38 thousand years and an uncountable number of light-years from home, a man chosen by a Goddess seeks purpose in a galaxy gone to hell.
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Gardener of the Grim Darkness - an Exalted SI in Warhammer 40K
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1. Brave New World
Chapter 1 - Brave New World
Enlightenment is a cyclical phenomenon.
I learned this fairly quickly, because right about the third time that my mind expanded and became one with the universe, timeless and wondrous, open to new experience and possessing new and greater insight far beyond anything I had thought possible, I was starting to get a little ticked off at the sensation.
To be fair, I don't think most people reach enlightenment four times in as many minutes. Most people who seek enlightenment search for it nearly their entire lives and find it only near the end. I hadn't been looking for it when it was thrust upon me. I'd been looking to get laid.
The point is, when you're at a convention and a purple-haired girl in Sailor Saturn cosplay asks you if you want to do something with actual meaning instead of wallowing in mediocrity your entire life, you probably shouldn't think it's just an odd yet surprisingly effective pickup line. Two hours ago I had been in my hotel room, hoping to let my nerd flag fly at full mast. Now, I was making my way through a goddamn forest where the tree leaves are more yellow than brown and the sky is streaked with bands of green and violet.
It was also in the middle of the afternoon, and there were not one, but two overly large moons in the sky.
"Enlightened," I muttered to myself. "I am goddamn enlightened as fuck. I am stuffed to the gills with enlightenment. I have enlightenment leaking straight out of my ass."
Born and raised in a lower upper-class suburb, where the farms were farms mainly for the tax benefits, actual untamed wilderness was as alien to me as the world itself was. Under normal circumstances, I'd be completely lost within the first five minutes. I'd have ended up wandering around in circles until dusk fell, and then gotten myself eaten by whatever natural predators this place held. Or starved to death, not trusting any mushrooms or berries for fear of poison. Or gotten poisoned by mushrooms or berries that I had decided to trust out of hunger.
Of course, had circumstances been anything approaching normal, I wouldn't have been in this mess to begin with.
So instead of getting lost, or eating, or starved, or poisoned, I instead made my way through the thick and unnaturally colored foliage with a purposeful stride that looked like confidence and felt like the inner, seething frustration that only came from unfulfilled arousal.
The nearest human settlement was about 3 miles west, and even under normal circumstances, I could have determined which direction west was. It would have just taken me longer.
I was still dressed in my cosplay, which was wildly inappropriate for a walk through the woods of some distant planet, but as I continued my journey in the heart of nature, my irritation began to fade. I looked up at the unearthly sky, and consciously breathed in the air of a world not my own.
"Alright," I said at last, after an hour passed with only the rustle of leaves upon branches, the crunch of my boots upon the earth, and the many varied sounds of strange and still unseen animals as my only companions. Overhead, the light of twinned moons reflected the daylight - one little more than a slim crescent and the other nearly three quarters waxed.
"This… this is pretty nice. What's this world called, anyway?"
The world was called Rium.
I was tempted to ask where in the Milky Way that was - if it was even in the Milky Way to begin with - but given that my knowledge of stellar cartography was even worse than my knowledge of African geography, I figured that learning any sort of coordinate information would be a waste.
I'd just reached a clearing when the sky exploded.
Not literally of course, but there was a great booming sound from the upper atmosphere, and I craned my head up even as I instinctively ducked down, trying to simultaneously present as small a target as possible (though my Willy Wonka purple coat did absolutely nothing, camouflage-wise) while trying to get as good a look as possible.
It looked like a space shuttle. If someone had built the space shuttle from scrap they'd found in a junk yard and held together by the leftover parts from a mass IKEA furniture assembly, then chewed on the assembled ship with crocodile's teeth before festooning the thing with sharp edges and fins that seemed to serve no real purpose, and finally splashing the whole affair with red paint in patterns that would make Jackson Pollack reach for an airsickness bag. Even at this distance, the ship looked like it was being held together by duct tape and prayers more than anything else.
And then I noticed that the smoke that trailed from its rear wasn't just from the engines, but from what appeared to several medium-to-large fires erupting all across its crudely welded hull.
"Fuck me," I breathed. "It's a goddamn spaceship."
It was, despite the breathtaking ugliness of its design, the most beautiful proper spaceship I'd ever seen. I'd been to the Air and Space Museum in DC once, seen the Enterprise there. But this? This was something else entirely. A ship that, presumably, wasn't just for going up and down to the moon or high orbit. A proper vessel for voyaging the stars.
And it was careening downwards in the same direction as civilization. The pilot was probably trying to reach ground control, or something, get to a runway, pull a Captain Sully on his half-melted machine, and more power to him for trying. I stared further as it continued its rough descent, before snapping to my senses.
There was nothing I could do here, in these woods. I couldn't help the man guide his craft to a safe landing by my thoughts and prayers alone. When it came crashing down… maybe I could help with the recovery of the crew, or help stabilize any wounded.
Hopefully, they spoke English.
The inevitable crash shook the ground with all the force of a low-level earthquake; the loud roar of displaced earth accompanied by a plume of dirt and what appeared to be wheat soaring above the tree line. Matching it was the quiet, yet powerful tremor of the earth itself at the stellar visitors passage, a tremble that did not displace my feet so much as demand they adjust to its presence.
I picked up my pace then, moving from a gentle walk to a brisk hustle, the tails of my wool topcoat trailing behind me. As I continued to run, I marveled at the way my body moved gracefully and tirelessly over the uncertain terrain; had I even attempted this pace yesterday, I'd have died from a coughing fit miles ago. But now…
A loud crack rang through the air - gunfire. But why?
"What the fuck," I murmured to myself, eyes widening at the sound. I nearly skidded to a halt, but forced myself to keep moving even as my thoughts raced.
Gunfire? What for?
I had no weapons on hand, and though I knew I didn't much need them, I quickly searched around for something I could use as I continued to head towards what was looking more and more like certain danger. Lying on the ground was a long, gnarled tree branch, roughly six feet in length, and covered in a thin layer of bark - coming to a halt, I picked it up, checking for insects, parasites, or any other unwanted nasties. Luck was with me though - the branch had a bend in it, but was mostly straight otherwise; snapping off the thinner offshoots and twigs was simple enough, and when I tried to half-heartedly break it over my knee it didn't peel or snap.
It would suffice as an impromptu quarterstaff, I supposed.
The brief delay took no more than a minute or two out of my way, and I took the last quarter mile of distance at nearly a dead sprint.
I emerged from the woods to find myself facing long and furrowed fields bearing odd viridian vines, which were looped against what appeared to be chicken-wire mesh. Large bulbous pods drooped from the vines at regular intervals - clearly some sort of alien crop of some sort. I was reminded of the vineyards I'd visited on a trip to Portland, and the rumblings of my stomach reminded me that I hadn't eaten since before my ambiguously-fated encounter at the convention.
It's funny what you first consciously notice, even as your unconscious mind remains perfectly aware of the larger picture.
So, yes. I saw the shattered hull of the spaceship, nose-first into the ground.
I saw the way the formerly neat and tidy rows of cultivated plant life had been destroyed in its wake an passing.
I saw the three broken and brutally murdered corpses of the farmers who had been cultivating them. Ten feet away from the nearest body, a tanned and bloodied hand loosely grasped an old flintlock pistol.
And I saw the monsters who had done this to them.
But I gave myself that moment where I saw the singular row that was yet untouched by violence, and extrapolated outwards from it. I allowed myself to muse on the life that the three dead farmers had lived, thought of the home I'd left an unfathomable time and distance away, and as the moment came to a close, said a quiet prayer for both their passings.
The moment ended when the monsters saw me.
They were tall, nearly two full feet taller than I was, with squat, powerful legs and thick, brawny arms left bare to show an intricate array of scars. Their skin was a mottled green, the dripping red blood from their victims a fierce contrast against it. They stood with their shoulders hunched over, beady red eyes squinting against the tree line, tusklike bottom teeth protruding from slack jaws.
There were three of them.
Even at this distance I could smell their musk, a foul aroma that made the most pungent of BO seem like fine perfume, mixed with the sharp smell of rusted metal - presumably from their Mad Max-ian like armor, a series of plates and harnesses that left glaring weak points all over their torsos. Their hands held crude cleaver-like weapons - one simply held what looked like a piece of plate.
"'Dere's anothah 'uumie!" one of them shouted in an almost incomprehensibly guttural growl, pointing with a clawed fist right at me.
"Pah!" another spat in my general direction. "Ee on't ook 'ike a Nob!"
"He ain't no Nob!" another argued back. "Where's 'is teef?"
"Ooh cares?" the first one laughed. "They all gotz small teef anyway!"
"Hope he's bettah than the last onez!" the third one giggled, a hungry and maniac expression lighting up his face. "'Ey was 'ardly any fun!"
"He's got a stick!" the second one snorted. "No slugga or proppa choppa. Mebbe 'e's a Grot. An 'uumie Grot."
"Fuck off!" The third one shrieked. "E's mine is wut 'e is."
"'O finks 'ur so tuff, duncha," the first one growled. "Tryin' to 'og all da funz. 'ell -"
"Gentlemen," I interrupted, feeling more than a little bemused by the strangely Cockney monsters. "And I use that term loosely. Are you going to just kill yourselves, or do I have to do it for you?"
This was perhaps the second most foolhardy thing I had said the past twenty-four hours.
Unlike the first one though, this one did exactly what it was supposed to.
In unison, the three monsters turned towards me, savage smiles on their faces.
"WAAAAAGH!" they screamed, and charged me, stubby, yet obscenely muscled legs propelling them across the distance far faster than I had given them credit for.
As they rapidly closed in on me, each one more than double my weight and over a third my height, I spread my legs in an unfamiliar stance that felt as natural as breathing, and took a single, perfect step.
I nearly wept with relief when less than a second later, a faint crimson glow began to curl around my hands,flowing over the wood of my improvised weapon.
The lead creature was nearly upon me, cleaver already winding up for a blow that could cut me in two when I made my move. As it roared its challenge, I thrust the tip of my staff into its mouth; feeling the faint resistance of the thing's teeth as they shattered under the might of my blow. The butt of the staff slammed into the back of the things neck with enough force to snap a vertebra, and I nearly staggered as its momentum propelled it forward. Yet the monster's red eyes still raged at me, even as its body all but flipped as it was forcibly halted, knocked to the ground by its own haste.
The other two were just behind the first, and I was forced to abandon my weapon, the first brute biting down on the staff as if to snap it. I wished him all the luck with that task, but for all my newfound skill, I lacked the raw physical power to wrench it out of his mouth.
The second and third ones swung their cleavers at me simultaneously - and then it was their turn to act surprised as I caught the edge of their blades with the palms of my hands, and turned them aside with a simple twist and push.
