The corruption of The Flesh Tearers

Tariel put himself up painfully and looked at the runic hexcage he installed in his summoning room. It had been a long time since he had trouble summoning a single bloodletter, but maybe this time he went too far.

A bellow of endless fury answered his silenced fear. Reality broke apart as Skarbrand, breaker of a billion bones and once favoured bloodthirster of Khorne, brutally entered the room in an explosion of boiling blood that splattered all over the vast ceiling. Immediately, animated of a murderous instinct, he turned to face Tariel.

For a moment, their eyes locked and Tariel, feeling the impossible hunger for carnage of his opponent, felt his face whitening in fear. The first time he felt a bloodletter thirst for blood, he had been shocked in the same kind of way. But this, this monstrosity had spilled a thousand oceans of blood and was not an iota sated.
Through these eyes of eternal hatred, he saw the only cohesive thought in the abomination’s mind, the only memory it had and the very single thing he felt; a rage so unreal that it made Skarbrand’s own impossible fury seem meek. The rage of the Blood God himself and, for a moment, Tariel felt Khorne’s fingers choking him with a titanic brutality.

It only lasted for a split-second, but Khorne’s ire burnt its way throught the eldar’s subtle layers of psyche and, for Tariel’s complex soul, it seemed an eternity.

As Skarbrand charged, the archon hoped for a moment that his hexcage would hold, but with a deafening crack, the immaterial chains bonding the creature exploded in a ray of light without even slowing the bloodthirster. Something in Tariel broke at that moment or maybe unleashed.

Tariel did not even flinch. He stood real high;

There was no fear left in his soul;

No thought to call his bloodbrides bodyguards on the other side of the door a few steps away from him;

Not even the thought of unsheating his agonizer;

The only thing left in his soul was an all-consuming rage that mirrored Khorne’s own fury.

As the towering mass of muscle and pain to come was barely a few steps from him, Tariel gathered his might and hurled all his fury to the pathetic creature that dared oppose him.

The might of the psychic attack hit Skarbrand with the strength of a thunderbolt and stopped his rampaging charge. Tariel knees failed him and he came crashing on the ground, his body screaming in distress as a presence in the warp reacted to his presence.

All that Tariel could feel was a strong, all-consuming, musk that made his very soul numb in an unbearable pain. There was also a voice... a laughter that seemed to rejoice as it stabbed his mind with a billion shards of ecstasy. Every second lasted ages in a delightful agony as he felt his soul eaten away by the nemesis of the eldar race, She Who Thirsts, Slaanesh the Dark Prince.

An impossibly loud growl made itself head, going stronger by the moment. Skarbrand’s head suddenly turned to the circle of summoning as he recognized the voice. Turning back to his prey, he bellowed his endless rage to the feeble eldar as he rose up his mighty axe forged upon the fury of 5 Bloodthirsters in a pathetically useless attempt to kill the archon in a single throw before it happened.

The loud growl culminated and erupted in a world-shaking roar. A gigantic hand of dripping blood emerged from the glowing runes of endless psychic power. The Hand of Khorne reached out from the warp, took grasp of Skarbrand, Betrayer to the Throne of Skulls, and crushed his physical form to dust in one unholy movement.

Tariel’s soul was set aflame, ripped off of Slaanesh’s grasp in its final moments of existence, his body basking in the absolute rage of a timeless will as it was made alive again. His mind roaring in pain as it was forced back into life.

When the archon regained consciousness, he did not think about how lucky he was to have escaped She Who Thirts or how in pain he was. The only thoughts left in his soul was the smell of blood and the need to kill, to feel bones break under his weapons and flesh be rip apart by his blows.

He did not notice the unholy symbol burned into his very flesh, the mark of The Lord of Skulls.

He keeled and drank from the huge pool of blood left by The Hand.

It tasted good.

Tariel's dark secret

The small dark room darkened even more. The candles lit everywhere on the walls diminished greatly and a cold, unnatural wind played with Tariel’s hair for an impossible instant. The blood-filled symbols of timeless power carved all upon the ground started to glow a dim red.

Tariel noticed this and continued to utter his unholy invocation. His words were those of pure madness and chaos, their only existence madly impossible and their substance a foul insult to sanity. With each passing second the room twisted evermore, but Tariel cared not. This was his blood right; one his family possessed for eons, but that was only rediscovered by his father, archon Ysclyth.

A thick red mist slowly started climbing from the ground along with a loud roar of endless fury, both of them growing quite rapidly. A single drop of sweat came crashing along the ground from Tariel’s forehead.

The incantations continued and Tariel’s hands started shaking uncontrollably as the psychic effort asked of his mind grew ever higher.

The sigils of power were now filling the room with an unreal light made of raw bloodlust, strengthening the creature slowly taking form in the middle of them.
As he finished the last sentence, his knees failed him; he fell on his hands, extenuated. Yet, his deed was not yet accomplished.

He smelled the stench of blood long before the bloodletter finally took speech. Hissing, he uttered, as if words of mere mortals were unusual to him :

-Why did you call me, prey of She Who Thirsts?

Tariel allowed himself a small smile and thought for a moment of that planet that he planned of assaulting in the next few days. Many factions wanted to claim this planet’s resources, but with a daemonic host at his command in addition to his kabal, none could stay his wrath. He had much work to do.

-Now that you mention it, blood-thing...

The awakening of the necrons

The young wolf scout went down the jet black stairs, disappearing in darkness that even his senses enhanced by the dreaded Canis Helix had trouble piercing.

