curve, using its mass to mask its approach. Pathing had been traced and data analyzed for the optimum approach vector. Attack positions had been scanned and selected for maximum shock and destruction. The Master program dwelling at the center of the web of ancient information streams and programs moved with chilling accuracy to implement them.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 37%. Powering Armament.]
Ponderously, with monolithic efficiency, the ship shortened the distance separating it from the enemy fleet. Weapon systems started to hum. Barrels protruded from ancient, stone-like bulkheads. Gauss energy traced across muzzles that were old when man had first looked at the stars.
Inside glow-lit corridors, swarms of Canoptek swarmed to prepare for eventual damage to repair, while bright-eyed Warriors and Immortals stood arrayed in motionless rows beneath massive invasion cannons, ready for boarding.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 64%. Initializing Targeting.]
Rahotamen's sensors were interfaced with those of the ship, letting him see through the titanic vessel's eyes. Through them, he saw the enemy vessels lit with aiming-markers. Green for 100% certainty destruction results. Azure for indecisive results. Red for likely failures. There was no red to be seen, and he idly wondered. Uhn'Saekh sorcerers with the ability to cut focalized Warp-Portals for rapid transfer were in the higher scale of Chaos power. He wouldn't expect to find one among such a ramshackle fleet.
Among the light incrociators making up the enemy's fighting force, the Master Program singled out three likely to be the flagship. Each was heavily festooned with the corrosions and mutations bestowed by Chaos. Lesions, tumors and twitching tentacles the size of buildings coiled from Imperium's buttressed superstructures, making them look more like a mix between repugnant organic life and scrap metal than true vessels.
"Target priority: third Uhn'Saekh on the left…" Rahotamen took a moment to recover the name from his damaged data-banks. "Infidel-Class."
[Aknowledged. Re-assigning priority targetings.]
Rahotamen didn't choose out of any logical reason. All three ships looked the same flying piles of corrupted adamantium to scanners and instruments alike. But an admiral's instinct remained an admiral's instinct, and he had traveled too long the stars not to learn to trust it when it came calling.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 76%. Enemy Movement.]
Naba hissed. "They sssee. They know…"
Rahotamen didn't lose his composure. The enemy ships were giving signs of alert. The Escort-Class light Cruisers were breaking away from their stationary position above the planet and taking battle formation. Differently from how Rahotamen knew other Uhn'Saekh would act, their corrupted counterparts didn't protect their transports. Instead, the smaller, bulkier ships crawled their way forward, to act as a shield for the battle vessels. What remained of Rahotamen's honorable side scoffed.
"They don't turn to us…" Sekath pointed out, the Lychguard's processors not powerful enough to go beyond that statement.
Rahotamen nodded. Sorcery… they must have received some kind of visions regarding an imminent danger…
Too late, he thought grimly. Far too late.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 82%. Medium-High threshold surpassed. Lance of the Gods Fully Charged.]
"Fire."
The Judgement erupted into real space in a blaze of violent energy. Interstitial discharge licked at its crescent moon shape, before flaring out in a corona of interdimensional currents. Lightning Arcs spat waves of stored living energy that engulfed ramshackle ships, reducing them to molten slag. Particle Whips lashed out, cutting Uhn'Saekh vessels in half or reducing them to clouds of debris. The space above X0R5 filled with the fury of Necron Gauss weaponry.
Yet, it was nothing compared to the ship's main weapon. The Lance of the Gods was a thing of destruction untold, blessed by the cursed touch of the C'tan themselves. As energy gathered in the space between the Judgement's arms, space bent and ruptured, brilliant cracks running across the darkness. They erupted with a howl that not even the airless silence could stop, a lance of viridian devastation thundering across the void. It cut a brilliant line across the firmament, spearing through the enemy fleet like the finger of the Gods. As it ceased, ruptured dimensional walls violently reasserted themselves, gravitic winds scouring the planet's atmosphere.
Half of the Uhn'Saekh fleet was destroyed in the first moments of the engagement, ripped apart, burned to cinders, or reduced to atoms. What remained fell into disarray, many ships spinning away as their crews struggled to recover their wits.
Some did so with incredible alacrity, or maybe their madness was already beyond terror. The surviving transport ships threw themselves into suicide dives against the Judgement, hoping to use their reinforced prows to smash through its bulkheads and send their contents inside. They were smashed to pieces by contemptuous shots of the Particle Whips or slammed against the flagship's Guass Shields, trapped in blinding nets of green lightning until their superstructures gave way.
The Cruisers tried to fight back, aiming ineffectual shots at the Judgement. Some tried to run. Others, already too mauled to try the same, ejected clouds of savior pods toward the planets, where they wouldn't find any salvation. The flagship coasted ponderously among them, administering destruction with chilling precision. Its batteries lashed out with a methodical rhythm, leaving only floating wreckage in their wake.
Rahotamen ignored them all, leaving the task to annihilating them to the ship's systems. His attention was for the last of the trio of heavily corrupted Uhn'Saekh ships. Its sisters annihilated by the Lance's fury, the vessel was struggling to recover from a slow spin. A glancing blow had taken out one of its engines and the ship was almost graceful as it spun on its axis, leaking unnatural flames and smoke into the void.
As he watched, a Particle Whip's energy beam reached for it, only to slash across emptiness.
[Warning! Warp-Disturbance Identified. Dimensional Funnelling Detected.]
Rahotamen grunted. "They're trying to open a Warp-portal to escape."
The Uhn'Saekh ship managed to right itself. It let out with its batteries, and Rahotamen was only partly surprised to see its cannons destroy a couple of the surviving transport ships.
