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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Investigate the Sea?

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HanEmpire said:
@Durin did the houses that stood against Sigurd's reforms die out when Asgard had that Abominationist cultist uprising, centuries ago?
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1. not all but some of the most feverent, and it tainted the stand for the rest
Adventwolf said:
@Durin
1. Did he finish pushing it through before or after the expansion campaign or during?

Also @Valkur @random_npc @Shard I put up the next part of the omake in the PM if one of you guys could check it out I would really appreciate it.
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1. before
 
I wonder if it would be worthwhile for us to try to divine Ahriman.

He's one of the Tzeentch candidates and is planning on becoming a god of sorcery.

He's definitely a galaxy level threat, soemthing which may help us on the path of Ascention.
 
 
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From Asgard With Love: Sigmund’s Rise
  • Sidestory
    • From Asgard With Love: Sigmund's Rise​



    Sigmund was born 25 years after the Emperor's death and The Imperial Trust's encasement by the Wrap Storms. Born to a Baronial House as the third son and not expected to inherit command of the House. Capable even at a young age his family decided to send Sigmund as a Freeblade to train on Avernus. This would prove to be a boon and curse for Sigmund. He would be forced to survive the Daemonic Incursion by the Dark Prince itself "The Pink Skies."


    Sigmund's Maniple of Freeblades was one of the few that had gone to Avernus to be blooded. Outside of a major war the world was the best place to gain experience. Having all the confidence expected of a young Einherjer Sigmund received a rude awakening against the local flora and fauna of the Eternal War. Despite this his natural intellect and strength served him well. This all changed when the Skies turned pink.


    At first Sigmund did not understand what was happening, but this did not last for long. As his Maniple and others made their way back to the cities and hives the true horrors were revealed. Vast hordes of The Prince of Excesses' Daemons swarmed the unprepared Knights. In that first engagement over a fifth of the party was killed and their knights destroyed. The sight of so many powerful machines being destroyed would stay with Sigmund for the rest of his days. The survivors of the battle quickly regrouped, and pushed to the nearest hive fending off more daemons sent after them. By the time Sigmund's party arrived at the Hive a full 25% of the Knights had fallen and the rest had received some form of damage. The fight was not over yet though after meeting with local commander Sigmund and the remaining Knight were ordered to help defend and counterattack against the Daemonic invaders.


    Fighting alongside both the Avernites and the very creatures that were trying to kill him not to long ago was a strange experience for Sigmund. The Avernites were natural warriors and nearly fearless against the horrors of the warp, seeing this Sigmund could do no less. For days both sides slammed into each other extracting a bloody price. Sigmund was forced to witness countless men women, and even children torn apart, eaten, turned into monsters, or worst of all, forced to betray their own comrades. Being in one of the few super heavy war machine available Sigmund faced some of the most powerful daemons on his front. Killing many of the lesser daemons atop the Steeds of Slaanesh as well as Fiends his greatest challenge came in the form of a Heralds of Slaanesh. The Herald riding it's Seeker Chariot charged at Sigmund's Knight, but he was ready for it. The fight lasted for minutes each trying to overwhelm the other until a slight opening allowed Sigmund to destroy the Chariot and forced the Herald to retreat lest it be destroyed as well. That victory was enough to cause the daemon horde to break and withdraw from the field of battle. Though fighting would continue until the Incursions' end no larger force ever came against Sigmund and his Knights.


    Once the end did come less than half of the knights that started the journey were left standing. This along with the horrors witnessed plagued Sigmund's dreams for years to come. His overconfidence was tempered and his faith in the Emperor strengthen even more than before. Sigmund would remain on Avernus for the cleanup operations and cult control. He would be forced to fight some of the very same people that stood by his side after they fell. When the order came to bombard the cities that had fallen under the control of the cults he could not fault Governor Rotbart's action or reasoning, it had become necessary even if some innocent had to be sacrificed to do so. By the time Sigmund left Avernus after the cults had been put down he had gained a admiration and respect for both the Avernites and their leaders. As he left the world in the back of his mind Sigmund couldn't help but think he would be returning to this world again and again.



