In the space above a temperate world reality is torn open. The purple energies of the hellish dimension known to many as The Warp bleeds through to the material realm as a large object vomits from the couldron of madness.
It's a ship.
A large one, nearly 5 kilometers in length, slides from the portal. It is bristling with cannons and guns of all kinds and calibers with a large Nova cannon on the front. It is a blocky thing, meant for knife fight range void war or planetary invasion. It is a battlebarge of the Adeptus Astartes with the name Calth's Fury emblazoned proudly on its hull. The large, white 'U' backed by blue signals it is of the Ultramarines chapter, a storied and legendary group of super human soldiers who have defended humanity since their inception at the dawn of the Imperium of Man.
As six more ships glide out of the hole torn in reality, two strike cruisers and four Imperial Navy frigates, a large figure walks into the bridge of the Calth's Fury. He is large, bulkier than a standard Astartes and taller by almost a full head, even without his armor. He is Captain Antaeus Cassiel of the Ultramarines 5th Company and he is a Primaris Space Marine. He is in his full MK X armor, though he leaves the helmet maglocked to his belt, revealing piercing blue eyes and a head of close cropped dirty blonde hair.
"Admiral, how goes warp translation?"
The mortal in her command throne turns to meet the Astartes captain.
"All is well, my lord, the warp disturbance from earlier seemingly vanished and allowed us to make a safe translation to realspace. The rest of the strike group made it without incident."
He nodded.
"Excellent. But that begs the question. What in the name of the Five Hundred Worlds was that? It was like a whirlpool on the seas of ancient Terra from what Librarian Gallus told me. It nearly killed our Navigators."
"I haven't the slightest clue, my lord. But what is curious is that it seemed to empty into realspace."
She pulled up a hololithic map on the display in front of her.
"Centered on this planet. It is thus far unnamed and undiscovered by explorators."
Cassiel nodded and frowned.
"Theoretical." He began. "Warp portals do not spontaneously open."
"Practical."
"Something or someone opened it." The Admiral finished with a look of hate in her eyes.
Cassiel keyed his vox bead and raised his newest Lieutenant, Lucian. Lucian had recently proved himself in the Plague Wars as a competent and resourceful fighter. He preferred the lighter MKX Phobos pattern armor and as a result, Captain Cassiel had requested support from the 10th Company's Vanguard Space Marines. This group of Battle Brothers excelled in stealth and subterfuge in addition to scouting and recon.
"Brother-Lieutenant, prepare an infiltration group. I would know what we are stepping into before we commit forces."
Skyhold
"And she is our Inquisitor!!" Cassandra yelled to the growing crowd, the energy of their collective faith nearly eclipsing the sun.
And newly christened 'Inquisitor' Ulthua Lavellan found it grating on her nerves. She'd never asked for any of this. Least of all to be the Herald of the Shemlen faith.
The irony of a Dalish Mage being called the Herald of Andraste was funny to all but her, but she had a job to do. Shem or not, Corypheus would kill or enslave them all if nothing was done.
Plus she had a grudge to settle.
"Inquisitor, a moment please." She heard from behind her. It was Cullen, the former Templar and her military advisor. She thought she'd grow to hate him for who and what he was, but he was rather pleasant... for a Shem. He never talked down to her and offered his counsel in a professional manner telling her the benefits and consequences of his proposed stratagems in equal measure. He worked hard to train their forces and the bags under his eyes told of his endless hours trying to rebuild their shattered army.
"Yes, Commander?" She replied.
"I know you are busy but I and the rest of the advisors will be in the war room. We have an... interesting matter to discuss. Please join us when you can."
She nodded and hurried towards the war room, surprising her advisors. She would truthfully rather be strategizing than being the center of so much attention.
It unnerved her to be the center of attention when her whole life she'd be taught to avoid such attention, lest the Templars come knocking.
And again, the irony that a large contingent of her army were Templars reared its ugly head.
She sighed as she passed Varric, waving and smiling weakly as she hurried by with her posse in tow.
The door to the war room closed and each party took its respective places.
She turned to Cullen.
"Alright Commander. What is it you discovered?"
She asked.
He nodded and turned to Leliana who stepped up with him.
She was the spy and assassin extraordinaire. Her career in subterfuge was almost as storied as Cullen's military career.
"Inquisitor, we have... troubling news coming from the area around Haven. More troubling than when Corypheus was at our doorstep."
Lavellan's eyebrow shot up.
What could be worse than that... monster? She thought.