He was alone; his pack shot down by a corrupted space marine patrol and doomed to find his way out of chaos territory. He knew he should not have stopped upon seeing the strange, black column emerging from the ground in the forest.

The stairs were stretching endlessly.

The nature around the column indicated that it have been there for centuries, maybe even more, but it was left untouched by the ages, as good as new. It was made of a strange metal he had never seen before and was adorned by a single strange symbol which started to glow an unholy green at his approach.

He finally reached the stairs at the end and entered a large chamber which seemed made of the same metal as the column and the stairs.

As the entranced opened in front of him, he knew that he just found something. He was not going back now that he had a new discovery to add to his saga. As he was passing the entrance, he thought for a moment of how foolish he was, but shoved this thought away: the honour of discovery shall be his.

He looked back to the stairs and noticed the ornamental statue guarding it. It represented a kind of skeletal robot armed with a strange gun ending with a wicked blade. The statue remembered him of something, a story that he had with the scout sergeant around a campfire, but he could not remember what.

He stepped closer and advanced his hand to touch it. He was so close of remembering, maybe it could help him. It was made of the same metal he had seen from the start, how strange...

The story exploded in his head and he knew what this thing were ; a necron; one of a million unholy robots powered by lethal gauss energy. A part of an endless tide of self-repairing metal whose guns would tear you out atom by atom until there is nothing left to see. Going down there was a very bad idea.

Absorbed in his revelation, he missed the mechanical revving that started all around the room. He did not miss, however, the green glow that appeared in the statue’s cold eye socks.

He reacted with astonishing speed, the speed of the mighty astartes, took his chain sword and, even as the atrocious being readied his gun that glowed with gauss energy, tried to take his head off. The mighty adamantine blade bounced off the strange metal, causing no apparent damage.

Unaffected, the necron warrior unleashed hell. A continuous arc of sick green energy touched the wolf scout, efficiently disintegrating his armour. Before it took away his flesh, the space marine struck again with his chain sword and this time managed to attain his target’s nervous system.

The necron collapsed on the ground, green arcs of unholy green energy coursing all upon his wrecked body.

The wolf scout hadn’t noticed it yet in his battle frenzy, but a dim green glow was now illuminating the room. It was huge, long and large. He took a run to the other end, from where the glow seemed to come from and discovered it was a balcony. He glimpsed out of it and was astonished. An even huger, circular space was out there with a lot more balconies all around it. He allowed himself to look down. It was stretching down endlessly with innumerable more levels, each of them containing dozens of balconies. It was stretching even so endlessly that the mighty space wolf, even with his eyes a thousand time better than those of a mere human, could not see the bottom of it that seemed to disappear in the source of the sick glow.

Instantly, he stepped back and took off his vox-communicator and described the necron tomb and gave his position. So doing, everyone would know of the rising necron threat. He was now sure to not get out of there without getting caught by chaos space marines, but such discovery was all the more important than his life. Mid-Way through, he saw something walk out of the floor. It was an elongated necron that seemed to shift in and out of reality, hovering on and through obstacles as if they were mere mist to him. It seemed to agitate his foot long, scalpel-like and horribly sharp fingers in his direction as if it was a challenge.

The astarte remembered the fire-camp stories of his sergeant and knew a mere space marine could not best such a beast. But yet, he had a last card to play.
Forgetting all caution, he took off his helmet and called upon the curse that had been his all these long years. He let his permanent control over his genetic curse flicker and disappear, knowing full well there was no coming back now. His body twisted, bone and muscle fusing while long claws tore through his gauntlets. Fur sprout everywhere and sharp fangs grew in his fast lengthening mouth. In bare seconds, the curse of the wulfen took its toll and, letting go of his humanity, the cursed space wolf howled all his fury to the unholy creature facing him.

His horrible sounds of agony were broadcasted by his still-functionning vox-communicator everywhere in a fifty miles radius. The space wolves, recognizing one of their own in the wulfen sounds, fast arrived to see what happened. The new inquisitor of the ordo malleus, having just arrived, gathered his forces and went there to purge whoever did it and both factions made an uneasy truce in order to clean the necrons emerging from the ground. They were few and victory seemed easy when dark eldar emerged from the webway, seeming to reinforce the necrons.

Carnage by the Woodland - by Maxime Farley

Carnage by the Woodland

Today shall be a fine day to offer sacrifices to the Gods, thought Arch-Magus Rajaxx, as he looked about the field before him.

Behind him stood the finest Tzeentchian warriors he could manage to find in such short notice. It was imperative those heathens never discovered of what was going on in the groove nearby.

Next to him lay the Branchwraith, lured to work for him, to his death, if necessary, by the Dark Arts his patron gifted him. His Elf friends weren’t so easily convinced to fight their own kind, be they of noble origins or not, but his magic had yet to fail him.

Scrying the advance of the enemy, Rajaxx realized they had recruited aid in their way here. Peasants, all of them. They might still posed a threat. He should especially consider the Pegasus’s and the knights mounting them.

If I had enough time, I’d summon a Dragon of Chaos and see them flee like the pest they represent.

He, however, was here to buy time for his fellow Magi, and would succeed or die trying.

He started ordering people around, sending him warriors here and there, with support from the Branchwraith and his fellow nymphs, and the Elf archery to aid the mounted Knights of Pestilence. A ‘kind’ gift of Zalgo, the regional Lord of Pestilence. Nuisances, especially to the nose, but they had their use.