    From Asgard With Love: Garkill's Assaults​




    After the Daemonic Incursion and aftermath on Avernus had been dealt with Sigmund returned to Asgard. As one of the few survivors of the Free Blades that had gone to the world to train he began to receive more attention. When the story of his victory over a Herald of Slaanesh began to spread he was offered a place as a retainer for the Gauts branch. This was a great honor to serve the branch of the current Lord-Marshal. Despite all this new acclaim Sigmund could not rest on his laurels the war on Avernus had nearly killed him on several occasions after all. This fueled his desire and need to improve both in his Knight and outside it. Sigmund spent most of his time training in all forms from books, faith, leadership, and swordsmanship.


    For the next two decades Sigmund would dedicate himself to the Gauts and the Lord-Marshal himself. Sigmund met with the Lord-Marshal early on in his service to the Gauts branch, because Sigurd wanted to learn more about the young freeblade Knight who proved himself so well during and after the Incursion. Sigurd saw potential in Sigmund and gave him advice and training when he could. The Lord-Marshal eventually gave Sigmund command of a force of Knights once he was deemed ready for the responsibilities of command. Sigmund would work and train with his new Knights forging them into a well tuned fighting force knowing that one day soon they would be called to war.


    That day would come 22 years after he had last set foot on Avernus. The ork warlord Garkill The Konqueror was detected heading for Avernus. The Lord-Marshal raillied a force of 1000 Knights including Sigmund's forces to go to the aid of their blood-brothers. Once on the world waiting for the orks to arrive Sigmund made himself incredibly useful with his previous knowledge of the planet. His familiarity with the worlds myriad of local dangers served him, under his guidance his was one of the few maniples not to have a single wildlife fatality. Indeed, he even went so far as to take advantage of the lethal environment, scouting out the location of territorial beasts and avalanche shrubs to prepare a series of lethal ambushes. Sigmund was as prepared as he could be to win this war against the green skins, and then the message came down that Garkill's fleet had been nearly wiped out. The warlord had fled without ever making it to the ground at all. To say that Sigmund was slightly disappointed would be an understatement, but the survival of his men and the other forces of The Imperial Trust safe he was content.


    After the relatively easy victory over Garkill the Knights returned to Asgard. During this time Sigmund continued to train with his forces. The Lord-Marshal had taken notice of Sigmund's preparation while on Avernus and complimented him on his forward thinking. For the next many years Sigmund spent a lot of his time in the presence of Sigurd both learning and aiding in any way he could. Along with many other retainers Sigmund flourished under the tutelage of one of the greatest Knights in Asgard's history. After over two decades a message came from Avernus stating that the warp storm that had shielded the Imperial Trust would soon fall away. Faced with an assured onslaught of new threats, he lobbied intensely that steps be taken to blood as many young knights as possible. In this a spark was lit for Sigurd remembered that one of his retainers had gained great skill on Avernus. Sigurd called Sigmund to gain his opinion on the idea to send Knights to be blooded on Avernus. Sigmund believed it was an excellent idea and the only way that novice Knights could be made ready quickly. So it was decided once permission was granted that Sigmund would be sent to Avernus to oversee the training of the Knights sent to prove themselves.


    This is where Sigmund would stay for the next 16 years training and molding new Knights on the deadliest planet available. As well as helping push Lord-Marshal Sigurd's goal of raising the Armiger Pattern Knights up to an honorable position. He would attempt to instill in these young minds the notion that the Armiger should not be slaved to other Knights. In this, he found himself benefiting from an unexpected and unlikely pair of allies, local priests condemning the practice as feeding the abomination, and local psykers denouncing the practice citing the intrusive thoughts provided dangerously effective camouflage for mental subversion. His efforts aided Sigurd by growing support amongst the newest knights entering service. In this time he got to meet several of Avernus' heroes and leaders like the "The Ash Hound" and his Phase Tiger familiar, Jane Oakheart, Saint Lin a truly inspiring meeting, as well as the Governor himself Fredrick Rotbart and his daughter Syr. During this time spent mostly with Saint Lin and Xavier Sigmund's faith and combat prowess reached new levels. He was able to unburden his soul from the horrors that still infected his dream about the Pink Skies and its aftermath. When this was revealed to two of the closest advisors of the Governor they were surprised that Sigmund had been one of the Knights that had been on planet during that event. This revelation brought him to the attention of Fredrick himself who had wondered why such a young Knight had been placed in command of training the future of Asgard's warriors. As the commander of all Knights on Avernus Sigmund spent a great deal of time coordinating with the PDF on how best to deploy his forces. He met with many of the Generals of Avernus both ground side and void side. While the Void forces of Avernus weren't his focus he did ensure he maintained cordial or at least professional relations with them as well. Including Syr who he had a few conversations with over the years on matters ranging from faith, command, and what the future held for the Trust as a whole.