They're gathering sacrifices… Chaos Sorcery was a mostly theoretical subject for him, but he knew for a fact that drew its power from death and pain, both of which already suffused that stretch of space. The survivors were only adding to it.
"Focus fire," he ordered.
More batteries opened fire, but the wave of living energy and viridian lashes only managed glancing blows. The Uhn'Saekh ship dipped and dodged with preternatural speed and when it seemed that its end had come, space seemed to fold around it, turning conclusive shots aside. It couldn't last forever, but the corrupted ones didn't it need to. Already the ship was at the center of a growing vortex of thickening smoke and debris, like a heatsink.
Rahotamen would have frowned if his death mask allowed it. The wider situation was clear: no survivor could be allowed to escape. It would weaken Mictlan's position by alerting it to the forces of Chaos. Anything different by complete extermination was unacceptable.
"Do we have an invasion lock?" He asked.
[Invasion Cannons primed and ready.] Despite the urgency of the situation and having to control dozens of weapon systems, the Master Program was unconcerned.
Rahotamen nodded. "Prepare for boarding."
Beside him, Naba caressed his halberd, letting out a static-filled laughter.
------------
Warp sorcery was the bane of the Necrons. For all their technological might, they remained soulless creatures, the whole of their existences contained inside the bio-electrical signal crackling across processors. For a force able to deform reality with the merest touch, snuffing out their undead lives was easy. It took only a little warping of necrodermis synapses.
But that didn't mean that Necrons were powerless against it.
The War in Heaven, after being a war of races, was a war of psychic might against technological prowess, of material reality struggling against the Empyrean abyss. It was only obvious that the Necrontyr and the Necrons then would come up with ways to counter the mental powers of the Pretenders. The C'tan taught them plenty in that regard.
As all ships of the lines, and above even the colossal Cairn-Class, the Judgement was provided with an array of Yngam Monoliths meant to protect from the arcane. Turned for the offense, they were able to unleash waves of despair and madness that could send crews into disarray and murderous frenzy. Still, there was no time to use them to disrupt the ritual already underway. Even the bubble of Reality they projected would be enough if they couldn't get close enough, and the enemy ship kept its distance.
This time, Rahotamen would use a more brute approach. The massive invasion cannons mounted on the flagship were used to translate whole armies on planet surfaces by following transdimensional beacons sent through interstitial spaces to plant themselves on the target. The same could be done on a smaller scale for boarding actions, and that's what was done then.
A complement of Lychguards materialized inside the corrupted vessel amidst arcs of Gauss energy. Already in disarray, the occupants, hundreds of mutated Uhn'Saekh, some keeping only a vague resemblance to their original shape, fell in a chaos of panicked shrieks and furious roars at the intruders suddenly appearing. Some turned and ran and slithered and crawled away; others did the same on the opposite direction, screaming oaths to their misbegotten Gods while waving crooked weapons and implements.
The Lychguards waded through all of them, cutting down anyone in their path with impassioned efficiency. The elite warriors locked their Dispersion Shields, blocking heavy maces and rushing bodies before going to work with their Hyperphase Blades.
The ship's interior was just as corrupted as its exterior. Rotten flesh, tendons and sinew intertwined with metal. Pulsing organs emerged from walls amidst tangles of thick veins. Ichor flowed from lesions that appeared on artificial surfaces as well, like they had be turned into organic matter. Eyes blinked in place of lights. It was like being inside a living being rather than a vessel that had been built by mortal hands.
The Necrons weren't impressed. Hunched behind their shields, they waded in lockstep into that nest of corruption, their deathmasks as cold as the glint on their blades.
After the first surprise, resistance quickly hardened. Between arms and soldiers, the crew numbers ranged in the thousands, and it wasn't long before hundreds of them stood barring the boarders' way.
The cultists fought with rabid zeal, firing lasguns, stubbers and missile launchers, throwing grenades and using a wide array of mutations provided to them by their masters, spines dripping ichors launched through rippling maws or tentacles whipping out with bone-crushing force. Their armors were patchwork, brutal masses, plates of carapace and plasteel mixing with gowns of flayed heads and blood-splattered emblems.
Some among them were hulking, muscle-bound, jabbering monstrosities that were goaded against the intruders with shock prods and whips.
The ship itself reacted violently at the invasion. Decks opened to reveal mouths riddled with razor-sharp teeth. Fleshy appendages erupted from bulkheads to crush unwary enemies or act as barricades for the defenders. Passageways and compartments suddenly compressed to crush anyone caught inside.
But the suddenness of the assault and the cultists' lack of discipline worked against them. Apart from hard knots of resistance where the defenders deployed heavy weapons, all their efforts managed to achieve was to slow the Necrons down.
Lychguards were elite soldiers, their necrodermis bodies built to the highest standards. A hulk's swing that would have reduced a human into paste clanged against shields, the aggressor cut down a moment later by a blade that passed through heavy plate like it was mist. A missile sent streaming through a corridor managed to send a Lychguard on his knees for the time his necrodermis took to reknit itself, the soldier returning to its advance as soon as his legs were able to move. It took an incredible effort to down one of the ancient soldiers for good, like cultists working together to smash it into fragments or suicide bombers throwing themselves against their line strapped with explosives.
Even the ship's increasingly frantic efforts were for nothing, ancient blades cutting mutated appendages to pieces before they could harm their owners.
And the Necrons were fearless. The thickening Warp influence in the air slid off them, and they cut a swathe through the ship's defenses with remorseless efficiency. Scanners from the Judgement sent a steady stream of map data to their processors, always keeping them moving toward the bridge, where the ritual was being conducted. They were lines of death sweeping across the ship like winter's breath.