Sighting a Noble with his detachment of Dragon Knights, Rajaxx decided he would involve himself more personally into the matter, and bid a guard of 12 Warriors to his side. They would make short work of most physical threats, the Magi overcoming any and all magic flung at them.

Elves had an unnerving tendency towards sending Archmages whenever they found the occasion to do so.

…

The sounds of war raged around him, blood swirling in a tempest of blades and lances. The knights proved more than resilient, and Rajaxx decided to interfere. Uttering long-forgotten curses and prayers to the darkest of gods, he bestowed the great Gifts of the Gods upon a Warrior lying next to him. The Exalted Champion of Chaos distracted the Noble long enough for his entourage to be slain, and in a vain attempt to save his life, the remaining Elf turned his mount and ran. Until, that is, the ground fell before him, twisting, maddening flames overcoming him and his ride. He was a mere puddle of messy gore when Rajaxx walked past him with what was left of his guard.

To his left, he faintly realized the Nymphs had all but been butchered, dying to the last in a futile attempt to please their new lord. Concerned about the White Lions chariot running towards them, Rajaxx saw the rain of death at about the same time the elves did. The chariot was swarm with a multitude of magical Elfic arrows, and as they ripped through wood and flesh alike, Rajaxx knew no worry would come from them.

On the far side of the battlefield, the Pestilent Knights met the Knights of the Realm into combat. All the flashy clothes they wore could not be compared to the age old armors of Chaos the undying fiends wore. The sparkling new lances they brought crashing into the deathless warriors were comparable to wooden training swords next to the ensorcelled weapons their opponents flung at them.

Once side had finesse, training and expertly laid tactics, the Bretonnian ‘Lance’.

The other had strength, experience and sheer brutality on their side.

As the bringers of death met the Lance in charge, a litteral barrage of blistering gore followed them. As they lost one man, they butchered the entire knight regiment, and properly followed their trail to meet a group of bowmen into battle. Battle? Carnage. If knights could barely hold them, what hope might a group of barely armed peasants have? They must have realized so, as they fled before the mowing death of Grand-Father Nurgle.

…

Bringing himself out of his visions of the battlefield, Rajaxx barely realized his guards had trampled the enemy Archmage and his own guards. No survivors, no quarters, no pity.

Unopposed, Rajaxx started to summon the Winds of Magic like never before, blasting apart Rifts of pure Chaos under the foots of the remaining enemies, sending waves after waves of fiery death upon unsuspecting victims.

Using both treachery and raw Chaotic firepower, he brought his whole power to bear against the mounted Pegasus’s knights. His masters had been clear: no witnesses. Their plan would suffer no interruptions.

As the last feather consumed itself in the flickering fires of Tzeentch, Rajaxx overviewed the battlefield. He had lost a little over half of the Tzeentchian warriors, a terrible loss but nevertheless replaceable. He barely registered the fact the Wood Elves fled back into their woods. A search party would be sent after them. And not to rescue them.¸

Of the Bretonians, naught remained. A few peasants here and there, fleeing for their lives. A group of elves dared dwell further into the woods, confident backup would be on the way. They probably fell upon one of the numerous magical traps surrounding the groove where the Conclave focused their powers.

The Lord Daemon Prince would come back into this world. Kholek the Suneater, the Bringer of Darkness, Tempest Incarnate, would be heard of once more.

And once into this world, there would be no stopping him…

As recorded by Archmagus Rajaxx, a short time before the second coming of the Daemon Kholek.

Approved and verified by my hand

Maxime Farley, Everchosen of Chaos, Lord of Terror

The rise of the Soul Tearers part 1

The wind in Tariel’s hair, the orders bellowed by the sybarites to each lesser warrior and the keen sound of the powering up klaives of his incubi bodyguards; the steady gliding of the raiders around him, the impossible sounds of their aethersails capturing ethereal winds and the sour smell of the huskblade in his right hand; the sweat gliding down the hesitant farseer’s face, the hunger of the ever-hungry soul-trap in his right hand and the unholy light glowing from this arcane artefact. All of these sensations were exploding in the archon’s mind with an impossible strength that only a true eldar could withstand and Tariel was no mere eldar, but the archon of the kabal of the soul tearers and, with his senses keened up to astonishing levels through the ages, the pleasure he took from this encounter in realspace was barely sustainable. He hoped to leap in the fray soon, but he could not at this very moment.

The plan was still too clear in his head to let it all fall apart now. He had himself repeated it again and again to his fellow warriors a dozen times over and he knew that every single one of them will obey it at the letter. For, if eldars fought each other endlessly for power in the dark city, in battle they knew that the success of the operation and so doing their loot in prisoners and riches was primordial.

The raid had started well, plenty of slaves coming in until the space marines came, most powerful of their feeble race. With their primitive weaponry they menaced his men’s soft flesh. He noticed that part of those ugly warriors were chaos space marines, most of them sworn to a chaos god, but still none of them affiliated with Slaanesh. Instantly, he recognized his mistake, such name was not to speak in the mundane realm.

In a split-second, his mind opened up to the warp, The Great Enemy, having heard his soul utter his name, found his way up to him and plunged his mind in impossible pain.
He dropped to his knees as She Who Thirst started to drain his essence. With his last splinter of conscience, before being lost in endless agony, he activated his shadow field.