"What the zog-" one of the knuckle-draggers began, before I lunged forward, and karate-chopped his head off.
"My god," I breathed, almost laughing at how easy the impossible task had been. "You fuckers have no chance at all do you?"
To my surprise, the duo remaining - the first one having successfully removed the wood from his mouth - stood their ground and faced me.
"Oh, 'dis da 'ummies' big boss," Toothless hissed, smiling the world's creepiest smile. Even as I watched, I could see the pinks of his gums, and the small white protrusions of rapidly regrowing teeth. "Runty but real zag-zag."
"Him mayja grimbad," the other one agreed. "Mayja grimbad."
I kept my guard up, eyes flickering between the two. I knew I could take them - I could feel the power within me all the more crisply now, my newfound capabilities suddenly more real than they had been in the woods.
"Gonna be so gofbad ta snik you, 'ummie," Toothless licked his lips. "Real blitz."
"Quit trying to hit me and hit me, then," I replied, baring my teeth at them both.
The two of them growled before bellowing out their crude battle cry of "WAAAGH" and attempting to close in once more. The seemingly heedless move was actually pretty good strategy, all things considered - I needed some amount of room to maneuver, whereas in truly close combat, their raw strength (and pungent smell) would be able to better overwhelm me.
In theory, anyway.
The two mini-Hulks were strong and they were fast, but they were used to relying on those two qualities at the expense of technique; the wind-up for their massive, powerful blows more than negated their latter advantage. I spun away from the first one's butcher's tools, and brought my crimson-clad fist against the other one's edge, all but slicing through the steel as my momentum carried me through their effective range -
- And straight into the Toothless's ludicrously oversized handgun. The thing's barrel was large enough to fit my arm in comfortably with room to maneuver, and it roared out fire directly at me -
A bullet the size of novelty jawbreaker, slammed into my body even as I desperately bound it with strands of unseen Fate at the last possible moment; I stripped from it all the trauma and pain the object would have caused me, but the heavy and exceedingly fast object still send me crashing to the ground, my limbs going temporarily weak.
Toothless grinned over me as he raised his cleaver.
"Gud fight, 'ummie," he rumbled. "Best 'dis week."
I twitched my eyebrow, and gifted him all the harm his bullet would have caused me. Toothless lurched back, a hole the size of a golf ball blossoming in his upper arm.
Still lying on the ground, I dove for the knuckle dragger's feet, and my Essence-clad hands cut him off at the ankles. Even then, he continued to fight, swinging hammer-fisted blows at my back - my parries, such as they were, simply sliced through those limbs as well.
I sensed, rather than heard or saw, the third creature attempt to backstab me as I turned his compatriot into the Black Knight of Monty Python fame; twisting both me and my victim around, I let him have the killing blow onto his comrade, and rolled away as I did so. My hand brushed against something round and wooden; instinctively, I grabbed hold of it, and scrambled to my feet.
"Ur no 'ummie," he rumbled. "Ur glowin.''"
Huh. I was probably showing off a bit more than I should have, then.
"I'm human enough," I informed him, and leveled the farmer's old flintlock right between his eyes, thumbing the hammer back as I did so.
He sneered, pig-like eyes refusing to conceal the cruelty within them. "Dat's empty, 'ummie."
"I know," I told him, and pulled the trigger. A small, highly imperfect circle provided a momentary view of the space between his ears before he too toppled over. "I take a more holistic view of things."
After taking the time to properly dismember the monsters' bodies - a handy precaution against zombies, if not ghosts - I stared at the seven corpses, and sighed to myself, in puzzlement as much as anything.
"Flintlock pistols," I murmured to myself. "Spaceships. Farmers. And… Space Ogres? Where the hell kind of place did I get sent to?"
There was something familiar about the way the creatures spoke, and the extreme differences in technologies were sparking something in my brain. But I put those thoughts aside, at least temporarily, for a more important task.
I didn't have the right tools to bury the farmers, but I didn't need them - there was a small amount of tilled earth at the edge of the field. Burying the farmers there, at the edge of their own crops, seemed as poetic as always, and I said a small, quiet prayer for their souls before continuing on my way towards civilization.
I was halfway across the fields before I finally realized it.
"Of course," I shook my head, disgusted and amused at how long it had taken for me to realize. "Of all the settings to get sent to… had to be the one I barely know a thing about."
I couldn't even remember the last time I'd thought about Spelljammer, dammit.
Enlightenment is a cyclical phenomenon.
I learned this fairly quickly, because right about the third time that my mind expanded and became one with the universe, timeless and wondrous, open to new experience and possessing new and greater insight far beyond anything I had thought possible, I was starting to get a little ticked off at the sensation.
To be fair, I don't think most people reach enlightenment four times in as many minutes. Most people who seek enlightenment search for it nearly their entire lives and find it only near the end. I hadn't been looking for it when it was thrust upon me. I'd been looking to get laid.
The point is, when you're at a convention and a purple-haired girl in Sailor Saturn cosplay asks you if you want to do something with actual meaning instead of wallowing in mediocrity your entire life, you probably shouldn't think it's just an odd yet surprisingly effective pickup line. Two hours ago I had been in my hotel room, hoping to let my nerd flag fly at full mast. Now, I was making my way through a goddamn forest where the tree leaves are more yellow than brown and the sky is streaked with bands of green and violet.
It was also in the middle of the afternoon, and there were not one, but two overly large moons in the sky.
"Enlightened," I muttered to myself. "I am goddamn enlightened as fuck. I am stuffed to the gills with enlightenment. I have enlightenment leaking straight out of my ass."
Born and raised in a lower upper-class suburb, where the farms were farms mainly for the tax benefits, actual untamed wilderness was as alien to me as the world itself was. Under normal circumstances, I'd be completely lost within the first five minutes. I'd have ended up wandering around in circles until dusk fell, and then gotten myself eaten by whatever natural predators this place held. Or starved to death, not trusting any mushrooms or berries for fear of poison. Or gotten poisoned by mushrooms or berries that I had decided to trust out of hunger.
Of course, had circumstances been anything approaching normal, I wouldn't have been in this mess to begin with.
So instead of getting lost, or eating, or starved, or poisoned, I instead made my way through the thick and unnaturally colored foliage with a purposeful stride that looked like confidence and felt like the inner, seething frustration that only came from unfulfilled arousal.
The nearest human settlement was about 3 miles west, and even under normal circumstances, I could have determined which direction west was. It would have just taken me longer.
I was still dressed in my cosplay, which was wildly inappropriate for a walk through the woods of some distant planet, but as I continued my journey in the heart of nature, my irritation began to fade. I looked up at the unearthly sky, and consciously breathed in the air of a world not my own.
"Alright," I said at last, after an hour passed with only the rustle of leaves upon branches, the crunch of my boots upon the earth, and the many varied sounds of strange and still unseen animals as my only companions. Overhead, the light of twinned moons reflected the daylight - one little more than a slim crescent and the other nearly three quarters waxed.
"This… this is pretty nice. What's this world called, anyway?"
The world was called Rium.
I was tempted to ask where in the Milky Way that was - if it was even in the Milky Way to begin with - but given that my knowledge of stellar cartography was even worse than my knowledge of African geography, I figured that learning any sort of coordinate information would be a waste.
I'd just reached a clearing when the sky exploded.
Not literally of course, but there was a great booming sound from the upper atmosphere, and I craned my head up even as I instinctively ducked down, trying to simultaneously present as small a target as possible (though my Willy Wonka purple coat did absolutely nothing, camouflage-wise) while trying to get as good a look as possible.
It looked like a space shuttle. If someone had built the space shuttle from scrap they'd found in a junk yard and held together by the leftover parts from a mass IKEA furniture assembly, then chewed on the assembled ship with crocodile's teeth before festooning the thing with sharp edges and fins that seemed to serve no real purpose, and finally splashing the whole affair with red paint in patterns that would make Jackson Pollack reach for an airsickness bag. Even at this distance, the ship looked like it was being held together by duct tape and prayers more than anything else.
And then I noticed that the smoke that trailed from its rear wasn't just from the engines, but from what appeared to several medium-to-large fires erupting all across its crudely welded hull.
"Fuck me," I breathed. "It's a goddamn spaceship."
It was, despite the breathtaking ugliness of its design, the most beautiful proper spaceship I'd ever seen. I'd been to the Air and Space Museum in DC once, seen the Enterprise there. But this? This was something else entirely. A ship that, presumably, wasn't just for going up and down to the moon or high orbit. A proper vessel for voyaging the stars.
And it was careening downwards in the same direction as civilization. The pilot was probably trying to reach ground control, or something, get to a runway, pull a Captain Sully on his half-melted machine, and more power to him for trying. I stared further as it continued its rough descent, before snapping to my senses.
There was nothing I could do here, in these woods. I couldn't help the man guide his craft to a safe landing by my thoughts and prayers alone. When it came crashing down… maybe I could help with the recovery of the crew, or help stabilize any wounded.
Hopefully, they spoke English.
The inevitable crash shook the ground with all the force of a low-level earthquake; the loud roar of displaced earth accompanied by a plume of dirt and what appeared to be wheat soaring above the tree line. Matching it was the quiet, yet powerful tremor of the earth itself at the stellar visitors passage, a tremble that did not displace my feet so much as demand they adjust to its presence.
I picked up my pace then, moving from a gentle walk to a brisk hustle, the tails of my wool topcoat trailing behind me. As I continued to run, I marveled at the way my body moved gracefully and tirelessly over the uncertain terrain; had I even attempted this pace yesterday, I'd have died from a coughing fit miles ago. But now…
A loud crack rang through the air - gunfire. But why?
"What the fuck," I murmured to myself, eyes widening at the sound. I nearly skidded to a halt, but forced myself to keep moving even as my thoughts raced.
Gunfire? What for?
I had no weapons on hand, and though I knew I didn't much need them, I quickly searched around for something I could use as I continued to head towards what was looking more and more like certain danger. Lying on the ground was a long, gnarled tree branch, roughly six feet in length, and covered in a thin layer of bark - coming to a halt, I picked it up, checking for insects, parasites, or any other unwanted nasties. Luck was with me though - the branch had a bend in it, but was mostly straight otherwise; snapping off the thinner offshoots and twigs was simple enough, and when I tried to half-heartedly break it over my knee it didn't peel or snap.
It would suffice as an impromptu quarterstaff, I supposed.
The brief delay took no more than a minute or two out of my way, and I took the last quarter mile of distance at nearly a dead sprint.