    This time of peace was only broken by the probe attack by Valinor and then by Garkill's final assault on Avernus. When the news of the impending attack came Sigmund knew he prepare his Knights for war. Whatever time he had left was spent instilling a sense of discipline and determination in the green Knights under his charge. By the time The Lord-Marshal arrived with the rest of the Aesir reinforcement 5000 Knights stood ready to defend the world. Sigmund was given command of a portion of the Knights mostly made up of the Knights he had trained on Avernus, and was stationed at the City of Yphax. Along with nearly 10% of the Aesir Sigmund made ready for a siege. When the plan was devised to lead a herd of 2,000,000 Thunderbeasts into the ork horde Sigmund helped organize the sally to make the most of the opening. When the herd ripped through The front of the ork formation Sigmund lead the charge alongside 500 Knights he had forged on this world. The battle was a slaughter with hundreds of millions of orks dying. Sigmund Fell upon the orks with zelous forracity and explmarary skill, becoming a living symbol of chivalry upon the field of battle. He was at the front of every charge, and the rear of every withdrawal. Personally slaying dozens of dreads and countless orkish elites, the speed of his knight allowing him to always be where the fighting was fircrest. The battle lasted for 12 hours before the orks broke and scattered, when the dust cleared despite the intense fighting his brilliant leadership and exemplary prowess saw that only two knights had been put out of action, and only one permanently. . Two days later reinforcements arrived at Yphax to help hold the city in the face of renewed orkish assault. The attack never came. Nearly broken by the combined sally and Thunderbeast stampede when the artillery barrage devastated the remaining ork warbands they finally gave in to despair and fled. The battle for Yphax was over but the war had just entered its final stage.


    With the death of Garkill it was decided to launch an immediate counterattack on his former domain. Sigurd as General of the Imperial Trust Guard requested that Sigmund and his almost fully intact Knights join in the coming battles. When Governor Fredrick now called "The Great" a well-deserved title in Sigmun's opinion, ordered half of his military forces to join in as well it came as no surprise. Sigmund had learned to understand the Avernite people and understood the depth of their commitment to their role as the Trust's shield. Ruined defenses or not nothing short of another incursion could stop them from doing their duty. Due to his glowing victory at Yphax Sigmund was given command of numerous assaults over the next 4 years. During this time he met again with Syr the Governor's daughter and fought alongside her in the taking and holding the worlds of, Danaan, Dooneeva, and Staigue. After the world had been secured Sigmund returned to Avernus and help destroy the last ork fortresses left on the planet. With that war over with and a growing reputation and small legend, Sigmund resumed his post as commander of the Avernus Knight training program. A position he would maintain until the Trust began its frantic expansion in the lead up to the awakening of the ork Gods. He would continue to push Lord-Marshal Sigurd's agenda on the trainees, ensuring the best of an entire generation would rise understanding the need to change. This would be a major contribution to the success of Sigurd's reforms. As thanks for his efforts and dedication to his duty as trainer Sigmund was given a place by Sigurd's side for the coming campaign and possible personal apprenticeship if he proved himself in the war.


    @Durin
    Here is the first part of the omake for the Asgard hero unit. There should be between 5 or 6 more part going all the way to the end of Toroq's final attack. This part goes all the way up to when he is 124 he was 27 during the Pink Skies. Let me know if I need to change anything I tried to make it as compliant as possible but might have missed something.

    Big Thanks to @random_npc @Shard @Valkur @Doomed Wombat for helping with the beta and idea.
     
    Last edited:
  • Sidestory
    • invictus1829 said:
    I know that we already divined him in the past. I was just trying to say that it might be worthwhile for us to try to do it again when we have more experience with getting past Divine level wards.
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    while valid that we probably would be better at it....

    his actions are valuable and its probably not worth trying to force our way past em-placed defenses when we will likely get a better chance at doing something else equally valuable

    also..he might have gotten better at warding since we last saw him.....(not a huge deal I guess since it seems unlikely...but still)
     
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    On the Run
  • Apocrypha
    • Written by @PoptartProdigy

    @Durin
    -----------
    On the Run​


    Gatta ran.

    It grated, but she ran.