It instantly manifested and The Great Ennemy was fast shoved away by the protective shadows of a realm that only the ethereal mandrakes really understood.
His vision sharpened and he stepped up, none of his incubi bodyguards seeming to notice anything. He knew that they saw and understood everything, but the only thing that stirred up such eldars was the occasion to kill an enemy. He was lucky to have such incorruptible warrior by his side, most of his trueborns, especially Hamlet, would have taken this as an occasion and butchered him without a thought.

He turned his eyes back to the fire front; the space marines, whatever their allegiance, were starting to take back control of the city. The fact that such slugs could beat him, whose family once ruled the star themselves, made him furious, but this was not the time. Then, he had an idea.
He ordered to his men to fall back and, laughing hysterically, he turned to his pet, the feeble-kin eldar that called himself a farseer. The irony being that he did not see Terial coming. His pet suffered the attention of his personal haemonculus and it was a resilient feeble-kin. It took weeks, and some organ grafting, for him to finally break, but now he was obedient as a dog.

It him a minute to stop his hilarity, but he finally calmed himself and took a deep breath. He glared in his pet’s eyes and ordered with a brutal authority;
-Call your ugly craftworld and tell them that you saw they had to fight at our side to stop certain genocide.

His laugh started anew and did not diminish until the once-proud farseer collapsed on the ground, his mind exhausted to transmit a message through the chaotic warp.
Two days later... an ancient webway gate two miles from the dark eldar position came flickering to life...

The Fall of Inquisitor Lord Evrard part 2 & 3 - by Gabriel CC.

It had been a long day and Elivad, the librarian commanding the task force that just wiped out space marines attackers, were finally seeing it end. Aboard a fast thunderhawk headed back to the chaos fortress of redemption. Around this one vehicle were a dozen of others just like this one, showing their efficiency during the battle. Effectively, very few loyalist astartes died during the planetstrike assault that just happened.

Using an ancient and powerful warp ritual that most librarian design as foolish, the rebellious space marines appeared out of thin air in front of the loyalist battle line. Their vehicles just behind them, they tried to use their massive firepower to destroy the blessed bastions but, having just appeared, most heavy weapons were not set upped.

Elivad remembered thinking that a rude fight awaited them, even with the few eldar warriors that offered their help, appearing from a webway gate not far from there. What he saw next was astonishing, leaving even an experienced commander like him with his jaws dropped.

Reality screamed while being clawed open and a pronounced blood stench filled the air a moment before they actually appeared. Daemons, all of them devoted to the Lord of Skulls and wearing his bloody color, teleported right in the middle of the corrupted space marines foot forces. He counted them with a horrified look on his face. 21 bloodletters, foot soldiers of Khorne armed with the dreaded hellblades, were roaring their bloodlust. Every one of their fiery breath an insult to sanity, they then looked upon the space wolves and salamanders whose power armours were no obstacle to their warp swords and launched a ferocious charge upon them.

Then Elivad remembered the battle plan and created a warp gate to teleport him and the 2^nd terminator squad right behind the first land raider, whose mighty armoured hull fast fell victim of their horribly strong thunder hammers. After the explosion of the large vehicle, the enhanced senses of his tactical dreadnought armour showed the massacre that happened in the rebellious forces.

Where once stood twenty proud and barbarous space wolves only remained cadavers. The only survivors, two grey hunters broken by the atrocities they saw, were running as if the Blood God Himself was at their pursuits. The worst of it all was that none of the bloodletters that attacked them suffered any injury. Their unholy assault wiped all before them in a bloody melee.

How could Evrard authorize the use of such horrible warp fiends? Yes they were effective, but he did not expect there would be so many of them. Even the most radical inquisitor lords were reluctant to invoke more than 5 of these and Evrard summoned 21... He even noticed a daemon prince of tzeentch not too far from here and he felt that the warp was strengthening, as if something even bigger was coming... Evrard will have to suffer the consequences of his acts.

Elivad also noticed that 4 space marines bikers were standing on the top of the wolf lord’s body, claiming his death. The librarian had never seen them, how strange.

He did not have time to investigate this, the battle needed him. He saw twenty salamanders appearing a few steps from the eldar farseer and its retinue. Calling upon the strength of his mind, he opened a warp gate for him and the 2^nd terminator squad to support them. The warp was agitated, more than he ever saw, and many horrors tried to hurt them, but none could penetrate their blessed terminator armours.

They appeared barely a few strides from the first salamander squad and crushed them in a pitifully uneven melee only to find that the other squad had suffered the farseer’s arcane strength and had been crushed to a bloody pulp under a psychic storm of a rare violence.

A roar of impossible violence hit his ears. Even through his armour’s filters it was hurtful. It was a roar of triumph and satisfaction; it was all about an impossible rage that was finally sated. Elivad turned his head to find from where it was coming. A soul grinder, Evrard also summoned a soul grinder... May the Emperor save him from his reckless idiocy. So the soul grinder’s iron claw just found another land raider’s prometheum reservoir and the heavy vehicle exploded in a fiery blast that left the dreaded mix of daemon and machine untouched and left his contents unprotected.

His content, Captain Sicarius and his honour guard. They had been known for selfless heroism and their pitiful charge was a testament to such reputation. With only two meltabombs, they tried to crack open the gigantic machinery of the daemon, but horribly failed and could not do much when the soul grinder took the head of Sicarius in his strong claw and crushed it with an unholy ease.

Another roar escaped the giant’s maw. This time it was purely of satisfaction and twice as strong as the first one. Elivad knew that this one will be greatly rewarded for the kill of such a hero. He closed his eye in pain. Such a loss... He hoped that Evrard was right and that they needed to be purged... But the fact that the corrupted ones attacked without even talking was a correct proof, for the moment...

