What follows is the first segment of a Warhammer 40k story I'm currently writing for the 40k Online forum. Enjoy!

All copyrighted names, places, etc. belong to those who copyrighted them.


Hello?! Hello out there! I know you're listening! I've learned from... past experience that when Lord Tzeentch is involved, there's probably someone watching me. I'd better introduce myself- Sebell Vivat, Eye of Tzeentch, at your service. Or, rather, not at your service. I serve the Changer of Ways, and no one else. I suppose I'm the Chaotic equivalent of an Inquisitor- not that those pompous, deluded maniacs have any idea of what they're doing, of course, but there you go- it reminds me of this one time, in the Tempus system, where... Damn. Where was I?

You were going to talk about the Assassin, weren't you?

Right. Thanks, Root.

Don't mention it.

Ah, yes- Allow me to introduce to you my left hand-er- man, I guess. His name is i; where i is the algebraic symbol representing the square root of negative one. I for one have n-

What can I say? We Lords of Change like to be mysterious! Besides, It's kind of funny, you know, because i is an undefined value, and I'm a Lord of Change¸ so it's sort of a joke with numbers-

-But you can call him Root. Wait, why am I telling you this? There's a good chance you (especially you out there in the Dyson Sphere) are omnipotent- why should I bother filling you in on the details if you already know what's going on?

It's a story, Sebell- you can't not have exposition.

Right. So I'm an Eye of Tzeentch- we're independent investigators, carrying out His will in the Galaxy. In exchange for our services, we are provided with everything we could possibly want. For some, it's power, others, fame and fortune- for me, it's technology. You see, when I was young, I always dreamed of joining the Adeptus Mechanicus- I loved the machines, the robes, the ceremony of it all. Then one day I-

Ugh. Sebell's a good guy- otherwise I wouldn't be possessing his left arm, but he has this really annoying tendency to go off on tangents. So- we'd been assigned by the Great One himself to Namaskar, a small world, out on the rim of Tau territory. A moderately-sized WAAAGH! had managed to push the Tau out of the region, and the Imperials moved in, hoping to catch the Orks off guard. Two Cadian regiments, the 32nd and the 197th were sent in, accompanied by the 13th Katyushan Sputnik Support Army. Tzeentch's sake, who named those guys? I know Khornate weapons with more imagination! Anyways, after three months of heavy fighting, with no side clearly the victor, all signs of life on the planet disappeared. No imperial transmissions, nothing on the Ork frequencies- nothing. Even the ships in orbit crashed to the surface. For whatever reason, the Changer of Ways wanted to know what had happened to Namasakar. (Imperial name, by the way- the Tau one is practically unpronounceable)So we were equipped, warped in, and here we are.

-Which is why I'm still afraid of mice!

Sebell?
Yes?

Please, could you-

-stop talking? Are we done?

I'm done, yes.

So there I was. Namaskar- dangerous, mysterious, exciting Namaskar. The warp jump had just finished- I'd arrived inside the shell of a semi collapsed building, settling into a combat stance as soon as the fires of the Immaterium faded from my vision. The combat stance was out of habit, mind you- after the... unfortunate incident with the Buzzard-wasps on Wanshi-Tong, I'd-

Hem.

Right. I'd better make a brief overview of my equipment. Now I'm not actually a Chaos Marine, per se, so my power armour wasn't up to their standards. It was based off the design of the Sororitas armour, and powered by a spiritually-fuelled catalytic cracking unit, which-

Root here. Again, Sebell's a little obsessed with technology. I'll explain what he's saying in simpler terms. The suit was developed by the followers of Khorne- essentially, it could explode without damaging itself. Several other agents of Tzeentch stole it from the Khornate forges, and, since it was destined for Sebell's use, I was chosen to possess it. The explosive abilities were modified by my power- the Khornate demon was heavily contained- he's now pretty much the fuel supply. Aggravah, say hi!

MAIM! KILL! BURN!! MAIM!! KILL!! BU-

...yeah, he's like that. Anyway, the suit can fire blasts of warp energy, which, thanks to my abilities, can fold the fabric of the Materium. Basically, it turns real matter into warp matter, which then explodes. Let's see what Sebell's doing, shall we?

...Generating a transphasic phlebotinium interference patter, as postulated the great Scotti, creating a catastrophic-

...And he's still going. Wow. Isn't he supposed to be the storyteller here? Back on topic- I'd better explain my position in relation to Sebell- I'm his left arm. How I came to be in this position is an entirely different story, and I'm not going to bother telling it now. Suffice it to say, Sebell's arm is composed of gaseous, free-floating warp matter (i.e. me), which can mold to any form. I'm still able to assume control and take on corporeal from, but I mostly let him use the arm. We have a system. It works. Why bother changing it?

Okay, I'm done!

At least you realise you have a problem.

And knowing is half the battle!

Riiiight... So, Namaskar.

Back to the action! The building was deserted- the walls were riddled with bullet holes, and the grey concrete was scarred from what looked to be a considerable firefight- literally, in this case, as the burn marks indicated at least one side had used flamers. There were no bodies, and the floor was coated with a thin layer of dirty snow. Did I mention it was cold? 'Cause it was. Very. My monitor readouts indicated an exterior temperature of around negative 30, Celsius of course. Cold enough to freeze exposed skin after abooout... three minutes.

You're getting off topic...

Sorry. I stepped outside, getting my bearings. What I saw next creeped me out- and that's saying something, considering I do worship the Dark Gods.

He's right- the planet was seriously unnerving. But I'll let him tell it.

Simply put, there was nothing- it looked like your basic ruined city; war torn hulks of buildings, the skeleton of a downed cruiser off on the horizon, the occasional small fire still burning from shot-up vehicles- but it was dead.

Utterly.