I emerged from the woods to find myself facing long and furrowed fields bearing odd viridian vines, which were looped against what appeared to be chicken-wire mesh. Large bulbous pods drooped from the vines at regular intervals - clearly some sort of alien crop of some sort. I was reminded of the vineyards I'd visited on a trip to Portland, and the rumblings of my stomach reminded me that I hadn't eaten since before my ambiguously-fated encounter at the convention.
It's funny what you first consciously notice, even as your unconscious mind remains perfectly aware of the larger picture.
So, yes. I saw the shattered hull of the spaceship, nose-first into the ground.
I saw the way the formerly neat and tidy rows of cultivated plant life had been destroyed in its wake an passing.
I saw the three broken and brutally murdered corpses of the farmers who had been cultivating them. Ten feet away from the nearest body, a tanned and bloodied hand loosely grasped an old flintlock pistol.
And I saw the monsters who had done this to them.
But I gave myself that moment where I saw the singular row that was yet untouched by violence, and extrapolated outwards from it. I allowed myself to muse on the life that the three dead farmers had lived, thought of the home I'd left an unfathomable time and distance away, and as the moment came to a close, said a quiet prayer for both their passings.
The moment ended when the monsters saw me.
They were tall, nearly two full feet taller than I was, with squat, powerful legs and thick, brawny arms left bare to show an intricate array of scars. Their skin was a mottled green, the dripping red blood from their victims a fierce contrast against it. They stood with their shoulders hunched over, beady red eyes squinting against the tree line, tusklike bottom teeth protruding from slack jaws.
There were three of them.
Even at this distance I could smell their musk, a foul aroma that made the most pungent of BO seem like fine perfume, mixed with the sharp smell of rusted metal - presumably from their Mad Max-ian like armor, a series of plates and harnesses that left glaring weak points all over their torsos. Their hands held crude cleaver-like weapons - one simply held what looked like a piece of plate.
"'Dere's anothah 'uumie!" one of them shouted in an almost incomprehensibly guttural growl, pointing with a clawed fist right at me.
"Pah!" another spat in my general direction. "Ee on't ook 'ike a Nob!"
"He ain't no Nob!" another argued back. "Where's 'is teef?"
"Ooh cares?" the first one laughed. "They all gotz small teef anyway!"
"Hope he's bettah than the last onez!" the third one giggled, a hungry and maniac expression lighting up his face. "'Ey was 'ardly any fun!"
"He's got a stick!" the second one snorted. "No slugga or proppa choppa. Mebbe 'e's a Grot. An 'uumie Grot."
"Fuck off!" The third one shrieked. "E's mine is wut 'e is."
"'O finks 'ur so tuff, duncha," the first one growled. "Tryin' to 'og all da funz. 'ell -"
"Gentlemen," I interrupted, feeling more than a little bemused by the strangely Cockney monsters. "And I use that term loosely. Are you going to just kill yourselves, or do I have to do it for you?"
This was perhaps the second most foolhardy thing I had said the past twenty-four hours.
Unlike the first one though, this one did exactly what it was supposed to.
In unison, the three monsters turned towards me, savage smiles on their faces.
"WAAAAAGH!" they screamed, and charged me, stubby, yet obscenely muscled legs propelling them across the distance far faster than I had given them credit for.
As they rapidly closed in on me, each one more than double my weight and over a third my height, I spread my legs in an unfamiliar stance that felt as natural as breathing, and took a single, perfect step.
I nearly wept with relief when less than a second later, a faint crimson glow began to curl around my hands,flowing over the wood of my improvised weapon.
The lead creature was nearly upon me, cleaver already winding up for a blow that could cut me in two when I made my move. As it roared its challenge, I thrust the tip of my staff into its mouth; feeling the faint resistance of the thing's teeth as they shattered under the might of my blow. The butt of the staff slammed into the back of the things neck with enough force to snap a vertebra, and I nearly staggered as its momentum propelled it forward. Yet the monster's red eyes still raged at me, even as its body all but flipped as it was forcibly halted, knocked to the ground by its own haste.
The other two were just behind the first, and I was forced to abandon my weapon, the first brute biting down on the staff as if to snap it. I wished him all the luck with that task, but for all my newfound skill, I lacked the raw physical power to wrench it out of his mouth.
The second and third ones swung their cleavers at me simultaneously - and then it was their turn to act surprised as I caught the edge of their blades with the palms of my hands, and turned them aside with a simple twist and push.
"What the zog-" one of the knuckle-draggers began, before I lunged forward, and karate-chopped his head off.
"My god," I breathed, almost laughing at how easy the impossible task had been. "You fuckers have no chance at all do you?"
To my surprise, the duo remaining - the first one having successfully removed the wood from his mouth - stood their ground and faced me.
"Oh, 'dis da 'ummies' big boss," Toothless hissed, smiling the world's creepiest smile. Even as I watched, I could see the pinks of his gums, and the small white protrusions of rapidly regrowing teeth. "Runty but real zag-zag."
"Him mayja grimbad," the other one agreed. "Mayja grimbad."
I kept my guard up, eyes flickering between the two. I knew I could take them - I could feel the power within me all the more crisply now, my newfound capabilities suddenly more real than they had been in the woods.
"Gonna be so gofbad ta snik you, 'ummie," Toothless licked his lips. "Real blitz."
"Quit trying to hit me and hit me, then," I replied, baring my teeth at them both.
The two of them growled before bellowing out their crude battle cry of "WAAAGH" and attempting to close in once more. The seemingly heedless move was actually pretty good strategy, all things considered - I needed some amount of room to maneuver, whereas in truly close combat, their raw strength (and pungent smell) would be able to better overwhelm me.
In theory, anyway.
The two mini-Hulks were strong and they were fast, but they were used to relying on those two qualities at the expense of technique; the wind-up for their massive, powerful blows more than negated their latter advantage. I spun away from the first one's butcher's tools, and brought my crimson-clad fist against the other one's edge, all but slicing through the steel as my momentum carried me through their effective range -
- And straight into the Toothless's ludicrously oversized handgun. The thing's barrel was large enough to fit my arm in comfortably with room to maneuver, and it roared out fire directly at me -
A bullet the size of novelty jawbreaker, slammed into my body even as I desperately bound it with strands of unseen Fate at the last possible moment; I stripped from it all the trauma and pain the object would have caused me, but the heavy and exceedingly fast object still send me crashing to the ground, my limbs going temporarily weak.
Toothless grinned over me as he raised his cleaver.
"Gud fight, 'ummie," he rumbled. "Best 'dis week."
I twitched my eyebrow, and gifted him all the harm his bullet would have caused me. Toothless lurched back, a hole the size of a golf ball blossoming in his upper arm.
Still lying on the ground, I dove for the knuckle dragger's feet, and my Essence-clad hands cut him off at the ankles. Even then, he continued to fight, swinging hammer-fisted blows at my back - my parries, such as they were, simply sliced through those limbs as well.
I sensed, rather than heard or saw, the third creature attempt to backstab me as I turned his compatriot into the Black Knight of Monty Python fame; twisting both me and my victim around, I let him have the killing blow onto his comrade, and rolled away as I did so. My hand brushed against something round and wooden; instinctively, I grabbed hold of it, and scrambled to my feet.
"Ur no 'ummie," he rumbled. "Ur glowin.''"
Huh. I was probably showing off a bit more than I should have, then.
"I'm human enough," I informed him, and leveled the farmer's old flintlock right between his eyes, thumbing the hammer back as I did so.
He sneered, pig-like eyes refusing to conceal the cruelty within them. "Dat's empty, 'ummie."
"I know," I told him, and pulled the trigger. A small, highly imperfect circle provided a momentary view of the space between his ears before he too toppled over. "I take a more holistic view of things."
After taking the time to properly dismember the monsters' bodies - a handy precaution against zombies, if not ghosts - I stared at the seven corpses, and sighed to myself, in puzzlement as much as anything.
"Flintlock pistols," I murmured to myself. "Spaceships. Farmers. And… Space Ogres? Where the hell kind of place did I get sent to?"
There was something familiar about the way the creatures spoke, and the extreme differences in technologies were sparking something in my brain. But I put those thoughts aside, at least temporarily, for a more important task.
I didn't have the right tools to bury the farmers, but I didn't need them - there was a small amount of tilled earth at the edge of the field. Burying the farmers there, at the edge of their own crops, seemed as poetic as always, and I said a small, quiet prayer for their souls before continuing on my way towards civilization.
I was halfway across the fields before I finally realized it.
"Of course," I shook my head, disgusted and amused at how long it had taken for me to realize. "Of all the settings to get sent to… had to be the one I barely know a thing about."
I couldn't even remember the last time I'd thought about Spelljammer, dammit.
- Location
- Viet Nam
So how does he grow his power ? Cause staying above peak human is still in range of can die by a lot of nasty thing.
Strayed
No Gravy Beam for you.
He gets stronger by doing great things. Not necessarily violent things either.
Strayed
No Gravy Beam for you.
Good stuff, hopefully no metaknowledge. This whole bit of MC experiencing the crazinest of 40k for the first time was just so neat
Iridium Flare
Lord of House Danithor
- Location
- Commanding the Wrath of Navaar
This is incredible and I am watching this thread immediately.
- Location
- England
is this a reboot/rewrite of your old story?
It's a repost of the story from SB, yes.
2. The Urbie
Chapter Two - The Urbie
"Damn, we're in a tight spot," Lance Corporal Jerbediah Oshalm growled, peering out from the trench. At the sight of his magnificently shaped head (if he did say so himself), the enemy damn near turned themselves green with envy at its beautificus form, and fired off another round of bolter shots at it.
Thankfully, the Orks were far enough out that the Xeno scum couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, but he wasn't fool enough to tempt the Throne, and he quickly ducked back down.
"Throne and Black," Rudy chuckled. "I guess they liked the sight of you about as much as Rita at Harvestdown did."
"Dammit, Sarge," Jerb did not - repeat, did not whine back to his superior in the middle of a battlefield. "They're gettin' closer!"
"We could disengage," Wil'Ogger offered a suggestion, teeth audibly chattering despite the mild autumnal weather. "Break off, get to better ground and more company."
Rudy, being enough of a benevolent sort and Wil's third cousin by marriage, didn't shoot the private for that remark, as was his right to. It'd been a rough day for Wil', all things considered, and besides, cutting their numbers down from four down to three didn't seem like particularly wise strategy.
It's damn hard to be brave when covered in the blood of your partner, and that was His own truth, when you got right down to it.
"No can do, 'Ogger," Rudy growled, and without revealing his position sent a spray of stubber bullets downwind. "Hach-Queue wants us to hold this position, and we gotta hold it - buy time for the rest of the Deforce to get ready. 'Sides, if we cut n' run, they'll just charge in fast as you can' blink, and then we won't have this here nice trench to hold. Now shut your pie hole and keep 'em suppressed."