The rest of the honour squad, demoralized by the lost of its leader, was then massacred when the bloodletters that foot slogged from their initial appearing point arrived and claimed even more skulls for their Lord.

At the very moment where the last corpse fell, it seemed as if some arcane leash had been broken. Elivad felt the warp rift slowly decreasing in size and power and the daemons slowly becoming insubstantial, but those all looked upon his troops, licking the blood on their fiery swords as if they wanted more.

In unison, the daemons of Khorne all launched a ferocious assault upon the space marines. Elivad quickly shouted orders and prepared himself for the dreaded charge to come. He had seen their efficiency and 15 bloodletters were now charging upon him, ready to claim ever more skulls for their atrocious Lord.

15 feets... His plasma pistol claimed a bloodletter, but the 2^nd terminator squad did not have any other firearms.

10 feets...

5 feets...

At the very moment he saw three hellblades rise up, aiming for his head, a gigantic and evil laugh filled the battlefield... And all the daemons collapsed into blood, their soul retreating back to the warp.

Covered in blood, Elivad started thinking... This laugh remembered him of the one battle where he fought magic and treachery, the one time he ever encountered a lord of change ; a greater daemon of Tzeentch. But this time the laugh seemed ever stronger, as the one he once fought had been a lesser being... Which daemon could dwarf a lord of change in strength and malignance? In a second, he knew. Most librarians think of him as a legend and a myth, but Elivad knew it was the only possibility...

-Fateweaver... yes...

The voice came from his back, but Elivad had already fought such a being and such mind tricks would not work twice. Why would Fateweaver come to him? Was it to seed doubt in him? No, his mind was steeled against such acts. What about Evrard... Oh no... Evrard. He felt tears of rage going through his face, washing away the blood that covered it. He knew that the servant of the Changer of Ways was gone, it’s mission accomplished.

It had been a rough day, and Elivad was not eager to see it end... In a few hours his thunderhawk will land on the captured chaos fortress. Remembering what he saw during the battle, he asked to his second in command about the 4 space marine bikers that defeated the space wolf brother captain and his wolf guard. He responded that they had no space marine bikers in his force for this battle. How strange...

Within minutes of arrival at the newly reclaimed chaos fortress, Elivad isolated himself from his men inside the thunder’s hawk communication cabin. None knew what he did inside, but some noticed that when he left it, his fists were clenched and his eyes were filled with a new and fiery resolve. No one though heard him whisper with an absolute hatred;

-Let it all be purged and anew shall we start.

Inquisitor lord Evrard was occupied at trying to cleanse this unclean place from the unholy energy that bloated it. He had still a long way to go, but His holy light had taken root and it could only be easier from now on. He was too experienced to let his nerves interfere with his work, but he was worried about the battle that was happened or was already finished. He did not know because he would not accept battle reports to be broad waved across the planet, risking to be intercepted by the chaos worshippers.

He hoped that the daemonic reinforcements he sent to his space marines gave them the might to stand and fight with three others chapters... He knew that his acts were reckless; he did not know exactly how many warp-kin he compelled to help him with the warp artefact, but such summons were never the best options. Still he also knew that it was the only option he was allowed in order to cleanse the corrupted astartes.

A servitor pulled him out of his grim thoughts. The young man revealed to him that Elivad had just arrived. The inquisitor stopped him already and rushed out to meet his trusted librarian.

He met him just out of the fortress, a few strides from the very armoured door that proved so difficult to open the first time. Elivad looked tired, but a renewed vigour shined in his gaze and Evrard knew his forces had been victorious.

-Elivad, my old friend, how did it go?

-We won, my lord, with very few casualties.

-Did the daemons assist you?

-Yes, they were very effective and numerous.

Evrard’s smile disappeared. Elivad’s face started to look a bit sad.

-What happened?

Elivad walked up to his friend and whispered three sentences in his right ear, each one tearing up his heart even more.

-These daemons were not summoned; they appeared of their own free will... Those space marines were clean... You’ve been a pawn of The Great Schemer...

Evrard was stunned and turned all these revelations over and over again in his head. At that moment, the veil was lifted. He remembered the situation of awkwardness in the hall of command; it was the sensation of concealed warp presence. How did he not notice that? Then, he finally heard the horrid and evil laugh that was hidden from him that day. The spell weaved upon him faltered and he knew how true each and every one of Elivad’s words were true. He noticed the reflections of metal far to his left and knew what had to be done. He stepped away.

-May the Emperor protect us all...

A second later, a silver bullet incrusted with dozens of holy blessing known only to the vindicare temple was shot and tore out his heart. It was a clean shot, an honourable death. Evrard did not let out a single sound of agony.

Elivad kneeled, closed the eyes of his friend and whispered;

-And so The Great Scheme claims another life. You shall pay, foul god of chaos...

He did not hear the laugh of primal malignance that echoed his thoughts in the warp, but, as he stand up, his gaze was filled with a steeled resolve.

-What are we going to do now? Asked a young brother-captain.

-Call to the Ordo Hereticus to send us another inquisitor lord, he shouted, and prepare men; for tonight, we depart again. We shall purge them in holy prometheum. Burn the unclean, all of it. Let none stay our wrath and in fire and blood shall it end!

All of the present space marines answered, their voices as one:

-And we shall know no fear!

