The following is a manuscript recovered from the Library of Souls on Grekan X, following its purgation by the Emperor's Holy Ordos of The Inquisition in 404.M.41.
Of The Spyres And Dungeons Of The Empyrean, And Of The Multifarious Daemons That Inhabit Them: Or My Travels In The Warp By Krestus The Gifted, Grand Magus To The Court Of Hesstrekji The Desolator.
When I was but a boy, I first gazed into the incalculable majesty of the Warp, that most infinate of realms more properly known as the Empyrean. I was a child then, in both body and mind, but my master had taught me well, and I was able to set the eye of my dream-self free to soar upon the drifting clouds of eternal emotions that hang in the endless reaches of the Warp, at once something, and nothing, and everything that ever has, ever will, and never did exist in this reality or any other. My self was flensed away by a storm of primal energies, more poweful than all the stars in the universe, yet infinitesimal when held up to the power of the Great Darkness that lies beyond in the wide seas of the Empyrean. As the stom wracked my conciousness, I sensed other presences, so great as to make worlds seem as grains of sand in comparison to their terrible majesty. Yet for all I was awestruck by these monstrous beings, I would later learn that their dark masters, the Four, the Dark Brother-Kings, were a billion billion times more awesome in their enormity of power and mindscape. As I beheld these otherworldly beings in the Warp, in the material world my body, unable to withstand the colossal power that it was being exposed to, began to change. My eyes boiled in their sockets, my blood turned to molten lead, my skin became scaled, and great talons grew from my hands and feet. The beasts in the Warp shaped me in their own image, and were pleased. The inconcievable agony of these blessed changes wrenched my concious back into its fleshy prison, and I screamed in a voice no longer my own. My master, terrified beyond sanity by the hideous nature of my tranmogrification, tore out his eyes rather than witness the blasphemy of flesh that I had become. As realisation of what I had become flooded into my mind, I too sought refuge in the sweet oblivion of madness, and for the longest time I knew nothing of the outside world, lying comatose in a forgotten and unhallowed dungeon on a backwater world.
For two millennia I slept, and in my dreams each second was as long as the life of a galaxy. I did not see the Warp-storm that cut my terrestrial prison off from the uncaring Imperium, nor did I comprehend any change when the forces of the Dark Gods of Chaos claimed the planet for their own. In my long sleep, I learned much. Strange visions would appear periodically in my mind, and great horned beasts would impart the dark wisdoms of their masters unto me. I was a willing student, and after many centuries became well-versed enough in dreamlore to enter into learned debate with my daemonic tutors. We spoke of great and terrible things, discussed the nature of the Empyrean and the futility of resisting the powers of the Warp. I learned of the four Gods of Chaos, mighty Khorne on his Skull Throne, Grandfather Nurgle in his diseased garden. I gained knowledge of Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure, and of Tzeentch, the Changer of Fates from whom all lies spring. So much did I learn in those long centuries that all memory of who I had been was driven from my mind, replaced with the unhallowed wisdom of Chaos, that unstoppable creeping horror that will someday swallow all the stars in blackness and hate. Other things too invaded my sleep, words in cryptic tongues unpronounceable in any of the speeches of the Materium. There were also phrases which I could understand, although they seemed to have no meaning. For nine hundred years I was visited regularly by a winged daemon who uttered no words save for "THE BECOMING, OF US, ONE SHALL YOU BE. UNHALLOWED!" It was not until much later that I would know the meaning behind the beast's words.
When I awoke, it was to an existence so far removed from the one that preceded it as to be unrecognisable. I no longer saw, heard, spoke or thought in the manner that I once had. Instead my senses had become attuned to the inhuman frequencies of the Warp. The world around me had also changed. Where once I had lain in a black chamber beneath an unscaleable mountain, now I rested atop an altar at the summit of a great pyramid, in the centre of a great city, laid out in the shape of a gargantuan eight-pointed star. Above me, mighty vessels plied space, cutting through a sky no longer blue, but a rainbow hue unimaginable to human eyes. Alone and uncomprehending, I descended the pyramid, and soon lost myself in the labrynthine streets of that terrible city. All around me was a multitude of debased creatures, some once-human like myself, now irrevocably altered, others belonging to bizzare races that dwell beyond the stars. I spoke, using a voice that had not sounded in the material universe for two millenia, asking all who passed for any clue as to where, when, and who I was. As loud as I roared my questions, none seemed to hear me, or if they did, not to care, save for one whom I would later come to recognise as one of the Possessed, a daemon wearing human form. The creature inhabited the body of an angelic child, disgustingly unfitting for this twisted world. When it spoke, its voice was as the sibilant hiss of a great serpent, deep, menacing, and at odds with the mouth from which it issued. The beast looked at me with eyes both innocent and old with wickedness, and addressed me respectfully. "Come with me, blesssssed one" the possessed intoned. "You are new to thisssss life, and will die sssssoon if you are not taught to live. I am Esssieth, alsssso called The Envenomed, and I ssssshall be your teacher." With that, the monstrous child turned, and floated eerily away, beckoning over its shoulder for me to follow.