    Everything had been going so well. The initial troubles of her birth were a memory, her domain was secure, and she was beginning to gather saints to her service. She was well beneath the notice of most, and that obscurity was all she should have needed to build up until she could stand on her own and truly begin working on helping her worshippers to begin pushing back the darkness in this nightmare of a galaxy. The plan was perfect. Her domain was broad enough that her worship spread like one of Nurgle's plagues in a hive, and it should have been mere centuries of work in the wider galaxy before she could emerge as a major god in her own right.

    Presumably, that was why she currently found herself on the run from Khorne and Nurgle, by way of their daemons, struggling not to die before she had the chance to realize her potential. She had expected Khorne. He had been up against her from day one. He had always been fiercely protective of his domain, and no wonder. Gatta couldn't really feel any sympathy for him under the circumstances, but she understood why he was so hell-bent on killing her. Nurgle, on the other hand, was a rather unpleasant surprise. Sure, she'd stolen from him, but she hadn't bargained on him taking it that badly. Heading for the bolt hole she'd prepared for when Khorne found a way to get to her, only to find a great unclean one waiting patiently outside, was a uniquely instructive experience in the sensation of mortal terror.

    "Get back here, coward."

    Gatta shuddered at the whisper, darting through a patch of warp turbulence for cover. She'd always assumed that Khorne's chosen hound for her would be a raging berserker, like so many of the Blood God's followers tend to be. She was not prepared for this cunning, cold-blooded strategist, cutting off every avenue of escape and hemming her in ever more tightly towards the inevitable final confrontation-

    Gatta shook her head, spat over her shoulder at the bloodthirster, and threw off the intrusive thoughts. "Inevitable, my ass," she growled, darting through a section of the Immaterium that manifested as the alleyways of a hive city, to her eyes.

    "You cannot escape us, child," called a second voice. "It will be so much easier for you, to submit. So much easier..."

    Gatta had no clever rejoinder to that. The bloodthirster was terrifying, and to face him even for a moment would mean death, but Nurgle's daemons, especially of late, were uniquely terrifying. Because, of late, the Plague God had been furious. Ever since whatever the Eldar pulled happened, to even mildly annoy the lord of disease had meant a sure and swift death, a death spent screaming around the contortions of a body warped unrecognizably by disease. Khorne's emissary would only kill Gatta. Nurgle's would make her thank him for it.

    No, she had no intentions of being caught by either of them. What worried her was that she may not have much of a choice.

    What the greater daemons were doing to her felt uncomfortably reminiscent of a fox hunt. The great unclean on was all slow inevitability. It simply moved, infecting everything in Gatta's wake and forcing her to run no matter how her lungs burned (with exertion, she prayed -- let it just be exertion).

    Khorne's bloodthirster, again contrary to popular belief, didn't simply join Nurgle in the chase. No, he ranged ahead, cutting off Gatta time and again no matter her path. He was faster than her. It burned her, to admit it, but there it was. Still, he could only ever be in one place, and Gatta had prepared her escape routes-

    -but the great unclean one was always just behind. Gatta could vanish down any of a hundred paths in a heartbeat, but half were occupied by Nurgle's daemon. If it were only the bloodthirster, Gatta could lead him in a confounding chase until he was hopelessly lost, and then simply slip away. If it were only the great unclean one, Gatta could simply outrun him.

    But it is not only the great unclean one, nor only the bloodthirster. It is both. Two emissaries of the elder gods, working -- nigh-inconceivably -- together, and chasing Gatta down as one. Maybe only an alliance for a heartbeat, as they measure time, but that's time enough to see Gatta dead and gone.

    She turned a corner and nearly ran face-first into a wall of flame. She backpedaled, panting as the alleyways unraveled around her. The walls collapsed into showers of skulls, and the ground beneath her feet ran red with blood.

    "The Blood God does not suffer trespassers in his domain." A hulking, monstrous shape stirred within the flames, drawing a sword of fire as it stared into Gatta's eyes. "If you think yourself so worthy of my master's seat, then prove your mettle. Stand and fight!"

    Gatta's hand snapped down to her waist. She yanked out a bolt pistol of her own design -- the propellant, improved in a dozen ways from Astartes standard, the charge carrying twice the force in a quarter of the size. She hurled herself off to the side, aiming and firing with desperate speed and accuracy as she did. It all burst harmlessly on her opponent's skin. The bloodthirster roared in triumph as he pursued -- a roar that swiftly turned to frustration as Gatta ducked through a tiny hole in the wall. Emerging on the other side, she blanched at the sight of a creeping fungus reaching towards her along the walls. She turned and sprinted, mocking laughter in her ears.