No noise, no activity, nothing. There were a few scraggly trees nearby- completely dead. Ditto the birds whose skeletons littered the ground under them- they hadn't been eaten by predators. Nearby, I saw the corpse of an Ork- It certainly wasn't alive, because not even an Ork can survive having a meter-wide hole punched through their torso. I cranked open the filters on my helmet, hoping to get a whiff, and the air was- blank. It smelled canned, like air that had been sealed in a tank for centuries.

Again, he's got it nailed. While he made his observations, so did I. I detected no life signs whatsoever- nothing living, down to the bacterial level. I would normally have suspected an Exterminatus for this kind of thing, but the ruins were too... intact. It was like the battlefield had just ground to a halt. Even I was spooked.

I'd like to be able to say that, soon after my arrival, I was swept up with in a web of intrigue and deception...

...met the love of your life...

...And learned a valuable lesson about the nature of friendship and self-worth. Unfortunately for me, that didn't happen. What actually happened was three mind-numbingly dull weeks of exploration. It's pretty hard, scouting an entire planet by yourself.

I was there too, you know!

Sorry. But back to the story- I- we- were getting nowhere. It was fairly easy to reconstruct what state the battle was in. The Orks, apparently expecting outside attack, had erected-

Heheh. Erected.

For Tzeentch's sake, Root, that was just childish! Shame on you.

Sorry, Sebell.

Huh. Anyways, the Orkish defences were formidable. Being orks, their Waaagh! had split into several individual camps, but each camp was incredibly fortified- more than enough to resist any direct assault. The Imperials, knowing this, and assuming (correctly) that the greenskins had little or no naval support, decided to try siege warfare to minimize their casualties.

Hence why they called in the Katyushans. Apparently they're the closest thing the Guard has to the pre-Heresy Iron Warriors, at least when it comes to siegecraft.

Precisely. Despite the defences, all the soldiers- Ork or Human, were dead. Some had obviously been killed by their counterparts on the opposite side, but the vast majority had died of clean, oddly precise wounds- it was like large chunks of them had simply been removed. What really bugged me, though, was what had happened to the Navy. The three regiments-

Technically two regiments and a Support Army.

Same thing- they had brought with them a considerable flotilla. Now, the capital-sized ships were drifting, burnt-out hulks, while everything cruiser-sized and smaller had simply fallen out of orbit. Even worse, none of the ships had been brought down by external fire- they had all been disabled from the inside. If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is.

The ships were an obvious puzzler, but I was even more concerned about the state of the planet. It's incredibly difficult to destroy a world's ecosystem without causing major harm to the world itself, but who or whatever had done this had managed to (as far as I could tell) exterminate all life without doing any real damage. Over the course of our exploration, I kept on picking up weak warp signatures, but they faded every time we came close. Trying to cope with this kind of situation is not good for one's mental stability, and I was no exception. Needless to say, nerves were frayed and tensions were high.

Until the first day of the fourth week. That's where everything started.

Ah, I love foreshadowing.

We were investigating a relatively rural area- a former mining community by the looks of it. We'd just finished a sweep of the town hall in search of computer records-

No dice- All the electronic devices we found had been fried by some kind of EMP.

-When we were interrupted by a low rumble. I wasn't too surprised- the sound of some of the still-burning fortifications and vehicles collapsing or exploding had been a fairly common occurrence in the cities.

Although it scared the Warp out of us the first time we heard it happen.

What was strange about this, however, was that we were well out of the conflict zone, deep within Ork-held territory. The Imperial bombardment hadn't reached this far, and everything was still standing.

"Damnation! The warp was that?"

"Odd... I'm reading a sudden surge in ambient heat radiation. That wasn't there five minutes ago."

"Worth checking out?"

"Definitely."

I moved out of the town hall, threading my way carefully around the large mounds of Orkish debris which had piled up during their short occupation. The eerie silence had returned, and I was about to turn back to my previous errand when a massive jet of flame, accompanied by a roaring detonation, shot skywards from a square I'd passed several streets away. The flame was accompanied by a silvery-grey object, which hit the ground behind me, hard. I threw myself out of the way, bringing both arms up into a close-combat position. Before I could assimilate exactly what I was looking at, the... thing emitted a brilliant flash of bluish light. By the time I'd recovered from the shock, it was gone.

"Hell's bells! Did you catch a glimpse of that thing?!" I exclaimed, understandably shocked. I was prevented from continuing by the psychic equivalent of a low groan.

"Oh Gods... what just happened?"

"Root? Are you all right? Talk to me!"

He moaned again.

"Where'd all the other dimensions go?"

I shook my head in confusion.

"What? What d'you mean, other dimensions?"

"I can't see the warp! I'm only seeing things in four dimensions, not seven!"

"How is that possible? You're a daemon!"

"I... I don't know. I- I'm still drawing energy from the warp, and I think I can still use that energy, but the connection is gone. I feel... drained."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"I can influence realspace, and I'm not running low on power, but I can't see things in the warp anymore. I'm like... a psyker. An incredibly high-powered psyker. I can use the warp, but I'm no longer part of it."

"Uh-oh."

We were interrupted by another burst of fire over the rooftops, this time accompanied by shouts and the distinctive sound of gunfire.

"Can you tell what's going on?""It's- no, I can't. I'm limited to five senses. I'm sorry. I'm getting no warp presence at all."

"Well, whatever we came here for is probably connected to that gunfight somehow. Let's get moving. Are you up for it?"

"I... think so."


This is my first story that I've actually been somewhat pleased with. I'm almost done writing the rest, and I'll upload the next few bits if people like what I have now.

In the meantime, comments are welcome, constructive criticism is actively encouraged. I won't necessarily follow your recommendations, but be sure that I will take them into account.