I followed my new tutor through the impossible streets of the nightmare city for several days, as marked by the plunging of the city into sudden gloom, and the later resurgence of illumination, witnessing new horrors at each turn. In one plaza I saw an insane carnival of daemons and warp-freaks, mutated beyond comprehension and giggling with madness. In another stood a great and terrible obelisk made from the fused bodies of still living children ,screaming without end for parents or friends, whilst all around daemons stood and laughed with unimaginable cruelty at their fate. Eventually, Esssieth stopped outside a mammoth pavillion made from flensed human skin, which shivered and twitched with impossible life, and gestured for me to enter. I was beset by a sudden feeling of intense horror at the sight of the entrance, a pulsing portal of utter blackness which seethe with unnatural energies. I looked at Esssieth, who smiled with its disturbing child-form's serene face, then hissed "Go. Through that portal awaitssss your desssstiny assss a being of the Warp. You are one of ussss now, Child of Blacknessss. Go, and learn the myssssteriessss of the Immaterium assss you sssswim in itssss sssseassss." Esssieth motioned for me to enter once more, then dissolved into a cloud of butterflies, each blacker than space itself. Emboldened by the creature's words, I stepped through the portal, and was instantly transported to an eternal hellish realm in which nothing good nor mortal can exist.
After a brief moment of inky blackness which seemed also to stretch for aeons, I found myself floating at an impossible altitude in a sea of nothingness, suspended above the planet which for so long had been my prison. Looking around I could see other planets, stars, and galaxies, all seemingly within my grasp. It was then I realised the powers I had at my command, incomprehensible to those who have not experienced them, and I laughed as I reached out with my betaloned hand, and pointed at a nearby planet. Suddenly I experienced the same feeling that I had upon entering the mysterious portal, at once just minutes and many life-ages of stars ago, and I opened my eyes to find myself upon a world made entirely of ice and rock, where a brutally cold wind screamed the names of every creature in every universe who had ever died. Fantastic realisation rocked my changed being as I realised that I was now able to travel through the Warp merely by pointing at my destination and willing myself to move. Laughing insanely, I poineted at a star in the sky, picked out at random, and found myself in a steaming jungle of carnivorous plants. Again and again I pointed, travelling at random throughout the hellscape of the Immaterium, all the while laughing like a madman at my incredible new powers.
Such adventures as those which I had would annihilate instantly the minds of all who read this manuscript if I even began to contemplate writing them down in their entirity. The records of the Warp themselves, on which all information is stored, past, present, and future, will bear witness to my travels. I encountered uncountable numbers of strange new races, like the winged Kkkraani, who waged their eternal war against the Grud'iiir, a race of sentient crystals from beyond the edge of sanity, or the decptively human Lijj, who were in reality three-headed serpent-daemons concealed by a glamour under which they would infiltrate the worlds of the Imperium in order to sow death and destruction. I visited the planets under the thrall of Daerrikan, a mighty daemon prince, and by devious means turned them against one another in brutal civil war. On Quxlian, I committed total genocide upon the F'tagn, a race of beings who had once been similar to humans but had long since evolved to the state of giant conglommerations fo brain tissue. They were a sedentary race, who took great pleasure in telling stories so terrifying that they often caused ripples of horror in the material universe, and I wiped them all out with my own claws when I descended upon their world from the heavens.
Eventually, I tired of such sport, and sought service at the court of the great daemon prince Hesstrekji, who ruled over the world of Akkazuul in dark splendour. He received me with much honour, and set me to work sowing discord amongst his rival princes. I prospered in this task, and single-handedly brought down the empire of Malborg the Malefic with a single word whispered in the ear of his trusted lieutenant Fnargus. None amongst Hesstrekji's servants could boast of such successes as I, and after many millenia in service to this dark prince of the Warp, I was appointed to be his Grand Magus, an interpretor of signs from the impossible Gods as well as an emmissary to the feeble three-dimensional universe of Man. I write this remembrance now in order that tales of my triumphs may be spread to the Materium, so that one day my fame may equal that which I have achieved in my aeons of existance. I have no need to do such a thing in the Empyrean, for there my fame is unrivalled except by the daemon princes themselves, who are the greatest of beings ever to roam any universe, save of course for the mighty Gods themselves. One day I hope to ascend that last, greatest pinnacle and achieve the greatest prize available to a servant of the Dark Gods. If that happens, then mayhap I shall write again. For now, this chronicle ends here.