Being the most intelligent man on the team - Con had been in the running, but Con was currently all over Wil' - was a damn near curse, as far as Jerb could tell. Was he the only one in the whole damn group who could tell that their stubbers weren't doin' jackall to the green bastards?
Well, Con's rifle probably could've done something, maybe. But the parts of Con that weren't on Wil' were about 15 yards and a couple dozen light-years too far.
"Tell me you got the crankgun working, Jim," was what he decided to say instead, seeing as he was trying to be the more encouraging sort. "They seemed to pause when they heard that one moving."
"It'll work when it works," the other private growled. "I'm not in holy orders yet, ya bastard, and there ain't no incense anywhere so unless you want an orney-ass machine spirit, I gotta be super careful fixin' her."
"Frak me with a rusty spoon," Jerb groaned, and raising his stubber to his shoulder, brought himself ever so slightly out of cover once more -
- and nearly dropped the thing in surprise at what he was seeing.
"Sarge!" he cried out. "Sarge, there's a civvie!"
It was right there, plain as daylight - a civvie strolling out of the MacTanium family tubervine fields, plain as day. Had to be a civvie - an urbie, even, with what he was clad in. Maybe one of the Families, but none of their statues was anywhere near as short as this civvie was.
"Frak," Rudy snarled, and peeked his head up himself before barking out orders. "The Xenos filth don't care about civvie or not. And we signed up for this - raise your heards high, boys. We gotta draw their fire until he can reach our little trench."
Rudy glanced at Wil' and gave him a curt little nod. "And then - and then - we're gonna disengage. There's gotta be a pair of vehicles we can use to get quickly."
Nobody needed to say nothing - everyone knew that the MacTanium's ran a little quadwheel league on the side. Not strictly speaking legal-like, but it was good for blowing off steam outside the city.
"But Sarge," Wil' whined. "You said -"
"I know what I said, Private," Rudy barked out. "But look at him, 'Ogger. He's gotta be from one of the Familes or something like, dressed like that. We save him, he puts in a good word for us, and who knows what happens then? They might make me a genu-wine officer - white band, you hear me? Fringe down to the elbow. Maybe even get you up to a Class Two. Throne only knows."
He glanced over at Jim. "The crankgun is fixed," the Sergeant informed him. "Fire at will."
Jimmithy went pale at Rudy's words, but one look at the man's executioner's pistol was all it took for him to gulp and nod, muttering all manners of prayer, and kissing the paper cogwheel charm around his neck for luck.
"Right, boys!" Rudy cried out, thumbing his palm for good luck. "Open fire!"
Acting as one, the four men of the Rium Planetary Def-force got to their feet, and poured stubber fire downrange. Much like the Sarge had predicted, the Orks had broken off their advance in favor of pursuing the urbie - and while their stubber rounds weren't quite strong enough to get through the front of Orkish armor at this range, the flanks seemed a bit less thick.
None of them really went down, but a couple stumbled, and the urbie ran like hell towards the trench. Jerb, as skilled and observant as he was, was hard-pressed to keep track of their ticket to the good life's exact location and fire at the same time, but he managed to do both, even if his accuracy maybe suffered some. The important thing was that the Orks were moving slower than they normally would be, and that was what mattered.
The Lance Corporal swore when the urbie tripped about twelve or so yards out, and his finger clicked against the trigger of his stubber to no avail - he was out of rounds. Fumbling the mag release, he reached into the breast pocket of his flack overalls to grab a spare one, and slammed the charging lever back to resume fire. Around him came the whiz and thump of the heavy Ork slugs - even for a prime specimen like he, with his nerves of pure plaststeel, it was enough to get his arms trembling. But he held fire, sending forth his own rounds in short, staccato bursts, even as he saw them do little more than ding and dent off greenskin armor.
But at last, with a yelp of triumph and glee, the urbie in question lept into the trench with the three of them, the vivid purple of his coat flapping about him like the wings of some strange avian.
"Finally, something resembling friendly faces! the urbie grinned, and Jerb recognized the cadence, if not the words themselves as High Gothic. Inwardly he sighed with relief - the Sarge had been right. Only an urbie, or maybe even someone from off-world could speak the Holy Tongue with that sort of casual familiarity. "Hello!"
"Pardon, my Lord," Rudy grunted, before firing off another burst at the still approaching Orks. "But we're simple folk here. Just plain old Low Gothic for us regulars."
A frown on the urbie's face at the Sarge's remark. It was young - painfully young, the sort that you couldn't get from honest labor. His suc-syrup colored skin was smoother than grox leather, and he wore a set of fine copper optics perched delicately on the brow of his nose. The rest of his costume seemed as gaudy as any urbie's probably - coat, vest, something fancier than a kerchief around his neck. Even a golden chain across the vest, too.
"Right," the urbie said at last. "Of course. Sorry about that."
After he'd given his name, the Sarge nodded to his social superior, and introduced himself as well.
"I'm Sergeant Rudy McTanium. These are my men - Lance Corporal Jerbidiah Oshalm; Private Jimmithy Cornwallis; and Private Wil'Ogger. Don't you worry, my Lord. We'll get you back to Urbes Imperia safe and in one piece!"
Perhaps it was the shock of seeing friendly faces, but that all-too young face seemed a tad paler than it had before. Still smiling, the urbie let out a deep sigh - probably of relief, if Jerb was any judge of the matter, and murmured something in High Gothic that sounded like the opening of a sermon.
"Oh my fucking God," the urbie intoned. "I'm in Space West Virginia."
"Damn, we're in a tight spot," Lance Corporal Jerbediah Oshalm growled, peering out from the trench. At the sight of his magnificently shaped head (if he did say so himself), the enemy damn near turned themselves green with envy at its beautificus form, and fired off another round of bolter shots at it.
Thankfully, the Orks were far enough out that the Xeno scum couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, but he wasn't fool enough to tempt the Throne, and he quickly ducked back down.
"Throne and Black," Rudy chuckled. "I guess they liked the sight of you about as much as Rita at Harvestdown did."
"Dammit, Sarge," Jerb did not - repeat, did not whine back to his superior in the middle of a battlefield. "They're gettin' closer!"
"We could disengage," Wil'Ogger offered a suggestion, teeth audibly chattering despite the mild autumnal weather. "Break off, get to better ground and more company."
Rudy, being enough of a benevolent sort and Wil's third cousin by marriage, didn't shoot the private for that remark, as was his right to. It'd been a rough day for Wil', all things considered, and besides, cutting their numbers down from four down to three didn't seem like particularly wise strategy.
It's damn hard to be brave when covered in the blood of your partner, and that was His own truth, when you got right down to it.
"No can do, 'Ogger," Rudy growled, and without revealing his position sent a spray of stubber bullets downwind. "Hach-Queue wants us to hold this position, and we gotta hold it - buy time for the rest of the Deforce to get ready. 'Sides, if we cut n' run, they'll just charge in fast as you can' blink, and then we won't have this here nice trench to hold. Now shut your pie hole and keep 'em suppressed."
Being the most intelligent man on the team - Con had been in the running, but Con was currently all over Wil' - was a damn near curse, as far as Jerb could tell. Was he the only one in the whole damn group who could tell that their stubbers weren't doin' jackall to the green bastards?
Well, Con's rifle probably could've done something, maybe. But the parts of Con that weren't on Wil' were about 15 yards and a couple dozen light-years too far.
"Tell me you got the crankgun working, Jim," was what he decided to say instead, seeing as he was trying to be the more encouraging sort. "They seemed to pause when they heard that one moving."
"It'll work when it works," the other private growled. "I'm not in holy orders yet, ya bastard, and there ain't no incense anywhere so unless you want an orney-ass machine spirit, I gotta be super careful fixin' her."
"Frak me with a rusty spoon," Jerb groaned, and raising his stubber to his shoulder, brought himself ever so slightly out of cover once more -
- and nearly dropped the thing in surprise at what he was seeing.
"Sarge!" he cried out. "Sarge, there's a civvie!"
It was right there, plain as daylight - a civvie strolling out of the MacTanium family tubervine fields, plain as day. Had to be a civvie - an urbie, even, with what he was clad in. Maybe one of the Families, but none of their statues was anywhere near as short as this civvie was.
"Frak," Rudy snarled, and peeked his head up himself before barking out orders. "The Xenos filth don't care about civvie or not. And we signed up for this - raise your heards high, boys. We gotta draw their fire until he can reach our little trench."
Rudy glanced at Wil' and gave him a curt little nod. "And then - and then - we're gonna disengage. There's gotta be a pair of vehicles we can use to get quickly."
Nobody needed to say nothing - everyone knew that the MacTanium's ran a little quadwheel league on the side. Not strictly speaking legal-like, but it was good for blowing off steam outside the city.
"But Sarge," Wil' whined. "You said -"
"I know what I said, Private," Rudy barked out. "But look at him, 'Ogger. He's gotta be from one of the Familes or something like, dressed like that. We save him, he puts in a good word for us, and who knows what happens then? They might make me a genu-wine officer - white band, you hear me? Fringe down to the elbow. Maybe even get you up to a Class Two. Throne only knows."
He glanced over at Jim. "The crankgun is fixed," the Sergeant informed him. "Fire at will."
Jimmithy went pale at Rudy's words, but one look at the man's executioner's pistol was all it took for him to gulp and nod, muttering all manners of prayer, and kissing the paper cogwheel charm around his neck for luck.
"Right, boys!" Rudy cried out, thumbing his palm for good luck. "Open fire!"
Acting as one, the four men of the Rium Planetary Def-force got to their feet, and poured stubber fire downrange. Much like the Sarge had predicted, the Orks had broken off their advance in favor of pursuing the urbie - and while their stubber rounds weren't quite strong enough to get through the front of Orkish armor at this range, the flanks seemed a bit less thick.
None of them really went down, but a couple stumbled, and the urbie ran like hell towards the trench. Jerb, as skilled and observant as he was, was hard-pressed to keep track of their ticket to the good life's exact location and fire at the same time, but he managed to do both, even if his accuracy maybe suffered some. The important thing was that the Orks were moving slower than they normally would be, and that was what mattered.
The Lance Corporal swore when the urbie tripped about twelve or so yards out, and his finger clicked against the trigger of his stubber to no avail - he was out of rounds. Fumbling the mag release, he reached into the breast pocket of his flack overalls to grab a spare one, and slammed the charging lever back to resume fire. Around him came the whiz and thump of the heavy Ork slugs - even for a prime specimen like he, with his nerves of pure plaststeel, it was enough to get his arms trembling. But he held fire, sending forth his own rounds in short, staccato bursts, even as he saw them do little more than ding and dent off greenskin armor.