Rahotamen was at the head of the purge, leading his soldiers from passageway to passageway, cutting down anyone who dared to try and stop him. The Nemesor was a monster emerged from mankind's atavistic nightmares, a blur of darkness and blades.
When he cut down a screaming thing fused to what once was a navigational throne amidst a chamber of horrors, he knew he was close.
As an armored door entwined with what looked like a mass of living tumors was blasted off its hinges, the Necrons stormed the sorcerer's abode.
The chamber had once been an observatory from which to watch the stars. Now, it kept nothing of its original shape. Multicolored crystals covered the walls. Their reflections compounded themselves in mad fractals, making one feel like he was falling into an abyss of endlessly repeating fragments of reflections, turning every movement into a chaotic sweep of shapes and lights. It had an organic feel to it, and where it clustered, long tongues curled to taste the particulate-filled air.
A man-tall sphere made of what looked like molten flesh hung in the center, like a twisted planet caught in glass. Massive figures in ornated power armor surrounded it, with one of them floating in the air before it. They turned to meet the intruders, and Rahotamen signaled to attack even as bolter shells exploded around him.
The Lychguards locked their shields together and advanced. Inferno Bolts smashed against energy fields, erupting into blazes that licked at their headcrests. A few fell, their frames scorched by sorcerous fire, but most continued.
The Rubric Marines, Rahotamen recognized them, formed a line around their master, firing disciplined volleys without drawing back.
The Lychguards broke into a disciplined run and charged. They waded through them, heavy blades cutting easily through cursed ceramites. With no pain to slow them, the Rubric fought back with sorcerous blades that even the Hyperphase swords clashed against. As large as they were, they moved with incredible speed and fluidity, matching their undead opponents. But there were few of them, too few to stop the phalanx pressing down on them. But they didn't need to stop it, only slow it down long enough.
Rahotamen swung his Warscythe, taking off the head of the Marine he was fighting with, then turned.
The Sorcerer bobbed in the air before the sphere, the glyphs etched on his armor scattering and gathering like startled birds. Tendrils of liquid lightning joined him to the artifact, and a stream of words emerged from his mouth-grill to rend the air and drive burning nails in the Nemesor's head.
Rahotamen lifted his Warscythe, holding it like a javelin. The storied weapon's haft, once covered with records of deeds and titles, had been scoured into a featurelessness expanse by an age of unrelenting searching. The same relentless will he now put into that throw, all the might of immortal living metal focused on the flying spear.
The sorcerer's eyes blazed with hellish fire as he turned them to the coming projectile. The spear locked mid-air as if a hand grasped it, surrounded by a nimbus of lightning meters shy of his chest.
But it wasn't his true attack.
Rahotamen emerged from a swill of darkness above the sorcerer, a skeletal phantom emerging from roiling shadows. His shoulder crashed against ceramite and then they were tumbling in a tangle of living metal and power armor.
Rahotamen tried to hold on, but the sorcerer cried out with a voice like thunder, and he was thrown off by a pulse of power. His knee dug a furrow on crystal as he came to a stop, fragments coloring the space around him, his Warscythe coming to his outstretched hand amidst solidifying shadows.
The flesh sphere screeched with one hundred voices as he charged, the secondary point aimed forward.
The sorcerer's words seemed to rake the air as he drew a glyph in front of him with flaring fingers. He pointed a palm forward, and multicolored fire erupted from it, lancing toward the Necron.
Rahotamen wrapped himself into his cloak and the fire speared through swirling shadows. He emerged just beside it, and then his Warscythe clashed with a sword wreathed in blue fire amidst a crash of crackling energy and scattering flames.
He advanced quickly, repeatedly thrusting with his weapon's butt, but the Sorcerer was well-versed in swordsmanship, giving ground as his sword left a shimmering trail of parries and deflections. He swept with his free hand, and Rahotamen was engulfed in a corona of kaleidoscopic fire. Tongues of flame licked at him, necrodermis melting away only to reform.
Powering through it, he whirled his Warscythe around. The weapon's main blade slammed hard against the sorcerer's raised blade. The blow could have cleaved a Chimera in twain, but the daemon-blade held, flurries of sparks flying where living metal met cursed iron. The Sorcerer gave way, and the Warscythe bit deep into the chamber's floor.
Rahotamen slapped a hand wreathed in flame darting for his mask, then planted his foot in his opponent's stomach, sending him staggering back. He stepped forward, vaulted, then brought down his blade in a savage blow.
The sorcerer cried out, a single word of might crumpling the air. Eyes blossomed on his armor, only to erupt into a ball of fire that engulfed them both.
Rahotamen staggered back, cloak scorched and body smoking, then quickly brought up his weapon.
A lance of multi-colored lightning crashed into it. The sorcerer threw away his sword and pointed both hands against him, pouring more and more power into his assault until a line of raging energy connected them.
Rahotamen held on, his hands strangling the Warscythe's haft. His feet cracked the floor, but he didn't draw back. His optics swarmed with error messages, and his retinas melted from the actinic glare of the clash, only to reform right after.
The sorcerer chanted, voice bursting with rage and effort. He advanced, torrents of power howling from his hands. His eyes were raging flames, burning unchecked across his cheeks and brow.
For a moment, they remained locked in contest, the sorcerer blazing with fell power, his armor a swirling mosaic of eyes and half-seen forms, and the Necron Lord, tall and dark in his monolithic might.
But it was Rahotamen who would be the victor that day.
With a burst of exertion from his tendons and muscles of living metal, he cleaved through the lightning. His Warscythe swung down like a guillotine, the heavy blades cutting off the sorcerer's arms and rending his armor open.
The fire and flames and lightning dissipated, and Rahotamen stood tall, looking down at the bleeding wreck of his opponent.