    "It will not avail you! Submit to me, child. If he catches you, it will be so much worse. Come. Accept my embrace."

    Gatta did not reply. Instead, as she approached the exit to her alleyway and found it blocked by a spiderweb of rot, she dropped her pistol and drew forth a las weapon she built to kill dreadnoughts. A flash of crimson light snapped out, blasting a hole through the filth. She darted through as the hole immediately began to close again.

    She found herself in a cul-de-sac, and for a moment, sheer panic set in. She wheeled about, frantically searching for an exit. There should have been one there. There was supposed to be one here.

    After that moment, though, she managed to calm down. This was something she prepared. The exit had to be here. So she began to search, even as the temperature began to rise again and the rot began to spread out into the cul-de-sac.

    She found nothing.

    Panic began to set in again. Gatta abandoned any pretense of subtlety and went directly to the stretch of wall where she knew the exit sat. She scrabbled at it in increasing desperation.

    Nothing.

    "Did you think that only the impulsive schemers who swear loyalty to our lords' lackwit brother Tzeentch could twist the Warp?" chuckled Nurgle. "You must be more foolish than we thought."

    "We are the chosen of gods, little weakling," snarled Khorne. "You may be one of them, but you are not their equal, nor even ours. Whatever you may do, we may undo. What you have...we have."

    Gatta's breath caught. She knew how she must have looked -- no godly self-possession or dignity, just a scared woman on the run from monsters. But for the life of her, she couldn't bring herself back under control. She was trapped in an arena, with two of the elder gods of Chaos's favored servants closing in. She began breathing again, fast and harsh. She began desperately searching around for any way out, but there were no doors, no alleys. She tried to climb, but the walls were slick with corrupted, pus-polluted filth. She contemplated lifting off and flying into the sky, but it had taken on an unhealthy shade of red, and if she did that and broke the rules of this place, with Khorne and Nurgle's greater daemon's so close...there would be no escape for her.

    It was as she came to the realization that there was no escape anyway that all of the background noise she had been hearing cut off and the air went still. Gatta stopped breathing in a moment of mindless terror, as she realized that her hunters were about to strike.

    Gatta, despite everything, was a relatively young god. She still had some bad habits to unlearn. Learning how to truly twist the Warp is a long process, and few gods are motivated to teach others how to go about it. Still, if any were so inclined, they would doubtlessly say that sometimes, you need to learn to embrace your potential, stop trying to think outside the box, and delve into your domain as befits a god and master of the Warp. Sometimes, it really does turn out that, directly thanks to that hammer you have and largely are, every problem is indeed a nail.

    In that moment of breathless panic, Gatta pulled out her latest project: a gun sized for a Titan and powered for Exterminatus missions. She squeezed the trigger, and reduced the wall in front of her to rubble.

    The racket was earsplitting, and the twin cries of fury from her pursuers no less so, but Gatta was more concerned with darting ahead as fast as she could through the gap. On the other side, she found herself back in the alleys, and began to sprint as fast as her body would let her.

    The bloodthirster and great unclean one didn't hesitate to follow, and Gatta found herself charging down a straight alley with the emissary of the God of Blood and Skulls directly on her tail. Running desperate calculations, she came to the realization that she wasn't going to make the end of the passage before he caught her.

    She was just reaching for the gun again when she spotted a tiny door opening in the wall to her left. It could have been anything. It could have been another trap. It could have been an empty, dead end, with nothing but a door for the bloodthirster to use when he came to kill her.

    She dove through it anyway, prompted by a moment of inexplicable instinct. The door slammed shut behind her, and she felt a heartbeat of insane acceleration, with the sounds of her pursuers' enraged cries dopplering away into the distance.

    * * *
    ​
    Gatta spent a long time shivering against a wall before she managed to collect herself enough to inspect this new space.

    When she did, she spent a long moment staring. Before her, ants to her senses, stood a pack of Eldar.

    She took a long moment to wonder after why, of all people, the Eldar were the ones coming to save her. She was no great friend of theirs. Anything but, really. She was no enemy, but she always defined aliens as an obstacle more than anything else. Their presence made no sense. Still, though -- they were here. Pushing past the question for the moment, Gatta asked, "Who are you?"