But at last, with a yelp of triumph and glee, the urbie in question lept into the trench with the three of them, the vivid purple of his coat flapping about him like the wings of some strange avian.
"Finally, something resembling friendly faces! the urbie grinned, and Jerb recognized the cadence, if not the words themselves as High Gothic. Inwardly he sighed with relief - the Sarge had been right. Only an urbie, or maybe even someone from off-world could speak the Holy Tongue with that sort of casual familiarity. "Hello!"
"Pardon, my Lord," Rudy grunted, before firing off another burst at the still approaching Orks. "But we're simple folk here. Just plain old Low Gothic for us regulars."
A frown on the urbie's face at the Sarge's remark. It was young - painfully young, the sort that you couldn't get from honest labor. His suc-syrup colored skin was smoother than grox leather, and he wore a set of fine copper optics perched delicately on the brow of his nose. The rest of his costume seemed as gaudy as any urbie's probably - coat, vest, something fancier than a kerchief around his neck. Even a golden chain across the vest, too.
"Right," the urbie said at last. "Of course. Sorry about that."
After he'd given his name, the Sarge nodded to his social superior, and introduced himself as well.
"I'm Sergeant Rudy McTanium. These are my men - Lance Corporal Jerbidiah Oshalm; Private Jimmithy Cornwallis; and Private Wil'Ogger. Don't you worry, my Lord. We'll get you back to Urbes Imperia safe and in one piece!"
Perhaps it was the shock of seeing friendly faces, but that all-too young face seemed a tad paler than it had before. Still smiling, the urbie let out a deep sigh - probably of relief, if Jerb was any judge of the matter, and murmured something in High Gothic that sounded like the opening of a sermon.
"Oh my fucking God," the urbie intoned. "I'm in Space West Virginia."
Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge mountains, Shenandoah river~
Solarshade
Friendly Local Dyson Swarm
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3. Barns and Broadsides
Chapter Three - Barns and Broadsides
"Oh my fucking God," I whispered to myself. "I'm in Space West Virginia."
This was not an exaggeration,by any means. The ragtag group of militiamen I'd managed to link up with practically screamed "Appalachia" to me. Every few seconds, I take a second look at the four of them, just to be sure I hadn't gone completely insane.
The four of them were wearing the most ridiculous "uniform" I'd ever seen before in my life. Picnic-basket red-and-white plaid shirts, under what could only be described as "armored overalls" in denim-blue camouflage. Over said overalls was the cherry on top of the sundae of bad taste - a brown-orange suede leather jacket straight out of a country music festival. Complete with fringes of differing length. Red bandanas were tied to their left arms in very unfortunate fashion, with what looked like a gold two-headed eagle emblazoned on all of them.
Oh, and they were carrying AK-47s of some sort of another. Except for the one manning an honest-to-god Gatling gun on a cart. Not a mini-gun like in the Terminator. It was cranked by hand.
There was apparently supposed to be five people in their squad - I'd passed their fallen comrade maybe thirty feet out, and took the opportunity there to grab his rifle and a bandolier of ammo. He'd presumably been their designated marksman; the rifle I carried was a bolt-action one that looked to be fed by honest-to-god stripper clips.
What the fuck kinda plane had I found myself on?
But that, unfortunately would have to be a question for a bit later - the ogres were still advancing now that their heavy gunner wasn't turning the Gatling gun anymore. Puffing my cheeks out, I took sight of the leadmost ogre, and with a minor amount of Essence augmenting my shot, blew his eye and most of his brain out the back of his helmet.
"Nice shot, my Lord!" the sergeant - whose name I'd already forgotten - beamed at me. "But we need to withdraw to the city."
They'd mistaken me for the local nobility for some reason - probably because I wasn't dressed like a hick - and I'd seen no reason to correct their presumption. The fact that they treated English like the Middle Ages treated Latin almost certainly had something to do with it as well.
And yet I understood their own language perfectly and could speak it back to them - I was apparently bilingual now. Or at least, polylingual. No idea how many other languages I'd hear as "English" in the future.
"Retreat sounds good to me, Sergeant," I replied to him, in the "Low Gothic" that was his own tongue. "Lead on, MacDuff."
From the quizzical way he reacted to my butchering of the Bard, the reference had flown right over his head. Which held some Implications, at least. Unless, of course, I was just in an uncultured area.
Looking again at their uniforms, I could believe that much, for sure.
"Jimmithy!" the sergeant boomed out. "Lay down some cover fire! 'Ogger, Jerb, with me and his Lordship!"
The three others sprang to action with something resembling, but not quite the same as discipline, and with our heads held low, the sergeant and two of his men crawled up from the trench and towards the barn at our backs. All around us the thick slugs that the ogres seemed to favor whizzed by, mostly hitting the wide red building before us - which seemed to be far stronger than I'd taken it to be. It looked like little more than wood-grain plastic to me, but I'd seen what the effects of those high caliber rounds had done to the poor innocent farmers in the fields.
"Imperial City is mebbe two hours away by quadwheel," the sergeant explained, and taking a key from his overall's pocket, unlocked the gate to the bright red structure.
"Now, they might not be as fancy as you like, my Lord, but they should be fast enough to outrun the orcs."
Huh. So they were orcs we were facing, not ogres, then. That made slightly more sense - they didn't seem to regenerate or have damage reduction the way that ogres did in the Monster Manual. Unless that was trolls… I knew that trolls had regeneration, but it'd been way too long since I'd had to look up ogres.
But I was Exalted, Chosen by Fate, and I'd gotten myself the Google-Spider charm. Any fact not explicitly kept secret and known by at least one hundred souls, or any bit of information in my personal library was only an ask and a small offering of Essence away….
...Right. As it turned out, my library being back on Earth and not wherever in time and space I was meant that it did not count for the purpose of the Efficient Secretary Technique.
Dammit.
The door to the barn swung open, even as the heavy slugs of the Orcish troops thudded against it, and I had to bite my lip before I started cursing and/or strangling the fucking redneck who thought this was a good plan.
"Quadwheel," like I should have expected, turned out to mean "ATV." Sure there was some oddities with the design - it looked far more plastic-y than the ones I'd seen, and the engine looked larger than I was used to, but even still. This was his brilliant masterstroke.
I was brought closer to reality when I noticed that the steady thud-thud of the Gatling gun had stopped.
"Cornwallis is down, sir!" one of the other two soldiers cried out. "We've got to get while the getting is good!"
The sergeant crossed his hands over his chest in what looked like a religious gesture before sprinting to one of the ATVs.
"Alright, boys!" he cried out. "We're busting loose!"
My ATV had a bit of rust on the handlebars, but nothing too severe. The four of us, minus their heavy gunner, roared out from the barn, and following the sergeant's lead, opened up the throttle as far as it could go once we were clear. Presenting our backs to the enemy seemed like a poor move to me - but the orcs, for all the power that their weaponry seemed to possess, were laughably terrible shots. And despite their speed on foot, the ATVs were both quicker and about as maneuverable. Not only that, but the hilly terrain and backcountry was perfect for the vehicles, and as the frustrated roars of the orcs fell back into the distance, I took the time to take stock of my current plan.
As I saw things, there was an Orc invasion going on and we were heading to "Imperial City" - presumably the capital. That seemed fine - once there, I'd be able to have a talk with their emperor, clarify the situation, and solve their problems….
I braked hard, as Essence-enhanced senses warned me of imminent danger. Out from nowhere, what looked like a tank straight out of Mad Max had appeared on the horizon - an enormous shell impacting right where I would have been had I come to a sudden, skidding stop. My three compatriots weren't anywhere near as lucky, though, and while the shell hadn't been anywhere near as dead-on, one of them had been flung from the ground at the impact. They were moaning and cursing and praying - good. That meant they were still alive, then.
"Frack me," the sergeant muttered, having come to a halt himself. "They've got us pinned down. Can't go back, can't go forward… No melta to be found… Emperor protect us…."
"Yeah, well, he ain't here at the moment," I said, and the man let out a soft gasp at my flippant remark. "Stand back, boys. This one's mine."
And with that, I kicked the throttle open, and charged straight at the orcish heavy armor.
Back on Earth, I'd considered myself a mediocre driver - certainly not amazing, a bit too aggressive on the highways for the Midwestern palaette, and with the parallel parking skills of an elephant.
That was, of course, before I'd become Exalted.
The tank opened fire again and again as I continued to approach it at full tilt - but wherever its shells rained, I was absent - focusing my Essence, I picked the path that lead me to my goal without so much as a scratch, and even though my driving wasn't necessarily better than it had been on Earth, it was more right. I ducked and weaved and turned and, on one occasion, even stalled out, evading the main cannon and the smaller projectiles of the warvehicle's secondary guns with almost contemptuous ease.
It was uncanny how it felt. The way my back would twinge, and as I instinctively spun to relieve the inconvenient ache I'd spy the grey blur of a bullet where my shoulder would have been. How a small bump in the ground sent me bouncing off to the side just at the right angle that the shrapnel scraped against the flimsy cover at the front of the bike rather than piercing through the steering column. It wasn't a dance - it felt like nothing more than an entire slapstick routine as the gunners of the tank turned into little more than summa cum laude graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksman Academy.
I couldn't help but laugh the entire way forward, adrenaline and invincibility erupting in maniac cackles to herald my approach.
At fifty yards out, I locked the throttle to full-open, the bullets and other projectiles from the enemy tank raining down like a tropical storm.
Forty yards, and I could see the small flap of the exposed interior. With one hand still on the handlebars, I shifted my weight, and let the rifle I'd appropriated from the fallen militiaman slide into my hand as if it'd been born to rest against my shoulder.
At thirty yards, I could see the piggish eyes of the orc staring wide-eyed at me as I continued my mad approach. Baring my teeth, I opened fire for the single shot the rifle would allow me - there was no way I'd be able to work the bolt and drive at the same time. My aim was true - the slit was too narrow for me to get a round unless I really Tried to, but the round sparked off the edge, and got the gunner to flinch for a second.
Twenty yards now, and the ATV was reaching its full-on, madcap speed.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Five.
Four.
Three…
Two…
I leapt from the ATV, and kicked off from it the way divers would kick off from the high board at the Olympics, only in reverse. I somersaulted backwards in a gorgeously over the top flip that would make a gymnastics judge cry or call Bullshit, There Are Wires Involved at the sight of it.
One…
The ATV crashed at its terminal velocity at the very front of the tank, crumpling and compacting as its comparatively weak construction impacted the armor plating. Rifle still in my hands, still poised in mid-air, I lined up my shot once more.
Zero.
The fuel tank of the ATV was nearly full, and the resulting fireball rushed into the barrel of the main gun. I heard a muffled thump as the shell inside the barrel detonated, and then several more as the magazine inside also ignited.