"We… we were close, weren't we?" the Uhn'Saekh grounded through his rapidly draining lifeblood. Through the shattered helm, Rahotamen could make out a fierce smirk. "That's why you came… to stop us… we were close…"
The Warscythe's spear punched through his breastplate, pinning him to the crystallized floor. The sorcerer gurgled and shivered.
"You were," Rahotamen said, impassive.
-[X]Pests
--[X]Rahotamen
-[X]The Wandering World
--[X]Ptolomes
-[X]Enemies, close by
--[X]Korissah
-[X]Tomb-Mind
-[X]Old Enemies
-[X]Empyrean
--[X]Xorathis
-[X] Open the Armories
--[X]A discrete melee weapon for Korissah, maybe something that can change length at will ?
-[X]Agents
--[X]Encourage Beta-Mu in her course
--[X]Cult of the Heavenly Guardians
---[X] Build religious hierarchy and rites (insist on the preciousness of one's soul while promoting the objective value of mechanical bodies)
Rahotamen stood on the Ascendant's bridge, looking at the enemy he came to destroy.
It had felt good to traverse the stars, once. The feeling of awe, of freedom, of endless possibilities awaiting just beyond one's sight. It had filled him, gave him purpose and energy. Once, he didn't think he would do anything in the life the Gods saw fit to bestow on him but to chart the starry night and then return to her, prize in hand to make her smile.
Once.
Now, it was all about numbers, transmissions and outputs, optimized processes and optimal results. Obstacles and problems, solutions and debugging. Whatever soaring sensation he once felt was a shadow of a shadow, a dim image barely glimpsed beyond the falling columns of data.
[Stand-by for target status. Processing…]
[Aknowledged.]
It was cold on the bridge, the gloom broken by the glow of humming machinery. Or it would have been cold for anyone with the skin for it.
Necrons didn't register the world the same way mortals did. Smells, tastes, sights, noises and touches were filtered through their metal bodies in efficient, perfected and thoroughly unnatural ways. The true cruelty was that their instincts didn't match their frames. A bad smell triggered revulsion, but there was no nose to curl or throat to gag. A vacuum sent the need to breath screaming through their synthetic neurons, but there were no lungs to fill. No matter what instincts that made sense with flesh and blood bodies demanded, they couldn't satisfy them, nor couldn't deny them. The lucky ones could lower receptors' sensibility, dim optics and muffle audio; the truly lucky ones could even speed up their chrono-perceptions to make unpleasant moments go by in a blur. All the rest, the greatest majority, had to endure the agony, conflicting impulses warring inside what little was left of their self-awareness.
At that moment, Rahotamen's mind screamed at him that he felt cold, despite his metal body being above such paltry needs. Phantom needles danced across his touch receptors, the ghost of sensations that didn't belong to him. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, nonsensical reports flooding his processors.
He could have dimmed his receptors to shut it off, but he endured it instead. He faithful Lychguards lacked the wherewithal or frame complexity to dim their own sensors, and he wouldn't let them suffer alone. A good ship commander always shared his troops' discomfort.
Wisdom of another age, made for other people. It helped nobody and had no meaning now, but he was a creature of tradition and rituals. They were the only thing holding him together.
[Process Completed. Status target status: Currently holding orbit above X0R5. Designation: Gas Giant. Note: Ahakara Battle-Station. Long-range scans report contingents of organics have landed on the Station and are currently battling automated defenses. Standing by for orders.]
"Let them bleed," Sekath mumbled. His second held a resolute pose, his halberd held vertically. With the cold starlight glinting off his frame, he looked like a statue of ancient times carved in metal. "We shall pick the rest."
"Ssslow," Naba slurred. The Lychguard's fingers ran over his shield. Whatever he intended was lost as he turned his short attention to weapon maintenance.
Rahotamen watched impassively the image projected by the bridge's holo-scanner. The planet, a giant of orange gas streaked with earthy tones, was depicted in greenish light, the scanners cutting deep through its misty interiors to show currents and agglomerations.
The organics' fleet was shown by targeting markers and vector approaches. The glimmer of him that remembered the admiral felt disdainful at watching it. It was a ramshackle assemble, ungainly scraps of corroded metal that only corrupted Uhn'Saekh could call space-worthy. Still, he wouldn't underestimate it. Scans showed that there was plenty of human cargo inside, and Chaos had a way of turning even the most pitiful Uhn'Saekh into a killing machine.
The Ahakara's Battle-Station was a reversed trapezoid floating among the planet's misty interior. Designed for orbiting the world as a shield, it had been sunk into its ward to sleep away the millions of years, protected by arcane machinery from the colossal winds and electromagnetic storm racking the planet. It had done so remarkably well, if the first readings were to be trusted, but now its sleep had come to an end. The corrupted Uhn'Saekh's ships had somehow infiltrated the station and were now fighting against its defenses. The projection bloomed with energy readings where the fight was at its thickest.
Rahotamen suspected sorcery. The fleet he saw before him had nowhere near the technology prowess to breach the planet's fury, or the station's shields. And that made underestimating them even less wise.
He grunted. Saba was right. They had been slow. The optimal engagement would have seen his forces destroy that fleet before the station was disturbed, so that its inhabitants could be brought into the fold without fuss. But it was too late for that, and recriminations were pointless.
"Move in," he ordered, grimly.
[Aknowledged.]
The engines of the Ascendant's Judgement rumbled in obeisance. Like a leviathan of deep space, the massive ship coasted the planet's curve, starlight glimmering through its hulk.