Head Scout Harding stepped up and she looked like she had a... haunted look in her eyes and she nodded and began her tale.
One week ago, The Hinterlands
Scout Harding stood at the head of the alcove with her team and tried to shake the feeling of... foreboding. They'd be tracking a group of... something for a few days now. They were large and heavy.
Yet they were eerily silent. They would discovered bodies of Red Templars and Insane mages only hours old at best. At that range, they should've heard a scuffle or a cry or something. Especially among the Templars.
Crazed with zeal though they were, they were still competent fighters with training and often years of experience to call upon but it looks like they'd been butchered as if they were trainees.
Their blades had no blood nor any nicks from deflecting blows. Even the horridly mutated Templars seemed to have stood only a slight chance.
The mages too were butchered without a fight it seems. The corpses of mages were strewn about with evidence of demons and Abominations being summoned, but again, no sign the attacker was wounded, save for some impossibly bright red blood.
Whatever had attacked them had both surprise and overwhelming strength on their side.
And fear. Each corpse had their faces frozen in unmistakeable fear.
She shuddered.
"Head Scout Harding!"
She jumped and yelped.
"Andraste's ass Phillip, don't do that!" She snapped at the young Elven boy. He was good at scouting with his light frame and had a knack for finding good hiding and observation spots.
He was a bit miscevious though, being only 18 or so he said.
He chuckled and apologized before becoming serious.
"We have picked up the trail of whatever was hunting these Templars." He motioned to the grizzly scene in the bottom of the valley.
"They're close. Closer than ever before. They seem to be hunting another group of Templars. If we hurry, we can seem them in action." He said while marking her map with a crossroad.
She nodded.
"Let's see who, or what they are. Prepare everyone's equipment and enchant all weapons. I want to take no chances against... whatever they are. We stay out of sight and do not attack them unless they see us. I don't want to end up like them." She motioned to the Templars in the valley.
Phillip nodded and bounded away, calling for a runner.
The rest of the group broke camp and erased all signs of them having been there.
Several hours passed and after a hard march the scouts, 20 in all, had made it to the crossroads with little incident.
They picked a spot chosen by Phillip, one with a good line of sight of the crossroad and a good arc of fire for their bows.
Harding and the rest of the scouts had darkened their features with mud in anticipation for the falling night.
She shivered, the cool fall air cutting through her leather armor and lightweight tunic, and signaled to her team to keep their eyes open.
The Templar caravan would be showing any time...
Now.
They heard the carriage and the step of armored boots as the caravan closed in.
They were Red Templars. One could see from the haze of malignance radiating from the more human ones. The horridly mutated monsters on the flanks were obvious in their horror. They even had a Behemoth with them, it's sickening moans and giant crystalline growth causing some of the scouts to gag.
The column moved, even the horses twitched with corruption as they neared the crossroads.
Harding kept still and warned her scouts to not engage. They had no way to beat the Behemoth nor the mutated monsters without extreme casualties.
The next events happened so quickly, that Harding could've swore they were simultaneous.
As one, three of the mutant horror's heads exploded in a fountain of gore. The rest of the column suffered similar fates with muffled explosions taking the Red Templar's lives.
Some popped like balloons as whatever magic struck them in the chest. Others had their heads removed and others lost limbs.
She saw movement behind the Behemoth, something large, larger than anything else on the field. It threw something large and cylindrical and seconds later the Behemoth exploded as a wave of heat washed over the scouts.
They were some ways away, so for the heat to be felt by them, it had to be immeasurably powerful.
Then it was over.
Less than a second had passed by the time the first death and the last death had occurred.
Harding felt a chill run up her spine as beings that had caused this stepped into view.
Even her keen eyes hadn't seen them in their hiding spots and with their massive physiques, that was impressive.
Each was larger than a Qunari in height and width and they were encased in the thickest armor she had ever seen and they possessed weapons similar to what the Qunari dreadnoughts used in sound and smell.
Yet then moved with grace and speed unbefitting their size. Where they should be clumsy and bulky, they were fluid and precise.
What are they!? She asked herself, fear causing a cold sweat to form on her brow.
One bedecked in knives and a shoulder pad with a skull surround fed by a red halo moved to inspect the Behemoth.
Not that there was much to inspect.
The remains were a charred and melted slag pile on the road. Whatever magics or technology they used, these beings just made a mockery of a beast that had taken everything the Harald had just to put one down.
She was about to tell her scouts to move when one of them shrieked.