Later that day, Elivad was inside the command thunderhawk, already in way to deliver more harm to the hated worshippers of chaos, but still dwelling on grim thoughts. The ordo Malleus will be shaken. That one of their inquisitor falled to chaos in such a short period of time will worry them more than ever. He hoped that it meant the next inquisitor they will send will be a puritain one, one that does not bargain in any way with the atrocious powers of chaos.

Those were grim times ahead of Elivad, but he knew that the Emperor’s Light could still be given to this system. Yet, this time it had to be given with swords and not words. He whispered, putting all his faith in those few words:

-The Emperor’s will shall be done.

Screams of the Warp - by Kevin Driver

Screams of the Warp

How can the universe, something so vast, so beautiful, harbor such monstrosity, such insanity! This was a question she had asked herself many times before. Standing inside a crystalline tower made entirely out of wraithbone, Farseer Tal’ariell was meditating peacefully. She was one of the most gifted advisors of Crafworld Tyel’nath, and her talent showed as she overcame the perilous journey of the Witch Path with ease.

Indeed, the road to becoming a Farseer was filled with dangers none of the Mon Keigh could even hope to live through, for psykers, such as Tal’ariell, are intimately connected with Warp space, the resting place of the Daemonic Gods of Chaos and their distorted minions. Like the people of her Craftworld, the young Farseer wanted to restore her race to its former glory, before the Fall of the Eldar, before the birth of the wretched god of perversion, Slaanesh.

As Tal’ariell was comtemplating the myriad of wraithbone structures that constituted the Craftworld, she heard a loud shriek. A scream so powerful, it pierced straight into the deepest recesses of her mind. After regaining her posture, she could feel the energies of the Warp shifting with constant thoughts of bloodshed. Tal’ariell had already experienced this before; it was the doing of the Chaos God of Violence, Khorne.

Tal’ariell started imagining what kind of vile works the God of Anger could be up to as Ilyan’na, warlock of the Great Council, and most trusted friend of hers rushed into the room.

“Mistress, you must have felt the crackling energies of the Warp, as well?”

“Yes, Ilyan’na, I have. But, I also sense this was not the only purpose of your arrival.”

“Indeed. We are approaching a planet from where powerful chaotic energies are emanating. It also appears to be infested with Mon Keigh. Shall we intervene?”

It was the duty of the Eldar to eliminate the threat of Chaos, as well as the taint of Man Kind, Tal’ariell knew this. But was she ready to sacrifice the lives of her people, she did not know. After reflecting on the situation, she said silently…

“Let the Banshees howl with glee, their blades shall soon be covered with the blood of Chaos, for we go to war.”

The fall of inquisitor lord evrard; part 1

The inquisitor lord Evrard was investigating the fortress of redemption a mere day or two after the planet fall assault of both his forces and the ultramarines he commanded.

The fortress was disgusting, bloated of the raw strength of the warp. Rivers of blood bled from the walls. Flies were everywhere, filled with deadly viruses that could overcome even the mighty space marine’s organisms in bare seconds. Rooms of pure ecstasy where powerful musk tempted the unfortunate with promises of impossible pleasure. The full of it eternally twisting without coherence or any form of organisation.

From the outdoors, this seemed like simple fortress of redemption, yet decorated with horrible symbols honouring the dark gods of chaos. From the inside, he discovered it was much, much more. The strength of each god was present in such quantities that it took the life of twenty astartes just to overcome the defences and penetrate the hall of command.

Entering the once-glorious hall, Evrard felt that something were wrong; the warp had no presence there. This place was totally free of the abhorrent taint of chaos. No, it was not entirely true; he could feel a single, yet strong, source of warp power at the end of the room.

He told his retinue, all brave warriors he teached himself in the art of fighting daemon kind, to follow him from a distance and then he walked up the command stairs, admiring the marble composing them. He then walked to the end of the room where he found a long, decorated, podium; on it was left one huge glass sphere.

At the very moment his eyes saw it, he knew he couldn’t look away, even if he wanted it. But he did not want so. Even if he could feel the strength of the warp in this object, it were not hideous, it looked as if this object escaped the taint of chaos but still used his power. He slowly advanced toward the object of his fascination. Gared, one of his retinue, asked him what he were doing, but Evrard did not answer; all too focused on the artefact he had just found.

There were currents inside the sphere. It looked like pure warp energy that was flowing through it. It would be one act of idiocy to touch such an object, but he felt that if he only touched it, he would be able to understand his meaning and purpose. Yet it was a stupid idea, never before had he directly touched such artefact, Evrard would not start today. What were his hands doing?

Pain

Pure, liquid agony flowed through his veins at the very moment his hands met the sphere. He could not think anymore, only suffer. His body did not move an inch, nor could it.

Pain

For a long moment he suffered. Then he realized it was not only pain that flowed through him, but also sight.

 Pain

All visions were happening at that precise moment. They were too many for him to register but too few to drown him.

Pain

After what seemed an eternity, he saw the scheme and understood part of it. The currents that flowed through the artefact were not warp energy, they were visions.

Pain

After another eternity, he finally discovered how to master it. The pain flowed down a little and he succeeded in slowing the processing of visions. For a split-second his control held, but he saw much in such a short time. All the plans of the worshippers of chaos were revealed to him: their supply routes, their reinforcements arriving, but more importantly where they thought that their mad gods wanted them to fight. He saw the dark eldar archon hidden in the webway stealing the soul of a dozen young women all at a time to feed his decadent life and the new broods that the hive fleet were breeding.