Cloaked in its powerful stealth field, the ship was slightly out of sync with that reality layer, a predator swimming just beneath the dimensional currents. It didn't make it entirely undetectable. Powerful Uhn'Saekh auspex and warp-based scrying could still find it, but only through a great struggle and only if they were focusing their efforts. Combined with the other stealth systems, Rahotamen doubted there was a more effective method of concealing in the known universe.
Still, he was not taking chances.
"Power to weapons systems," he rumbled.
Sekath twitched. "They could see us," he pointed out. Even Naba took his attention away from his shield to blink optics at his commander.
Rahotamen didn't take his gaze away from the enemy fleet. True, the spiking energy reading made stealth less effective. But he had his reasons.
"They have sorcerers," he sentenced. "Powerful ones possibly. I gladly trade the chance of being discovered sooner for weapon readiness."
The two Lychguards didn't argue. They couldn't. They just registered the command and started to ready themselves.
[Pathing set. Stand by for approach. Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 10%]
With forbidding grace, the Judgement coasted the planet's curve, using its mass to mask its approach. Pathing had been traced and data analyzed for the optimum approach vector. Attack positions had been scanned and selected for maximum shock and destruction. The Master program dwelling at the center of the web of ancient information streams and programs moved with chilling accuracy to implement them.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 37%. Powering Armament.]
Ponderously, with monolithic efficiency, the ship shortened the distance separating it from the enemy fleet. Weapon systems started to hum. Barrels protruded from ancient, stone-like bulkheads. Gauss energy traced across muzzles that were old when man had first looked at the stars.
Inside glow-lit corridors, swarms of Canoptek swarmed to prepare for eventual damage to repair, while bright-eyed Warriors and Immortals stood arrayed in motionless rows beneath massive invasion cannons, ready for boarding.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 64%. Initializing Targeting.]
Rahotamen's sensors were interfaced with those of the ship, letting him see through the titanic vessel's eyes. Through them, he saw the enemy vessels lit with aiming-markers. Green for 100% certainty destruction results. Azure for indecisive results. Red for likely failures. There was no red to be seen, and he idly wondered. Uhn'Saekh sorcerers with the ability to cut focalized Warp-Portals for rapid transfer were in the higher scale of Chaos power. He wouldn't expect to find one among such a ramshackle fleet.
Among the light incrociators making up the enemy's fighting force, the Master Program singled out three likely to be the flagship. Each was heavily festooned with the corrosions and mutations bestowed by Chaos. Lesions, tumors and twitching tentacles the size of buildings coiled from Imperium's buttressed superstructures, making them look more like a mix between repugnant organic life and scrap metal than true vessels.
"Target priority: third Uhn'Saekh on the left…" Rahotamen took a moment to recover the name from his damaged data-banks. "Infidel-Class."
[Aknowledged. Re-assigning priority targetings.]
Rahotamen didn't choose out of any logical reason. All three ships looked the same flying piles of corrupted adamantium to scanners and instruments alike. But an admiral's instinct remained an admiral's instinct, and he had traveled too long the stars not to learn to trust it when it came calling.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 76%. Enemy Movement.]
Naba hissed. "They sssee. They know…"
Rahotamen didn't lose his composure. The enemy ships were giving signs of alert. The Escort-Class light Cruisers were breaking away from their stationary position above the planet and taking battle formation. Differently from how Rahotamen knew other Uhn'Saekh would act, their corrupted counterparts didn't protect their transports. Instead, the smaller, bulkier ships crawled their way forward, to act as a shield for the battle vessels. What remained of Rahotamen's honorable side scoffed.
"They don't turn to us…" Sekath pointed out, the Lychguard's processors not powerful enough to go beyond that statement.
Rahotamen nodded. Sorcery… they must have received some kind of visions regarding an imminent danger…
Too late, he thought grimly. Far too late.
[Arrival to Kill-Zone Ptra: 82%. Medium-High threshold surpassed. Lance of the Gods Fully Charged.]
"Fire."
Stealth Roll
Rahotamen Intrigue Roll VS Chaos Fleet Intrigue: 65+20+8: 93 VS 75+3.
TZEENTCH INTERRUPT! -> Vision to the Sorcerer.
Almost total surprise achieved!
Rahotamen Intrigue Roll VS Chaos Fleet Intrigue: 65+20+8: 93 VS 75+3.
TZEENTCH INTERRUPT! -> Vision to the Sorcerer.
Almost total surprise achieved!
The Judgement erupted into real space in a blaze of violent energy. Interstitial discharge licked at its crescent moon shape, before flaring out in a corona of interdimensional currents. Lightning Arcs spat waves of stored living energy that engulfed ramshackle ships, reducing them to molten slag. Particle Whips lashed out, cutting Uhn'Saekh vessels in half or reducing them to clouds of debris. The space above X0R5 filled with the fury of Necron Gauss weaponry.
Yet, it was nothing compared to the ship's main weapon. The Lance of the Gods was a thing of destruction untold, blessed by the cursed touch of the C'tan themselves. As energy gathered in the space between the Judgement's arms, space bent and ruptured, brilliant cracks running across the darkness. They erupted with a howl that not even the airless silence could stop, a lance of viridian devastation thundering across the void. It cut a brilliant line across the firmament, spearing through the enemy fleet like the finger of the Gods. As it ceased, ruptured dimensional walls violently reasserted themselves, gravitic winds scouring the planet's atmosphere.
Half of the Uhn'Saekh fleet was destroyed in the first moments of the engagement, ripped apart, burned to cinders, or reduced to atoms. What remained fell into disarray, many ships spinning away as their crews struggled to recover their wits.
Some did so with incredible alacrity, or maybe their madness was already beyond terror. The surviving transport ships threw themselves into suicide dives against the Judgement, hoping to use their reinforced prows to smash through its bulkheads and send their contents inside. They were smashed to pieces by contemptuous shots of the Particle Whips or slammed against the flagship's Guass Shields, trapped in blinding nets of green lightning until their superstructures gave way.