    One of the Eldar -- a Farseer -- stepped forward, bowing deeply. "I am Farseer Ildarel, Lady Gatta," she said. "We foresaw your peril, and wished to act in order to see you safe."

    Gatta stared at the xenos woman, feeling a profound sense of disorientation. She was careful not to show it, though, as she replied, "I see. How kind of you." She glanced over her shoulder, on reflex, to check that the walls are clear of corruption, and to give her an excuse to think for a moment.

    To say that Gatta had a plan for after she escaped would be a very strong statement to make. She had considered any one of a dozen bolt holes. One had been the Eldar, yes, but it was a long way down the list. The alien exists to be surpassed, not used as a crutch or a shelter. Still...Gatta remembered her feeling of helplessness, as she was pursued by the servants of two elder gods. She remembers how paper-thin her margin of safety was, and how terrifyingly absent that margin would be, roaming free without a shield to cover her.

    She turns back to the Farseer. "If you saw my danger, then you know that I'm...in need of assistance." She grimaces. "I want to seek sanctuary with your people. I'll pull my weight. What do I need to do to earn a place?"

    The Farseer looks up, and smiles.

    Gatta feels a shiver race down her spine, but keeps a lid on it. I don't have a choice. I need a place to stay.

    It rings somewhat hollow as the Farseer bows again and says, "We would be honoured to be of assistance, Lady Gatta. We gratefully accept your offer."
     
  • Apocrypha
    • There is a way for Ridcully to help, he can act as a scout, see into the future about any future attacks on minor Gods and the movement of chaos, he did sneak into Nurgles palace and back out without being seen, with some help either from eldar or minor Gods he could act like a ghost scouting out safe ways for a minor god to not die from a threat.
     
    Andres110 said:
    Written by @PoptartProdigy

    @Durin
    -----------
    On the Run​


    Gatta ran.

    It grated, but she ran.

    Everything had been going so well. The initial troubles of her birth were a memory, her domain was secure, and she was beginning to gather saints to her service. She was well beneath the notice of most, and that obscurity was all she should have needed to build up until she could stand on her own and truly begin working on helping her worshippers to begin pushing back the darkness in this nightmare of a galaxy. The plan was perfect. Her domain was broad enough that her worship spread like one of Nurgle's plagues in a hive, and it should have been mere centuries of work in the wider galaxy before she could emerge as a major god in her own right.

    Presumably, that was why she currently found herself on the run from Khorne and Nurgle, by way of their daemons, struggling not to die before she had the chance to realize her potential. She had expected Khorne. He had been up against her from day one. He had always been fiercely protective of his domain, and no wonder. Gatta couldn't really feel any sympathy for him under the circumstances, but she understood why he was so hell-bent on killing her. Nurgle, on the other hand, was a rather unpleasant surprise. Sure, she'd stolen from him, but she hadn't bargained on him taking it that badly. Heading for the bolt hole she'd prepared for when Khorne found a way to get to her, only to find a great unclean one waiting patiently outside, was a uniquely instructive experience in the sensation of mortal terror.

    "Get back here, coward."

    Gatta shuddered at the whisper, darting through a patch of warp turbulence for cover. She'd always assumed that Khorne's chosen hound for her would be a raging berserker, like so many of the Blood God's followers tend to be. She was not prepared for this cunning, cold-blooded strategist, cutting off every avenue of escape and hemming her in ever more tightly towards the inevitable final confrontation-

    Gatta shook her head, spat over her shoulder at the bloodthirster, and threw off the intrusive thoughts. "Inevitable, my ass," she growled, darting through a section of the Immaterium that manifested as the alleyways of a hive city, to her eyes.

    "You cannot escape us, child," called a second voice. "It will be so much easier for you, to submit. So much easier..."

    Gatta had no clever rejoinder to that. The bloodthirster was terrifying, and to face him even for a moment would mean death, but Nurgle's daemons, especially of late, were uniquely terrifying. Because, of late, the Plague God had been furious. Ever since whatever the Eldar pulled happened, to even mildly annoy the lord of disease had meant a sure and swift death, a death spent screaming around the contortions of a body warped unrecognizably by disease. Khorne's emissary would only kill Gatta. Nurgle's would make her thank him for it.

    No, she had no intentions of being caught by either of them. What worried her was that she may not have much of a choice.