Touchdown.
I stuck the landing, and let the rifle swing freely from its strap, before turning my back to the fallen monstrosity of engineering and waved to the three gobsmacked militiamen.
Instinct - or one of my minor precognition Charms - had told me that starting to glow around the locals would End Badly, so I'd been careful with my use of Essence. I'd kept myself mostly neutral in my use and recovery of the stuff, only going out on that last attack.
I probably wouldn't be able to do too much of anything without showing my caste mark for a while, but for all intents and purposes, it'd looked like I'd just done the impossible. No big deal, right?
"I think one of us is going to have to double up," I shouted them, rubbing at the back of my head sheepishly. "Sorry I broke your bike."
"Oh my fucking God," I whispered to myself. "I'm in Space West Virginia."
This was not an exaggeration,by any means. The ragtag group of militiamen I'd managed to link up with practically screamed "Appalachia" to me. Every few seconds, I take a second look at the four of them, just to be sure I hadn't gone completely insane.
The four of them were wearing the most ridiculous "uniform" I'd ever seen before in my life. Picnic-basket red-and-white plaid shirts, under what could only be described as "armored overalls" in denim-blue camouflage. Over said overalls was the cherry on top of the sundae of bad taste - a brown-orange suede leather jacket straight out of a country music festival. Complete with fringes of differing length. Red bandanas were tied to their left arms in very unfortunate fashion, with what looked like a gold two-headed eagle emblazoned on all of them.
Oh, and they were carrying AK-47s of some sort of another. Except for the one manning an honest-to-god Gatling gun on a cart. Not a mini-gun like in the Terminator. It was cranked by hand.
There was apparently supposed to be five people in their squad - I'd passed their fallen comrade maybe thirty feet out, and took the opportunity there to grab his rifle and a bandolier of ammo. He'd presumably been their designated marksman; the rifle I carried was a bolt-action one that looked to be fed by honest-to-god stripper clips.
What the fuck kinda plane had I found myself on?
But that, unfortunately would have to be a question for a bit later - the ogres were still advancing now that their heavy gunner wasn't turning the Gatling gun anymore. Puffing my cheeks out, I took sight of the leadmost ogre, and with a minor amount of Essence augmenting my shot, blew his eye and most of his brain out the back of his helmet.
"Nice shot, my Lord!" the sergeant - whose name I'd already forgotten - beamed at me. "But we need to withdraw to the city."
They'd mistaken me for the local nobility for some reason - probably because I wasn't dressed like a hick - and I'd seen no reason to correct their presumption. The fact that they treated English like the Middle Ages treated Latin almost certainly had something to do with it as well.
And yet I understood their own language perfectly and could speak it back to them - I was apparently bilingual now. Or at least, polylingual. No idea how many other languages I'd hear as "English" in the future.
"Retreat sounds good to me, Sergeant," I replied to him, in the "Low Gothic" that was his own tongue. "Lead on, MacDuff."
From the quizzical way he reacted to my butchering of the Bard, the reference had flown right over his head. Which held some Implications, at least. Unless, of course, I was just in an uncultured area.
Looking again at their uniforms, I could believe that much, for sure.
"Jimmithy!" the sergeant boomed out. "Lay down some cover fire! 'Ogger, Jerb, with me and his Lordship!"
The three others sprang to action with something resembling, but not quite the same as discipline, and with our heads held low, the sergeant and two of his men crawled up from the trench and towards the barn at our backs. All around us the thick slugs that the ogres seemed to favor whizzed by, mostly hitting the wide red building before us - which seemed to be far stronger than I'd taken it to be. It looked like little more than wood-grain plastic to me, but I'd seen what the effects of those high caliber rounds had done to the poor innocent farmers in the fields.
"Imperial City is mebbe two hours away by quadwheel," the sergeant explained, and taking a key from his overall's pocket, unlocked the gate to the bright red structure.
"Now, they might not be as fancy as you like, my Lord, but they should be fast enough to outrun the orcs."
Huh. So they were orcs we were facing, not ogres, then. That made slightly more sense - they didn't seem to regenerate or have damage reduction the way that ogres did in the Monster Manual. Unless that was trolls… I knew that trolls had regeneration, but it'd been way too long since I'd had to look up ogres.
But I was Exalted, Chosen by Fate, and I'd gotten myself the Google-Spider charm. Any fact not explicitly kept secret and known by at least one hundred souls, or any bit of information in my personal library was only an ask and a small offering of Essence away….
...Right. As it turned out, my library being back on Earth and not wherever in time and space I was meant that it did not count for the purpose of the Efficient Secretary Technique.
Dammit.
The door to the barn swung open, even as the heavy slugs of the Orcish troops thudded against it, and I had to bite my lip before I started cursing and/or strangling the fucking redneck who thought this was a good plan.
"Quadwheel," like I should have expected, turned out to mean "ATV." Sure there was some oddities with the design - it looked far more plastic-y than the ones I'd seen, and the engine looked larger than I was used to, but even still. This was his brilliant masterstroke.
I was brought closer to reality when I noticed that the steady thud-thud of the Gatling gun had stopped.
"Cornwallis is down, sir!" one of the other two soldiers cried out. "We've got to get while the getting is good!"
The sergeant crossed his hands over his chest in what looked like a religious gesture before sprinting to one of the ATVs.
"Alright, boys!" he cried out. "We're busting loose!"
My ATV had a bit of rust on the handlebars, but nothing too severe. The four of us, minus their heavy gunner, roared out from the barn, and following the sergeant's lead, opened up the throttle as far as it could go once we were clear. Presenting our backs to the enemy seemed like a poor move to me - but the orcs, for all the power that their weaponry seemed to possess, were laughably terrible shots. And despite their speed on foot, the ATVs were both quicker and about as maneuverable. Not only that, but the hilly terrain and backcountry was perfect for the vehicles, and as the frustrated roars of the orcs fell back into the distance, I took the time to take stock of my current plan.
As I saw things, there was an Orc invasion going on and we were heading to "Imperial City" - presumably the capital. That seemed fine - once there, I'd be able to have a talk with their emperor, clarify the situation, and solve their problems….
I braked hard, as Essence-enhanced senses warned me of imminent danger. Out from nowhere, what looked like a tank straight out of Mad Max had appeared on the horizon - an enormous shell impacting right where I would have been had I come to a sudden, skidding stop. My three compatriots weren't anywhere near as lucky, though, and while the shell hadn't been anywhere near as dead-on, one of them had been flung from the ground at the impact. They were moaning and cursing and praying - good. That meant they were still alive, then.
"Frack me," the sergeant muttered, having come to a halt himself. "They've got us pinned down. Can't go back, can't go forward… No melta to be found… Emperor protect us…."
"Yeah, well, he ain't here at the moment," I said, and the man let out a soft gasp at my flippant remark. "Stand back, boys. This one's mine."
And with that, I kicked the throttle open, and charged straight at the orcish heavy armor.
Back on Earth, I'd considered myself a mediocre driver - certainly not amazing, a bit too aggressive on the highways for the Midwestern palaette, and with the parallel parking skills of an elephant.
That was, of course, before I'd become Exalted.
The tank opened fire again and again as I continued to approach it at full tilt - but wherever its shells rained, I was absent - focusing my Essence, I picked the path that lead me to my goal without so much as a scratch, and even though my driving wasn't necessarily better than it had been on Earth, it was more right. I ducked and weaved and turned and, on one occasion, even stalled out, evading the main cannon and the smaller projectiles of the warvehicle's secondary guns with almost contemptuous ease.
It was uncanny how it felt. The way my back would twinge, and as I instinctively spun to relieve the inconvenient ache I'd spy the grey blur of a bullet where my shoulder would have been. How a small bump in the ground sent me bouncing off to the side just at the right angle that the shrapnel scraped against the flimsy cover at the front of the bike rather than piercing through the steering column. It wasn't a dance - it felt like nothing more than an entire slapstick routine as the gunners of the tank turned into little more than summa cum laude graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksman Academy.
I couldn't help but laugh the entire way forward, adrenaline and invincibility erupting in maniac cackles to herald my approach.
At fifty yards out, I locked the throttle to full-open, the bullets and other projectiles from the enemy tank raining down like a tropical storm.
Forty yards, and I could see the small flap of the exposed interior. With one hand still on the handlebars, I shifted my weight, and let the rifle I'd appropriated from the fallen militiaman slide into my hand as if it'd been born to rest against my shoulder.
At thirty yards, I could see the piggish eyes of the orc staring wide-eyed at me as I continued my mad approach. Baring my teeth, I opened fire for the single shot the rifle would allow me - there was no way I'd be able to work the bolt and drive at the same time. My aim was true - the slit was too narrow for me to get a round unless I really Tried to, but the round sparked off the edge, and got the gunner to flinch for a second.
Twenty yards now, and the ATV was reaching its full-on, madcap speed.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Five.
Four.
Three…
Two…
I leapt from the ATV, and kicked off from it the way divers would kick off from the high board at the Olympics, only in reverse. I somersaulted backwards in a gorgeously over the top flip that would make a gymnastics judge cry or call Bullshit, There Are Wires Involved at the sight of it.
One…
The ATV crashed at its terminal velocity at the very front of the tank, crumpling and compacting as its comparatively weak construction impacted the armor plating. Rifle still in my hands, still poised in mid-air, I lined up my shot once more.
Zero.
The fuel tank of the ATV was nearly full, and the resulting fireball rushed into the barrel of the main gun. I heard a muffled thump as the shell inside the barrel detonated, and then several more as the magazine inside also ignited.
Touchdown.
I stuck the landing, and let the rifle swing freely from its strap, before turning my back to the fallen monstrosity of engineering and waved to the three gobsmacked militiamen.
Instinct - or one of my minor precognition Charms - had told me that starting to glow around the locals would End Badly, so I'd been careful with my use of Essence. I'd kept myself mostly neutral in my use and recovery of the stuff, only going out on that last attack.
I probably wouldn't be able to do too much of anything without showing my caste mark for a while, but for all intents and purposes, it'd looked like I'd just done the impossible. No big deal, right?
"I think one of us is going to have to double up," I shouted them, rubbing at the back of my head sheepishly. "Sorry I broke your bike."
- Location
- Viet Nam
Thankfully what he just did can be explain away by higher rank Imperial as probably a Imperial Assassin or a Inquisitor agent since he don't seem to have signs of Chaos corruption that would allow that kind of super human feat.
4. Secrets and Mysteries
Chapter Four - Secrets and Mysteries
For some reason, the locals did not seem to take my saving of their asses with the grace and gratitude that, to be frank, I was expecting. It wasn't like I was expecting them to be on their knees and worshipping me as a god or anything. But I didn't even get so much as a thank you for blowing up that Orcish tank, just a curt nod and very angry looks from everyone in the squad.