The Cruisers tried to fight back, aiming ineffectual shots at the Judgement. Some tried to run. Others, already too mauled to try the same, ejected clouds of savior pods toward the planets, where they wouldn't find any salvation. The flagship coasted ponderously among them, administering destruction with chilling precision. Its batteries lashed out with a methodical rhythm, leaving only floating wreckage in their wake.
Rahotamen ignored them all, leaving the task to annihilating them to the ship's systems. His attention was for the last of the trio of heavily corrupted Uhn'Saekh ships. Its sisters annihilated by the Lance's fury, the vessel was struggling to recover from a slow spin. A glancing blow had taken out one of its engines and the ship was almost graceful as it spun on its axis, leaking unnatural flames and smoke into the void.
Battle Roll
Rahotamen Martial VS Chaos Fleet Martial: 8+2 VS 7: Advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 80+10: 90 VS 30+7: 37: Absolute Necron Victory.
Rahotamen Martial VS Chaos Fleet Martial: 8+2 VS 7: Advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 80+10: 90 VS 30+7: 37: Absolute Necron Victory.
As he watched, a Particle Whip's energy beam reached for it, only to slash across emptiness.
[Warning! Warp-Disturbance Identified. Dimensional Funnelling Detected.]
Rahotamen grunted. "They're trying to open a Warp-portal to escape."
The Uhn'Saekh ship managed to right itself. It let out with its batteries, and Rahotamen was only partly surprised to see its cannons destroy a couple of the surviving transport ships.
They're gathering sacrifices… Chaos Sorcery was a mostly theoretical subject for him, but he knew for a fact that drew its power from death and pain, both of which already suffused that stretch of space. The survivors were only adding to it.
"Focus fire," he ordered.
More batteries opened fire, but the wave of living energy and viridian lashes only managed glancing blows. The Uhn'Saekh ship dipped and dodged with preternatural speed and when it seemed that its end had come, space seemed to fold around it, turning conclusive shots aside. It couldn't last forever, but the corrupted ones didn't it need to. Already the ship was at the center of a growing vortex of thickening smoke and debris, like a heatsink.
Rahotamen would have frowned if his death mask allowed it. The wider situation was clear: no survivor could be allowed to escape. It would weaken Mictlan's position by alerting it to the forces of Chaos. Anything different by complete extermination was unacceptable.
"Do we have an invasion lock?" He asked.
[Invasion Cannons primed and ready.] Despite the urgency of the situation and having to control dozens of weapon systems, the Master Program was unconcerned.
Rahotamen nodded. "Prepare for boarding."
Beside him, Naba caressed his halberd, letting out a static-filled laughter.
Battle Roll
Rahotamen Martial VS Chaos Fleet Martial: 8+2 VS 7: Advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 62+10: 72 VS 30+7+30 (Warp-Disruption): 67: Can't get more than a glancing blow.
Rahotamen Martial VS Chaos Fleet Martial: 8+2 VS 7: Advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 62+10: 72 VS 30+7+30 (Warp-Disruption): 67: Can't get more than a glancing blow.
------------
Warp sorcery was the bane of the Necrons. For all their technological might, they remained soulless creatures, the whole of their existences contained inside the bio-electrical signal crackling across processors. For a force able to deform reality with the merest touch, snuffing out their undead lives was easy. It took only a little warping of necrodermis synapses.
But that didn't mean that Necrons were powerless against it.
The War in Heaven, after being a war of races, was a war of psychic might against technological prowess, of material reality struggling against the Empyrean abyss. It was only obvious that the Necrontyr and the Necrons then would come up with ways to counter the mental powers of the Pretenders. The C'tan taught them plenty in that regard.
As all ships of the lines, and above even the colossal Cairn-Class, the Judgement was provided with an array of Yngam Monoliths meant to protect from the arcane. Turned for the offense, they were able to unleash waves of despair and madness that could send crews into disarray and murderous frenzy. Still, there was no time to use them to disrupt the ritual already underway. Even the bubble of Reality they projected would be enough if they couldn't get close enough, and the enemy ship kept its distance.
This time, Rahotamen would use a more brute approach. The massive invasion cannons mounted on the flagship were used to translate whole armies on planet surfaces by following transdimensional beacons sent through interstitial spaces to plant themselves on the target. The same could be done on a smaller scale for boarding actions, and that's what was done then.
A complement of Lychguards materialized inside the corrupted vessel amidst arcs of Gauss energy. Already in disarray, the occupants, hundreds of mutated Uhn'Saekh, some keeping only a vague resemblance to their original shape, fell in a chaos of panicked shrieks and furious roars at the intruders suddenly appearing. Some turned and ran and slithered and crawled away; others did the same on the opposite direction, screaming oaths to their misbegotten Gods while waving crooked weapons and implements.
The Lychguards waded through all of them, cutting down anyone in their path with impassioned efficiency. The elite warriors locked their Dispersion Shields, blocking heavy maces and rushing bodies before going to work with their Hyperphase Blades.
The ship's interior was just as corrupted as its exterior. Rotten flesh, tendons and sinew intertwined with metal. Pulsing organs emerged from walls amidst tangles of thick veins. Ichor flowed from lesions that appeared on artificial surfaces as well, like they had be turned into organic matter. Eyes blinked in place of lights. It was like being inside a living being rather than a vessel that had been built by mortal hands.
The Necrons weren't impressed. Hunched behind their shields, they waded in lockstep into that nest of corruption, their deathmasks as cold as the glint on their blades.