    What the greater daemons were doing to her felt uncomfortably reminiscent of a fox hunt. The great unclean on was all slow inevitability. It simply moved, infecting everything in Gatta's wake and forcing her to run no matter how her lungs burned (with exertion, she prayed -- let it just be exertion).

    Khorne's bloodthirster, again contrary to popular belief, didn't simply join Nurgle in the chase. No, he ranged ahead, cutting off Gatta time and again no matter her path. He was faster than her. It burned her, to admit it, but there it was. Still, he could only ever be in one place, and Gatta had prepared her escape routes-

    -but the great unclean one was always just behind. Gatta could vanish down any of a hundred paths in a heartbeat, but half were occupied by Nurgle's daemon. If it were only the bloodthirster, Gatta could lead him in a confounding chase until he was hopelessly lost, and then simply slip away. If it were only the great unclean one, Gatta could simply outrun him.

    But it is not only the great unclean one, nor only the bloodthirster. It is both. Two emissaries of the elder gods, working -- nigh-inconceivably -- together, and chasing Gatta down as one. Maybe only an alliance for a heartbeat, as they measure time, but that's time enough to see Gatta dead and gone.

    She turned a corner and nearly ran face-first into a wall of flame. She backpedaled, panting as the alleyways unraveled around her. The walls collapsed into showers of skulls, and the ground beneath her feet ran red with blood.

    "The Blood God does not suffer trespassers in his domain." A hulking, monstrous shape stirred within the flames, drawing a sword of fire as it stared into Gatta's eyes. "If you think yourself so worthy of my master's seat, then prove your mettle. Stand and fight!"

    Gatta's hand snapped down to her waist. She yanked out a bolt pistol of her own design -- the propellant, improved in a dozen ways from Astartes standard, the charge carrying twice the force in a quarter of the size. She hurled herself off to the side, aiming and firing with desperate speed and accuracy as she did. It all burst harmlessly on her opponent's skin. The bloodthirster roared in triumph as he pursued -- a roar that swiftly turned to frustration as Gatta ducked through a tiny hole in the wall. Emerging on the other side, she blanched at the sight of a creeping fungus reaching towards her along the walls. She turned and sprinted, mocking laughter in her ears.

    "It will not avail you! Submit to me, child. If he catches you, it will be so much worse. Come. Accept my embrace."

    Gatta did not reply. Instead, as she approached the exit to her alleyway and found it blocked by a spiderweb of rot, she dropped her pistol and drew forth a las weapon she built to kill dreadnoughts. A flash of crimson light snapped out, blasting a hole through the filth. She darted through as the hole immediately began to close again.

    She found herself in a cul-de-sac, and for a moment, sheer panic set in. She wheeled about, frantically searching for an exit. There should have been one there. There was supposed to be one here.

    After that moment, though, she managed to calm down. This was something she prepared. The exit had to be here. So she began to search, even as the temperature began to rise again and the rot began to spread out into the cul-de-sac.

    She found nothing.

    Panic began to set in again. Gatta abandoned any pretense of subtlety and went directly to the stretch of wall where she knew the exit sat. She scrabbled at it in increasing desperation.

    Nothing.

    "Did you think that only the impulsive schemers who swear loyalty to our lords' lackwit brother Tzeentch could twist the Warp?" chuckled Nurgle. "You must be more foolish than we thought."

    "We are the chosen of gods, little weakling," snarled Khorne. "You may be one of them, but you are not their equal, nor even ours. Whatever you may do, we may undo. What you have...we have."

    Gatta's breath caught. She knew how she must have looked -- no godly self-possession or dignity, just a scared woman on the run from monsters. But for the life of her, she couldn't bring herself back under control. She was trapped in an arena, with two of the elder gods of Chaos's favored servants closing in. She began breathing again, fast and harsh. She began desperately searching around for any way out, but there were no doors, no alleys. She tried to climb, but the walls were slick with corrupted, pus-polluted filth. She contemplated lifting off and flying into the sky, but it had taken on an unhealthy shade of red, and if she did that and broke the rules of this place, with Khorne and Nurgle's greater daemon's so close...there would be no escape for her.

    It was as she came to the realization that there was no escape anyway that all of the background noise she had been hearing cut off and the air went still. Gatta stopped breathing in a moment of mindless terror, as she realized that her hunters were about to strike.