Sergeant Rudy was probably just mad that I made him look like an amateur or something. Real Men Don't Wear Purple Overcoats, and all that. They were under the impression that I was part of this plane's nobility, and from all the fantasy I'd read, those came in two flavors: utterly useless politicians and supreme badasses.
I cast an eye over the burning wreckage of the tank - which, had it not been on fire, looked pretty much the same to my untrained eyes, and stifled a smirk even as I idly adjusted the bowtie around my neck.
"So…" I said, trailing off when it became obvious that they weren't going to be looking at me any time soon. They were still staring at the wreckage, muttering to each other.
I'd clearly offended them, but I didn't have the charm that prevented such social faux pas, and I wasn't going to obviously eavesdrop.
Whatever they were grumbling about, though, I knew that there wasn't going to be any violence in the next 6 minutes. Which was… a really, really weird sense, to be honest. There were a great many implications bundled up in that Charm, and thinking fourth dimensionally was something that I suspected would only come with practice and at least a token amount of alcohol.
But whatever they were saying, though, several of the grunts clearly weren't happy with it. Ditto the Sarge.
"New plan, ah… my lord," he said, not quite meeting my eyes. "This squad here is gonna need to regroup with another unit in the area. There's plenty more Orcs in the fields that need killin'. But don't you worry none - Private Ogger 'ere will get you to Imperial City. And you can take my quad."
There was more that they obviously weren't going to be telling me, but I didn't want to press them. I was not from this plane, and asking weird questions would only make them think I was some kind of demon from another world or the like. It wasn't that they posed a threat - I didn't want them to see me as one.
I was Exalted, but I was still human, and I wanted to hold onto those kinds of feelings as long as I was able.
In the end, there was nothing for me to do but agree to their very polite and very tactfully non-violent request.
Wil'Ogger was a stout, heavily bearded man, but those words could have described any of the people in that squad. His face was more sunburnt than the others, and he wore a pair of tinted goggles under his helmet - there wasn't much to recommend him, one way or another. His uniform was still the same monstrous combination of plaid, denim overalls, and fringed faux-suede jacket; tilting my head, I tried once more to determine what, exactly, identified him as a Private.
"My Lord?" he asked, blinking at my inquiring gaze. "Shall we go on?"
I blinked, and looked away, no closer to any of the answers I'd been seeking.
"Yeah," I told him. "Lead on."
And so he did - with a wave to the rest of his squadron, Ogger pulled his ATV to the left and opened up the throttle. A second or two later, I did the same.
We rode across the countryside for maybe half an hour, the dirt-packed road always in view but never upon it ourselves. I would say we rode in silence, but that was a relative term; our steeds were hardly the quietest or most stealthy vehicles. But the more distance we covered, the more relaxed the private seemed to get; I guessed that the Orcs (technologically advanced Orcs too, which was just weird) hadn't gotten this close to the city yet.
Not that I could even see the city. The entire time the two of us had been riding, it'd been over hills and through more farms that but for the strange plants growing upon them, I could have mistaken for vinyards. And the entire time, I'd yet to see another soul present.
As we passed yet another abandoned farmstead, Ogger finally changed, his shoulders abruptly relaxing as he slowed down his ATV. Bringing the machine to a halt, he gestured for me to pull up beside him.
Frankly, I was grateful for the break; the seat of the vehicle wasn't the most comfortable, and we'd been setting a fairly grueling pace at what had to be something like 30 miles an hour. Not a high speed in a car or motorcycle, to be sure - but on something that had clearly been cobbled together for a quasi-illegal racing circuit?
Ow.
As I closed the final few yards between us, Wil'Ogger's head peered to either side, scanning any sign of intelligent life. When we were side by side, I saw that he'd puffed out his cheeks, face scrunched up in concentration. The private hadn't seemed like the sort of person who thought hard or deeply about most things. But whatever it was, what he was about to say had to be important.
"You shouldn't oughta have said what you did," he said at last something odd in his words. "You were this close to having the Sarge kill you right then and there."
I frowned at him, casting my mind back to what, exactly, I'd said to give such offence. Querying the Charm which let me receive the answer to nearly any question I could devise… I came up with nothing, which was becoming uncomfortably too familiar a sensation. Frustrated, I asked instead what could cause the Charm itself to repeatedly fail in this manner.
What came back wasn't especially encouraging, either. Any objectively factual piece of information which was not under active attempts at concealment, and known by at least 100 individuals was only a query away.
What the hell was I missing?
I hadn't guarded my expressions during my use of the Charm, and my frustration must have been obvious; before I even had the chance to reply, Ogger snorted, shaking his head with no small amount of bemusement.
"You ain't local, are you? The others in the squad… they think you're just an urbie lordling with them fancy clothes, but you ain't from Imperial City, are ya?"
This… was a side to Ogger that I had not seen coming. Ever since I'd arrived on this… godforsaken planet, I'd been sent tumbling from one surprise to another, not so much unable to get my bearings as unsure whether they even existed in the first place.
It was… too much. Between the Orcs and the space hillbillies and hell, the becoming Exalted, I was tired. So very, very tired.
"No," I said no longer giving a damn about keeping cover. "I'm not from around here. I'm from Maryland, for godssakes. I don't even know what the fuck I'm even doing on Rium."
A cold, sly smile touched Wil'Ogger's lips.
"Well, brother," he said, and his rural accent hadn't changed but the sense I'd gotten from him up until this point had shattered entirely. "I 'spect that you're here because the gods wanted you here."
He moved as if to slap me then, and I only stopped myself from applying a wristlock I hadn't known yesterday because I also knew that he wasn't actually going to slap me.
"And in the name of the Four, keep it to yourself! This ain't like your 'Maryland' or wherever you're from. Near everyone here licks the Corpse-Emperor's boots, and it's been that way since the beginning. So keep your trap shut and our day will come sooner that anyone thinks, ya hear?"
Finally - actually useful advice and information. I stifled the urge to activate my Google-spider again; drawing on Essence was more of a feeling than the nice, crisp numbers of a character sheet, but I was pretty sure that using more would get my forehead glowing. And trying to find information on 'the Corpse-Emperor' would probably nothing. Again. Maybe I just wasn't using the Charm properly? Every other time I'd used Essence, it'd felt as natural as, well, walking.
Even with my supernaturally powerful encyclopedia redacted to the point of uselessness, I wasn't completely helpless. "Corpse-Emperor" made me think of the ancestor cults in Exalted; a seemingly benign practice that still empowered the Underworld and the undead god-abominations that gave it shape and power. Was I here to stop this "Corpse-Emperor," perhaps?
No - that explanation seemed to feel flat to me. I wasn't exactly someone who Saturn would want for undead-slaying, and the area we were in was too lush and felt too natural to be an Exalted-style shadowland, where the borders between life and the Underworld became hazy.
I was still almost completely blind, but Ogger, at least, seemed to be an ally.
"Yeah," I said, nodding my head in agreement and apology. "I'm sorry. Don't know what I was thinking."
Wil'Ogger gave me the old side-eye. "Well, I'm gonna take you to someone a bit higher up in the True Church than me. Me orders were to get you to the HaytchCue and tell His Lordship the Commissar that there was a rogue psyker that needed the Corpse Emperor's Mercy - "
That… definitely was a euphemism for execution.
"- but we'll say you overpowered me, escaped back into the countryside, yeah?"
"Sounds hella good to me," I replied. "Thank you muchly."
"Great. Now, let's get. I don't wanna run into any more of them Orcs and there's another hour to go."
An hour later, coming over a ridge, I finally saw Imperial City.
It was like nothing I could have ever imagined.
Most cities, historically speaking, were built on or around some body of water. Imperial City was no exception; the city, like Paris, seemed to be built across the hilly banks of a river. That is where the similarities abruptly ended.
The rightmost hill of the city was a goddamn spaceport more fantastical than Star Wars or Flash Gordon or any science fiction I could care to name. Gleaming buildings seemingly crafted from pure gold, glinting in the light of the setting sun, elaborate constructions that seemed meticulously crafted yet somehow utterly madcap, where rust and red paint somehow gave way to ostentatious displays of gold and inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires the size of cars, only to reappear randomly throughout the entire structure. Throughout it all, I picked out a single motif, repeated over and over like the opening lines of Jack Nicholson's book in the Shining: a skull within a gear. The entire hill was taken up by what had to be this singular yet vastly interconnected building; it looked like a cathedral whose architect was MC Escher and whose sense of style and decorative taste was an 80s billionaire drowning in cocaine. Even as I watched, a ship that looked like nothing so much as a pastoral church writ large, steeple and all, with massively oversized rocket engines the size of low-rise apartment buildings.
On top of the other hill was a walled palace that despite its absurdity seemed almost mundane by comparison. A building of red brick at its base that spiraled upwards into onion-shaped Russian domes, each tower painted a different and equally horrific pattern of plaid, each pattern and color scheme clashing and jarring with the ones next to it.
And between the palace on one hand, and the spaceport in the other… huts. Goddamn huts that looked like they came from Rohan. Not Gondor, or any of the more advanced fantasy settings. Literal huts. With straw roofs.
Holy shit what the fuck how did this what even-
"I know," Wil'Ogger said. "It's a lot smaller than you're prolly used to. But this here is an Agri-World, so there's only about a million in Imperial City. Maybe three for the whole planet!" he chucked. "Lucky us, innit?"
This… wasn't the capital of whatever Empire I'd found myself in, then. And while I knew Spelljammer had spaceships, I didn't think they were as sci-fi as that rightmost hill.
Where the fuck even was I?
When I trusted myself to speak, I I had to run my tongue over my lips to moisten them before asking the question. "Why's this place called Imperial City, then?"
He shrugged. "It's High Gothic," he said. "For Imperial City. Every colony capital in the sector gets called Imperial City at first, until the governor tries to name it after themselves. But we just changed governors, see? So it's back to Imperial City 'cause we ain't supposed to talk about the previous one."
"Imperial City," I repeated to myself softly, and forced myself to pay attention to the syllables falling from my lips. "Imperial City."
High Gothic - what had to be the Latin or precursor language for the people of this Empire.
It was English.
The final hour had felt me spiritually refreshed enough to ask the universe one last question before we entered the city's gates: what year was this, really?
The only answer I received was the silence of yet another secret.
For some reason, the locals did not seem to take my saving of their asses with the grace and gratitude that, to be frank, I was expecting. It wasn't like I was expecting them to be on their knees and worshipping me as a god or anything. But I didn't even get so much as a thank you for blowing up that Orcish tank, just a curt nod and very angry looks from everyone in the squad.