Pain

His control broke and his agony started anew. New visions flowed through him. He didn’t choose them but knew how true they were. Where showed to him space marines banqueting in orbit, a battle-captain enjoying the night with his poor victim, young noviciates beating each other in bloody battles so they would feel no pain and much more. He was horrified and truly shocked. It lasted longer than he ever thought it could, each vice of the angels of death revealed to him one after the other.

Pain

He felt tears of rage running down his face. Never had he seen so depraved chapters. They were tainted without recognition. They were too far down the road to see the light.

Pain

Purged, they all ought to be purged. In fire and blood shall it end.

Pain

He didn’t hear the evil and cackling laughter that followed his thoughts. But he witnessed the strength of the warp artefact decreasing. Before it could be extenuated, he used his powerful will to discover all he could about this object. He felt that this one object was linked to dozens of daemonic pact, each one of them commanding a single daemon. He activated all of them and ordered each warp-spawn under his command to help his ultramarines defeat the corrupted astartes.

He then accumulated his will and got his hands off the sphere. It looked empty as if all its power had been used. Evrard was not surprised, after all that he saw and the pacts that he used. He stormed the corridor down to meet librarian Elivad.

-Depart immediately to attack the other space marines chapters. Purge all of them. Leave no survivor.

-What my lord?

-You shall obey my command, librarian

Remembering how inferior he was, Elivad remembered his formation and opted to obey

-Yes my lord

-Good Elivad. Another thing, I will dispatch pacted daemons to help you. They will not attack your troops and nor shall your troops do.

The librarian nodded, horrified of the use of such beings and not eager of fighting on their side. He had heard of inquisitor lords using the warp strength against itself, but he didn’t think Evrard were one of them. Still he had given his word; he could not refuse now...

A few moments after the last member of Evrard’s retinue left the command room, the air flickered and 10 lord of change were rendered visible. They all turned to Kairos, the eldest and strongest of them, the only daemon that ever survived being thrown in the well of eternity, the only being in the universe to understand the future in its entirety, yet that could only speak of it in impossible riddles. Fateweaver lifted his two heads and started laughing anew.

-Do not worry brothers, it worked. This fool is convinced of what we showed him and that he could command such an enormous daemonic army. We weaved the spell too well for him to see the truth before it is too late.

All the other greater daemons nodded. Then their chaotic forms disappeared in the warp, back to Their Lord’s realm and ready to continue anoter thread of Tzeentch's master plan.

Introduction à la campagne de 40K!

No one knew for sure why this little system around Cadia was suddenly host of so much great powers.  Some may argue that this may have be simple coincidence. Others that it was the chaos space marines black crusade that led all those factions on this little planet. The most enlightened, however, know that the truth is much, much darker.

Maybe one of the insane plots of the Great Schemer’s plan finally came to fruition, or even maybe one of Kairos Fateweaver insane oracle finally came true, leading to the next step in prophecies that even Tzeentch have difficulties to fathom with his ridiculous insight. What is known and widely accepted as truth by everyone is that the chaos gods turned their gaze to that little planet, attracting chaos worshippers like a fire attracts fireflies. Why that little planet some would say? “Experts” would answer that it was only in order to throw in more chaos and  feed their own strength, but I would say that some questions are better left unanswered...

Soon after the warp storm arrived, the forces of chaos were there, transported upon the currents of the immaterium and led to this place. It was maybe total coincidence, as fools like to think, but most likely by the powerful will of the chaos gods who led them all to fight in their name for their mysterious goals.

In quick response, the inquisition came, feeling the arrival of fiends of the warp. Soon followed the eldar, whose farseers had foreseen this war a thousand years ago, and the tau, which were rallied by the inquisition to root out chaos, hoping that afterwards they would gain this world to their own cause.

Not much longer after, forces of the space marines arrived, led by their librarians feeling the warp strength growing. They were blood ravens, ultramarines and salamanders and they all swore to root out their mortal enemies and bring the Emperor’s light to this planet.

Then came the dark eldar, attracted to the promises of slaves and sensations, pain and blood. Maybe it was Tzeentch plan that they would happen to pass by while the factions were rallying, or maybe they had seen it all happen from their hidden city of Commoragh in the webway. None will ever know, but here they were and they quickly forged pacts with the chaos forces in order to secure their own part of the share.

Last but not least, the tyranid hive fleet arrived, the hive mind having perceived the change in warpspace and intending to feast upon the planet and the endless fields of battle left after the war. How they made alliances with the other chaos forces, no one knows, but as I said earlier, some questions are better left unanswered...

+++ Part of Scribe Gabriel's journal. It was discovered after a terrible conflict that still have repercussions on the Cadian System. Whereabouts of scribe Gabriel: unknown...++


+++Another documents with details concerning the first battles of that terrible war have just been discovered... Restoration and translation have begun. Estimated time of release: around 24 hours. End of transmission...+++

The failure of A'Nark'Adon

Deep inside skies of blood and madness, A’Nark’Adon was throbbing in rage and despair. Has-it been a full lifetime since the attack or a mere second. He didn’t care, time was meaningless in the warp. All that matters was the absence of blood to drink, of flesh to rend and of bones to crush. His material form has been destroyed before he could satisfy his legendary anger even a little.

The warriors of the corpse-god came into chaos territory, surprising the feeble dark eldar and the chaos space marine stationed there. A’Nark’Adon and the others were waiting for them. Combining all their strength, they enlarged the warpstorm a few thousand miles from there just to open a little rift in reality a few strides from the foolish warriors.