    Gatta, despite everything, was a relatively young god. She still had some bad habits to unlearn. Learning how to truly twist the Warp is a long process, and few gods are motivated to teach others how to go about it. Still, if any were so inclined, they would doubtlessly say that sometimes, you need to learn to embrace your potential, stop trying to think outside the box, and delve into your domain as befits a god and master of the Warp. Sometimes, it really does turn out that, directly thanks to that hammer you have and largely are, every problem is indeed a nail.

    In that moment of breathless panic, Gatta pulled out her latest project: a gun sized for a Titan and powered for Exterminatus missions. She squeezed the trigger, and reduced the wall in front of her to rubble.

    The racket was earsplitting, and the twin cries of fury from her pursuers no less so, but Gatta was more concerned with darting ahead as fast as she could through the gap. On the other side, she found herself back in the alleys, and began to sprint as fast as her body would let her.

    The bloodthirster and great unclean one didn't hesitate to follow, and Gatta found herself charging down a straight alley with the emissary of the God of Blood and Skulls directly on her tail. Running desperate calculations, she came to the realization that she wasn't going to make the end of the passage before he caught her.

    She was just reaching for the gun again when she spotted a tiny door opening in the wall to her left. It could have been anything. It could have been another trap. It could have been an empty, dead end, with nothing but a door for the bloodthirster to use when he came to kill her.

    She dove through it anyway, prompted by a moment of inexplicable instinct. The door slammed shut behind her, and she felt a heartbeat of insane acceleration, with the sounds of her pursuers' enraged cries dopplering away into the distance.

    * * *
    ​
    Gatta spent a long time shivering against a wall before she managed to collect herself enough to inspect this new space.

    When she did, she spent a long moment staring. Before her, ants to her senses, stood a pack of Eldar.

    She took a long moment to wonder after why, of all people, the Eldar were the ones coming to save her. She was no great friend of theirs. Anything but, really. She was no enemy, but she always defined aliens as an obstacle more than anything else. Their presence made no sense. Still, though -- they were here. Pushing past the question for the moment, Gatta asked, "Who are you?"

    One of the Eldar -- a Farseer -- stepped forward, bowing deeply. "I am Farseer Ildarel, Lady Gatta," she said. "We foresaw your peril, and wished to act in order to see you safe."

    Gatta stared at the xenos woman, feeling a profound sense of disorientation. She was careful not to show it, though, as she replied, "I see. How kind of you." She glanced over her shoulder, on reflex, to check that the walls are clear of corruption, and to give her an excuse to think for a moment.

    To say that Gatta had a plan for after she escaped would be a very strong statement to make. She had considered any one of a dozen bolt holes. One had been the Eldar, yes, but it was a long way down the list. The alien exists to be surpassed, not used as a crutch or a shelter. Still...Gatta remembered her feeling of helplessness, as she was pursued by the servants of two elder gods. She remembers how paper-thin her margin of safety was, and how terrifyingly absent that margin would be, roaming free without a shield to cover her.

    She turns back to the Farseer. "If you saw my danger, then you know that I'm...in need of assistance." She grimaces. "I want to seek sanctuary with your people. I'll pull my weight. What do I need to do to earn a place?"

    The Farseer looks up, and smiles.

    Gatta feels a shiver race down her spine, but keeps a lid on it. I don't have a choice. I need a place to stay.

    It rings somewhat hollow as the Farseer bows again and says, "We would be honoured to be of assistance, Lady Gatta. We gratefully accept your offer."
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    hm...intresting...but I am worried that durin will see this as too "helpful" of a omake---that your trying to do too much

    still interesting as I said tho. nice job!
     
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    Saotome Nakazawa said:
    There is a way for Ridcully to help, he can act as a scout, see into the future about any future attacks on minor Gods and the movement of chaos, he did sneak into Nurgles palace and back out without being seen, with some help either from eldar or minor Gods he could act like a ghost scouting out safe ways for a minor god to not die from a threat.
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    I am pretty sure durin doesnt want us to pull the omake characters into the actual story proper so much...the occasional reference or new introduction is ok but...well

    @Durin
    1)thoughts on the most recent omake?
    2)general rules of thumb for how much is ok for omakes to do? (if any?)
     
    Tom Smith said:
    hm...intresting...but I am worried that durin will see this as too "helpful" of a omake---that your trying to do too much

    still interesting as I said tho. nice job!
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    I did mention thinking about making this omake and he didn't seem to mind. Besides that, omakes have done things like create the Black Crystal Jewellery, and got Frederick the first piece for "free". (Source)
     
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