Sergeant Rudy was probably just mad that I made him look like an amateur or something. Real Men Don't Wear Purple Overcoats, and all that. They were under the impression that I was part of this plane's nobility, and from all the fantasy I'd read, those came in two flavors: utterly useless politicians and supreme badasses.
I cast an eye over the burning wreckage of the tank - which, had it not been on fire, looked pretty much the same to my untrained eyes, and stifled a smirk even as I idly adjusted the bowtie around my neck.
"So…" I said, trailing off when it became obvious that they weren't going to be looking at me any time soon. They were still staring at the wreckage, muttering to each other.
I'd clearly offended them, but I didn't have the charm that prevented such social faux pas, and I wasn't going to obviously eavesdrop.
Whatever they were grumbling about, though, I knew that there wasn't going to be any violence in the next 6 minutes. Which was… a really, really weird sense, to be honest. There were a great many implications bundled up in that Charm, and thinking fourth dimensionally was something that I suspected would only come with practice and at least a token amount of alcohol.
But whatever they were saying, though, several of the grunts clearly weren't happy with it. Ditto the Sarge.
"New plan, ah… my lord," he said, not quite meeting my eyes. "This squad here is gonna need to regroup with another unit in the area. There's plenty more Orcs in the fields that need killin'. But don't you worry none - Private Ogger 'ere will get you to Imperial City. And you can take my quad."
There was more that they obviously weren't going to be telling me, but I didn't want to press them. I was not from this plane, and asking weird questions would only make them think I was some kind of demon from another world or the like. It wasn't that they posed a threat - I didn't want them to see me as one.
I was Exalted, but I was still human, and I wanted to hold onto those kinds of feelings as long as I was able.
In the end, there was nothing for me to do but agree to their very polite and very tactfully non-violent request.
Wil'Ogger was a stout, heavily bearded man, but those words could have described any of the people in that squad. His face was more sunburnt than the others, and he wore a pair of tinted goggles under his helmet - there wasn't much to recommend him, one way or another. His uniform was still the same monstrous combination of plaid, denim overalls, and fringed faux-suede jacket; tilting my head, I tried once more to determine what, exactly, identified him as a Private.
"My Lord?" he asked, blinking at my inquiring gaze. "Shall we go on?"
I blinked, and looked away, no closer to any of the answers I'd been seeking.
"Yeah," I told him. "Lead on."
And so he did - with a wave to the rest of his squadron, Ogger pulled his ATV to the left and opened up the throttle. A second or two later, I did the same.
We rode across the countryside for maybe half an hour, the dirt-packed road always in view but never upon it ourselves. I would say we rode in silence, but that was a relative term; our steeds were hardly the quietest or most stealthy vehicles. But the more distance we covered, the more relaxed the private seemed to get; I guessed that the Orcs (technologically advanced Orcs too, which was just weird) hadn't gotten this close to the city yet.
Not that I could even see the city. The entire time the two of us had been riding, it'd been over hills and through more farms that but for the strange plants growing upon them, I could have mistaken for vinyards. And the entire time, I'd yet to see another soul present.
As we passed yet another abandoned farmstead, Ogger finally changed, his shoulders abruptly relaxing as he slowed down his ATV. Bringing the machine to a halt, he gestured for me to pull up beside him.
Frankly, I was grateful for the break; the seat of the vehicle wasn't the most comfortable, and we'd been setting a fairly grueling pace at what had to be something like 30 miles an hour. Not a high speed in a car or motorcycle, to be sure - but on something that had clearly been cobbled together for a quasi-illegal racing circuit?
Ow.
As I closed the final few yards between us, Wil'Ogger's head peered to either side, scanning any sign of intelligent life. When we were side by side, I saw that he'd puffed out his cheeks, face scrunched up in concentration. The private hadn't seemed like the sort of person who thought hard or deeply about most things. But whatever it was, what he was about to say had to be important.
"You shouldn't oughta have said what you did," he said at last something odd in his words. "You were this close to having the Sarge kill you right then and there."
I frowned at him, casting my mind back to what, exactly, I'd said to give such offence. Querying the Charm which let me receive the answer to nearly any question I could devise… I came up with nothing, which was becoming uncomfortably too familiar a sensation. Frustrated, I asked instead what could cause the Charm itself to repeatedly fail in this manner.
What came back wasn't especially encouraging, either. Any objectively factual piece of information which was not under active attempts at concealment, and known by at least 100 individuals was only a query away.
What the hell was I missing?
I hadn't guarded my expressions during my use of the Charm, and my frustration must have been obvious; before I even had the chance to reply, Ogger snorted, shaking his head with no small amount of bemusement.
"You ain't local, are you? The others in the squad… they think you're just an urbie lordling with them fancy clothes, but you ain't from Imperial City, are ya?"
This… was a side to Ogger that I had not seen coming. Ever since I'd arrived on this… godforsaken planet, I'd been sent tumbling from one surprise to another, not so much unable to get my bearings as unsure whether they even existed in the first place.
It was… too much. Between the Orcs and the space hillbillies and hell, the becoming Exalted, I was tired. So very, very tired.
"No," I said no longer giving a damn about keeping cover. "I'm not from around here. I'm from Maryland, for godssakes. I don't even know what the fuck I'm even doing on Rium."
A cold, sly smile touched Wil'Ogger's lips.
"Well, brother," he said, and his rural accent hadn't changed but the sense I'd gotten from him up until this point had shattered entirely. "I 'spect that you're here because the gods wanted you here."
He moved as if to slap me then, and I only stopped myself from applying a wristlock I hadn't known yesterday because I also knew that he wasn't actually going to slap me.
"And in the name of the Four, keep it to yourself! This ain't like your 'Maryland' or wherever you're from. Near everyone here licks the Corpse-Emperor's boots, and it's been that way since the beginning. So keep your trap shut and our day will come sooner that anyone thinks, ya hear?"
Finally - actually useful advice and information. I stifled the urge to activate my Google-spider again; drawing on Essence was more of a feeling than the nice, crisp numbers of a character sheet, but I was pretty sure that using more would get my forehead glowing. And trying to find information on 'the Corpse-Emperor' would probably nothing. Again. Maybe I just wasn't using the Charm properly? Every other time I'd used Essence, it'd felt as natural as, well, walking.
Even with my supernaturally powerful encyclopedia redacted to the point of uselessness, I wasn't completely helpless. "Corpse-Emperor" made me think of the ancestor cults in Exalted; a seemingly benign practice that still empowered the Underworld and the undead god-abominations that gave it shape and power. Was I here to stop this "Corpse-Emperor," perhaps?
No - that explanation seemed to feel flat to me. I wasn't exactly someone who Saturn would want for undead-slaying, and the area we were in was too lush and felt too natural to be an Exalted-style shadowland, where the borders between life and the Underworld became hazy.
I was still almost completely blind, but Ogger, at least, seemed to be an ally.
"Yeah," I said, nodding my head in agreement and apology. "I'm sorry. Don't know what I was thinking."
Wil'Ogger gave me the old side-eye. "Well, I'm gonna take you to someone a bit higher up in the True Church than me. Me orders were to get you to the HaytchCue and tell His Lordship the Commissar that there was a rogue psyker that needed the Corpse Emperor's Mercy - "
That… definitely was a euphemism for execution.
"- but we'll say you overpowered me, escaped back into the countryside, yeah?"
"Sounds hella good to me," I replied. "Thank you muchly."
"Great. Now, let's get. I don't wanna run into any more of them Orcs and there's another hour to go."
An hour later, coming over a ridge, I finally saw Imperial City.
It was like nothing I could have ever imagined.
Most cities, historically speaking, were built on or around some body of water. Imperial City was no exception; the city, like Paris, seemed to be built across the hilly banks of a river. That is where the similarities abruptly ended.
The rightmost hill of the city was a goddamn spaceport more fantastical than Star Wars or Flash Gordon or any science fiction I could care to name. Gleaming buildings seemingly crafted from pure gold, glinting in the light of the setting sun, elaborate constructions that seemed meticulously crafted yet somehow utterly madcap, where rust and red paint somehow gave way to ostentatious displays of gold and inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires the size of cars, only to reappear randomly throughout the entire structure. Throughout it all, I picked out a single motif, repeated over and over like the opening lines of Jack Nicholson's book in the Shining: a skull within a gear. The entire hill was taken up by what had to be this singular yet vastly interconnected building; it looked like a cathedral whose architect was MC Escher and whose sense of style and decorative taste was an 80s billionaire drowning in cocaine. Even as I watched, a ship that looked like nothing so much as a pastoral church writ large, steeple and all, with massively oversized rocket engines the size of low-rise apartment buildings.
On top of the other hill was a walled palace that despite its absurdity seemed almost mundane by comparison. A building of red brick at its base that spiraled upwards into onion-shaped Russian domes, each tower painted a different and equally horrific pattern of plaid, each pattern and color scheme clashing and jarring with the ones next to it.
And between the palace on one hand, and the spaceport in the other… huts. Goddamn huts that looked like they came from Rohan. Not Gondor, or any of the more advanced fantasy settings. Literal huts. With straw roofs.
Holy shit what the fuck how did this what even-
"I know," Wil'Ogger said. "It's a lot smaller than you're prolly used to. But this here is an Agri-World, so there's only about a million in Imperial City. Maybe three for the whole planet!" he chucked. "Lucky us, innit?"
This… wasn't the capital of whatever Empire I'd found myself in, then. And while I knew Spelljammer had spaceships, I didn't think they were as sci-fi as that rightmost hill.
Where the fuck even was I?
When I trusted myself to speak, I I had to run my tongue over my lips to moisten them before asking the question. "Why's this place called Imperial City, then?"
He shrugged. "It's High Gothic," he said. "For Imperial City. Every colony capital in the sector gets called Imperial City at first, until the governor tries to name it after themselves. But we just changed governors, see? So it's back to Imperial City 'cause we ain't supposed to talk about the previous one."
"Imperial City," I repeated to myself softly, and forced myself to pay attention to the syllables falling from my lips. "Imperial City."
High Gothic - what had to be the Latin or precursor language for the people of this Empire.
It was English.
The final hour had felt me spiritually refreshed enough to ask the universe one last question before we entered the city's gates: what year was this, really?
The only answer I received was the silence of yet another secret.
- Location
- Viet Nam
I feel he's not the kind of guy to respect the diversity of tactics when the rebellion start human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Red_Faux
私を終わらせる
- Location
- 'Straya M8
I actually find it kinda annoying?
- Location
- PR
Cant always have the story where the character immediately knows where he is and everything about it.
Maybe later it finally dawns on him but suddenly knowing where or when he is, is as unrealistic as the whole self insert premise.
So far there have been very few mentions for a person with almost no knowledge of warhammer to realise he is in it.