The soul grinder roared his anger, shaking the sea of bloodlust around him for a thousand miles. Even with his mighty armoured form, his piston powered claws and his awesome sword made of raw madness, even with his dreaded mawcannon that spit masses of mutating ichor, he failed. He did not harvest a single soul where simple bloodletters were covered in blood. They all came back with souls of mighty space marines and the proof that even the feared tactical dreadnought armour was unable to stop their hellblades, forged in the fury of the blood god.

Most of these received gifts from the Lord of Skulls, but A’Nark’Adon gained nothing, and now with this chaos fortress lost, the hold of the immaterium over realspace was starting to weaken. No, he would not let it happen. He shall fight again with all his strength and earn his patron’s favour. So much times ago did he get blood on his sword, and now some puny metal boxes want to deny him such pleasure. 

Unthinkable.

The mighty soul grinder gripped his sword tighter and started searching others rifts in realspace. The next time, his anger will finally be sated.

++ Reported by Scribe Gabriell CC, by ways of nightmares... Inquisitor shall investigate his sanity...++

PlanetStrike Battle Report: The Fall of Markal, Epistolary for the Ultramarines

Epistolary Markal were doing his run of the chapter warp-based archives in a chamber lost in the huge vastness of the ultramarine’s main fleet ship in orbit around Armaggedon.

A young noviciate that had barely received his gene-seed entered. He was out of breath, proving he were still not a fully fledged space marine, and seemed terrified. Not taking the time to breathe after his long run, he immediately delivered his message:

-The scouts discovered something sir and Elivad thinks it may be the pillars of Angron.

Instantly, the room darkened at the uttering of this dark name. Markal knew Elivad, he was a brilliant Librarian that rarely knew doubt.

How could this be? The epistolary was there after the first war of Armageddon and these horrible outrages, these twisted monuments of flesh and stone,  of blood and bones standing a hundred feet tall all vanished a few days after Angron’s defeat, sent back to the warp and never seen again. For the past months, he had witnessed the warp strengthening around Armaggedon, could these horrible pillars dedicated to khorne have been sent back? Could they be the reason of the warpstorm that recently carried the worshippers of chaos?

Then, Markal remembered the noviciate in the room, waiting for him to send him away.  He was but a second away to tell him when his soul suddenly explosed. A billion claws were trying to dig out his soul. He tried to steel his mind, but they were too many and the pain excruciating, he couldn’t...

Then, suddenly, nothing. The pain just vanished. He barely saw the terror on the noviciate face before hearing a deep, paternal and reassuring voice in his back :

-You are strong, space marine, but isn’t strength a burden? Let go of fighting and duty, let go of pain and sadness.

At the precise same time, another voice made itself heard. This one were cruel and uncaring :

-Pathetic fool, did you really think you could stop us? Soon you will understand your doom.

Markal slowly turned to face the intruder. He had seen a lord of change before, a being of pure arcane and malignance, always shifting, always changing, with no true form while always staying the same. His only presence made realspace scream at such a break in reality. But this one was different, he looked older and hunchbacked, feeble for such a daemon, but the air around it crackled with powerful eldritch energies, stronger than anything he had ever seen. Then the epistolary noticed that the warp-fiend had two heads. In a flash, memories of his studies went through him. He knew that daemon, it was...

-Fateweaver, yes

This time both heads talked simultaneously, each voice interweaving with the other, producing a completely new one: Markal’s voice.

The epistolary were left untouched by such a trick and asked:

-Why are you here, pet of the changer of ways?

Fateweaver laughed at the question, both heads then answering:

-To kill you obviously, the Great Scheme wants you dead

At that moment, he pointed Markal with his old, yet mighty, hands and the daemonic claws started their job anew. This time they were not restrained. The space marine epistolary, despite all his will and training, was fast overwhelmed. After 5 seconds, Markal knew he couldn’t survive it. After 10 seconds, he was awaiting death, already seeing his soul being drained by the daemon arcane strength. A bare moment before the end, he heard 3 words, both a war shout and a praise :

-FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

Soon after those words, the pain lifted and Markal saw what happened : the noviciate had place himself between fateweaver and the epistolary, designating his own soul for an eternity of suffering in the warp. Yet, it had been a long time and still the young one seemed to resist with an incredible will, the daemon being stronger, but not by much it seemed.

After 20 seconds or so, Markal threw aside his curiosity ; never again shall those horrible claws attack his soul, for he could not bear it. He prepared himself and opened a warpgate directly to the librarians room, where his brothers could protect him from the twin-headed monstruosity.

The time to rally his brothers, they were back into the archives. Unfortunately, they were too late. They only found the empty husk that once contained a mighty space marine, an angel of death. Markal slammed the wall with his strong fists and shed tears of rage. That noviciate should have been trained and would have been a great librarian with the incredible will he showed. Fateweaver and his master’s great and malignant scheme took all that away in bare minutes.

Then, after going through the scene again and again, he realized the horrible truth: it was his entire fault. The warp spawn had barely the upper edge on the noviciate, if the epistolary had fought his fears and helped the noviciate in his psychic fight; his life could have been saved. He had failed horribly, it was his entire fault...

Part of the chaos fortress planet fall assault report
Date 12/05/41025, 22:46
Battle report number 290349839554561

Written by Brother Scribe Gabriel CC.

“Epistolary Markal : KIA by Kairos fateweaver, surviving members of the 4^th terminator squad noticed that he fought with less resolve than usual and one say that he even showed his throat for the warp-fiend to cut through.”