After the first surprise, resistance quickly hardened. Between arms and soldiers, the crew numbers ranged in the thousands, and it wasn't long before hundreds of them stood barring the boarders' way.
The cultists fought with rabid zeal, firing lasguns, stubbers and missile launchers, throwing grenades and using a wide array of mutations provided to them by their masters, spines dripping ichors launched through rippling maws or tentacles whipping out with bone-crushing force. Their armors were patchwork, brutal masses, plates of carapace and plasteel mixing with gowns of flayed heads and blood-splattered emblems.
Some among them were hulking, muscle-bound, jabbering monstrosities that were goaded against the intruders with shock prods and whips.
The ship itself reacted violently at the invasion. Decks opened to reveal mouths riddled with razor-sharp teeth. Fleshy appendages erupted from bulkheads to crush unwary enemies or act as barricades for the defenders. Passageways and compartments suddenly compressed to crush anyone caught inside.
But the suddenness of the assault and the cultists' lack of discipline worked against them. Apart from hard knots of resistance where the defenders deployed heavy weapons, all their efforts managed to achieve was to slow the Necrons down.
Lychguards were elite soldiers, their necrodermis bodies built to the highest standards. A hulk's swing that would have reduced a human into paste clanged against shields, the aggressor cut down a moment later by a blade that passed through heavy plate like it was mist. A missile sent streaming through a corridor managed to send a Lychguard on his knees for the time his necrodermis took to reknit itself, the soldier returning to its advance as soon as his legs were able to move. It took an incredible effort to down one of the ancient soldiers for good, like cultists working together to smash it into fragments or suicide bombers throwing themselves against their line strapped with explosives.
Even the ship's increasingly frantic efforts were for nothing, ancient blades cutting mutated appendages to pieces before they could harm their owners.
And the Necrons were fearless. The thickening Warp influence in the air slid off them, and they cut a swathe through the ship's defenses with remorseless efficiency. Scanners from the Judgement sent a steady stream of map data to their processors, always keeping them moving toward the bridge, where the ritual was being conducted. They were lines of death sweeping across the ship like winter's breath.
Boarding Roll
Rahotamen's Seekers Martial VS Chaos Crews Martial: 8 VS 7: Slight advantage for Rahotamen's Seekers.
Martial Roll: 74+8: 82 VS 50+7: 57: The might of the Lychguard is unassailable.
Rahotamen's Seekers Martial VS Chaos Crews Martial: 8 VS 7: Slight advantage for Rahotamen's Seekers.
Martial Roll: 74+8: 82 VS 50+7: 57: The might of the Lychguard is unassailable.
Rahotamen was at the head of the purge, leading his soldiers from passageway to passageway, cutting down anyone who dared to try and stop him. The Nemesor was a monster emerged from mankind's atavistic nightmares, a blur of darkness and blades.
When he cut down a screaming thing fused to what once was a navigational throne amidst a chamber of horrors, he knew he was close.
As an armored door entwined with what looked like a mass of living tumors was blasted off its hinges, the Necrons stormed the sorcerer's abode.
The chamber had once been an observatory from which to watch the stars. Now, it kept nothing of its original shape. Multicolored crystals covered the walls. Their reflections compounded themselves in mad fractals, making one feel like he was falling into an abyss of endlessly repeating fragments of reflections, turning every movement into a chaotic sweep of shapes and lights. It had an organic feel to it, and where it clustered, long tongues curled to taste the particulate-filled air.
A man-tall sphere made of what looked like molten flesh hung in the center, like a twisted planet caught in glass. Massive figures in ornated power armor surrounded it, with one of them floating in the air before it. They turned to meet the intruders, and Rahotamen signaled to attack even as bolter shells exploded around him.
The Lychguards locked their shields together and advanced. Inferno Bolts smashed against energy fields, erupting into blazes that licked at their headcrests. A few fell, their frames scorched by sorcerous fire, but most continued.
The Rubric Marines, Rahotamen recognized them, formed a line around their master, firing disciplined volleys without drawing back.
The Lychguards broke into a disciplined run and charged. They waded through them, heavy blades cutting easily through cursed ceramites. With no pain to slow them, the Rubric fought back with sorcerous blades that even the Hyperphase swords clashed against. As large as they were, they moved with incredible speed and fluidity, matching their undead opponents. But there were few of them, too few to stop the phalanx pressing down on them. But they didn't need to stop it, only slow it down long enough.
Rahotamen swung his Warscythe, taking off the head of the Marine he was fighting with, then turned.
The Sorcerer bobbed in the air before the sphere, the glyphs etched on his armor scattering and gathering like startled birds. Tendrils of liquid lightning joined him to the artifact, and a stream of words emerged from his mouth-grill to rend the air and drive burning nails in the Nemesor's head.
Rahotamen lifted his Warscythe, holding it like a javelin. The storied weapon's haft, once covered with records of deeds and titles, had been scoured into a featurelessness expanse by an age of unrelenting searching. The same relentless will he now put into that throw, all the might of immortal living metal focused on the flying spear.
The sorcerer's eyes blazed with hellish fire as he turned them to the coming projectile. The spear locked mid-air as if a hand grasped it, surrounded by a nimbus of lightning meters shy of his chest.
But it wasn't his true attack.
Rahotamen emerged from a swill of darkness above the sorcerer, a skeletal phantom emerging from roiling shadows. His shoulder crashed against ceramite and then they were tumbling in a tangle of living metal and power armor.
Rahotamen tried to hold on, but the sorcerer cried out with a voice like thunder, and he was thrown off by a pulse of power. His knee dug a furrow on crystal as he came to a stop, fragments coloring the space around him, his Warscythe coming to his outstretched hand amidst solidifying shadows.
The flesh sphere screeched with one hundred voices as he charged, the secondary point aimed forward.
The sorcerer's words seemed to rake the air as he drew a glyph in front of him with flaring fingers. He pointed a palm forward, and multicolored fire erupted from it, lancing toward the Necron.
Rahotamen wrapped himself into his cloak and the fire speared through swirling shadows. He emerged just beside it, and then his Warscythe clashed with a sword wreathed in blue fire amidst a crash of crackling energy and scattering flames.
He advanced quickly, repeatedly thrusting with his weapon's butt, but the Sorcerer was well-versed in swordsmanship, giving ground as his sword left a shimmering trail of parries and deflections. He swept with his free hand, and Rahotamen was engulfed in a corona of kaleidoscopic fire. Tongues of flame licked at him, necrodermis melting away only to reform.
Powering through it, he whirled his Warscythe around. The weapon's main blade slammed hard against the sorcerer's raised blade. The blow could have cleaved a Chimera in twain, but the daemon-blade held, flurries of sparks flying where living metal met cursed iron. The Sorcerer gave way, and the Warscythe bit deep into the chamber's floor.
Duel Roll
Rahotamen Martial VS Tzeentch Sorcerer Martial: 8 VS 7: Slight advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 35+8: 43 (+Skill Win) VS 60+7: 67: Balanced fight.
Rahotamen Martial VS Tzeentch Sorcerer Martial: 8 VS 7: Slight advantage for Rahotamen.
Rahotamen: Flurry of Blades:[Martial] [Offensive] [Powerful] [Mix]
VS
Tzeentch Sorcerer: Blue Fires of Tzeetch: [Martial] [Offensive] [Psychic] [Daemonic]
VS
Tzeentch Sorcerer: Blue Fires of Tzeetch: [Martial] [Offensive] [Psychic] [Daemonic]
Martial Roll: 35+8: 43 (+Skill Win) VS 60+7: 67: Balanced fight.
Rahotamen slapped a hand wreathed in flame darting for his mask, then planted his foot in his opponent's stomach, sending him staggering back. He stepped forward, vaulted, then brought down his blade in a savage blow.
The sorcerer cried out, a single word of might crumpling the air. Eyes blossomed on his armor, only to erupt into a ball of fire that engulfed them both.
Rahotamen staggered back, cloak scorched and body smoking, then quickly brought up his weapon.
A lance of multi-colored lightning crashed into it. The sorcerer threw away his sword and pointed both hands against him, pouring more and more power into his assault until a line of raging energy connected them.
Rahotamen held on, his hands strangling the Warscythe's haft. His feet cracked the floor, but he didn't draw back. His optics swarmed with error messages, and his retinas melted from the actinic glare of the clash, only to reform right after.
The sorcerer chanted, voice bursting with rage and effort. He advanced, torrents of power howling from his hands. His eyes were raging flames, burning unchecked across his cheeks and brow.
For a moment, they remained locked in contest, the sorcerer blazing with fell power, his armor a swirling mosaic of eyes and half-seen forms, and the Necron Lord, tall and dark in his monolithic might.
But it was Rahotamen who would be the victor that day.
With a burst of exertion from his tendons and muscles of living metal, he cleaved through the lightning. His Warscythe swung down like a guillotine, the heavy blades cutting off the sorcerer's arms and rending his armor open.
The fire and flames and lightning dissipated, and Rahotamen stood tall, looking down at the bleeding wreck of his opponent.
"We… we were close, weren't we?" the Uhn'Saekh grounded through his rapidly draining lifeblood. Through the shattered helm, Rahotamen could make out a fierce smirk. "That's why you came… to stop us… we were close…"
The Warscythe's spear punched through his breastplate, pinning him to the crystallized floor. The sorcerer gurgled and shivered.
"You were," Rahotamen said, impassive.
Duel Roll 2
Rahotamen Martial VS Tzeentch Sorcerer Martial: 8 VS 7: Slight advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 52+8: 60 VS 33+7: 40: Nemesor prevails!
Rahotamen Martial VS Tzeentch Sorcerer Martial: 8 VS 7: Slight advantage for Rahotamen.
Martial Roll: 52+8: 60 VS 33+7: 40: Nemesor prevails!
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Wow, that was not a low level incursion, the amount of "Lol fuck you" cards they had were impressive.
This was genuinely "They put their backs into this, even if they didn't have our exact position, they had a good enough idea to commit actual, serious dudes to it for a long period of time." And the whole "You have total surprise but FUCK YOU Tzeentch personally intervenes to make sure they don't get stackwiped from the get-go" bit at the start, yeesh.
This was genuinely "They put their backs into this, even if they didn't have our exact position, they had a good enough idea to commit actual, serious dudes to it for a long period of time." And the whole "You have total surprise but FUCK YOU Tzeentch personally intervenes to make sure they don't get stackwiped from the get-go" bit at the start, yeesh.
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- Location
- yorkshire
Nice close call at the end but it made it epic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ancient metal stirs, and young tainted flesh is found wanting.
- Location
- barking
don't like that the chaos guy died smirking like he got some prize. bring him back so we can kill him again
Did ya really wrote all that in 12 hours?
Good lord. Explains how Royal Road does it
Good lord. Explains how Royal Road does it
- Location
- Someplace Somewhere
- Location
- California
The Malus is serious business. I can only imagine the loops we'll need to go through to stop the Planetary Collision.
- Location
- Warsaw
@RookDeSuit
The planet is a world engine that has gone off course. It is necron tech malfunctioning so there's no warp stuff involved.
The planet is a world engine that has gone off course. It is necron tech malfunctioning so there's no warp stuff involved.