She turned, bow at the ready with an enchanted arrow knocked and gasped.
A skull.
There were five of them from what she could see. And she barely came up to their knees.
They were even more massive up close with power radiating from their massive bulk.
She loosed the arrow and it struck home, the explosion of magical energy catching the brute squarely in the arm.
Her eyes widened when she saw she'd done next to nothing against the armored pauldron.
The next seconds were a panicked blur as her scouts fought and died.
The skull faced monsters shouted and many scouts froze in place out of fear as knives longer than she was tall cut them to pieces and weapons akin to the handheld ones their comrades used punched through leather and bodies as if they were parchment.
Phillip shoved her and she saw a blade land in his chest as she tumbled down the ravine and passed out.
Present day
Harding shuddered as the memories and the fear came back. She was strong willed and of iron resolve but this had clearly shaken her. The rest of the advisors were silent as Lavellan sighed, shaking a shiver from her spine.
"We need to know who and what they are. They're clearly no allies of Corypheus, but they're a wild card we can't afford, not now, not after Haven."
Cullen nodded with grim resolve and set out to prepare some semblance of troops. Josephine sent runners to any of her contacts in the area and prepared mercenary contracts if needed. Finally, Leliana sent missives to all her assassins and agents in the area.
The new threat would answer for the blood they've shed.
The Hinterlands
Lieutenant Lucian stalked among the undergrowth of the ancient forest. His Phobos pattern armor was eerily quiet for what it was. He kept his Occulus Bolt Carbine trained on the mutated creature with knives for hands. Whatever it had been exposed to, it was similar to warp mutation in its malevolence but dissimilar to how it spread.
It seemed to be spread through a chemical or stone unique to the world. Those that held the blue kind were largely sane and unaffected. Those that held the red kind grew horrible mutations and were prone to insanity.
Gallus was behind him, sword drawn and his own Phobos armor concealed by a camo cloak and his own warp borne abilities.
The Infiltrator team around him moved with eery silence as they approached the encampment.
There were several of the larger creatures here and he'd seen them raid several settlements and kill or capture any who resisted or couldn't run.
After observing what was happening to them, he acted.
They may not be Imperial Citizens but Lucian felt very strongly about his oath to protect humanity.
So here he was.
"Suppressor Teams Augustus and Callidus, we are in position."
"Acknowledged, ten seconds to target Brother-Lieutenant."
He keyed the vox in and drew his knives. He crept a few meters more before lunging at the beast and burying the knives to their hilt in its back and skull. The creature went limp with a wheeze and he tossed it aside, the blade coming away with tainted blood. He shook them off and sheathed them before bringing his Bolt Carbine back up.
The Suppressors landed on the nearby hill, their grav chutes letting them land safely after their high altitude drop. They immediately went to work with their Accelerator Autocannons, the large caliber rounds began tearing holes into the monsterous creatures and tainted crystals rained down as they howled eerily in pain.
Lucian and his Infiltrators sprung forth, their marksman bolt carbines barking death as the team advanced quickly.
The Eliminator team was picking out leadership, their bolt sniper rifle shots echoing in the forest.
It was over in seconds and Lucian stood at the caged carriage, the occupants were frozen in fear at the sight of the Astartes in front of them.
He couldn't really blame them, not really.
Lucian towered over them all by a long shot.
The Infiltrator Sergeant, Varen, approached him while reloading his bolt carbine.
"Brother-Lieutenant, what shall we do with these people?"
Lucian looked at them. Many were wounded or malnourished, and others were sickly the dull red throb emanating from their bodies showing they were tainted. They were largely isolated from the others.
He pointed to one dressed in slightly more expensive looking clothing than the rest, a noble perhaps, and took off his face mask.
Some gasped not out if fear but out of surprise because he looked human.
"You. What is your name?"
The man jumped.
"J-Jacob. Jacob Ballard."
Lucian maglocked his bolt carbine to the small of his back.
"I need information. I will release you when I have asked my questions, I give you my word."
The man nodded and Lucian effortlessly broke the chain with his hands and swung the iron cage open.
"The rest of you may leave. You are welcome to anything of use in the camp. We have no need for it."
The first few crept to the open cage, expecting this to be some cruel ploy to dash their hope.
Then they stepped out and saw it wasn't a trick.
They were free from those psychopaths at last.
Lucian saw smiles and hugs between loved ones as tears of happiness flowed.
It was making him quite uncomfortable all things considered and he replaced his mask.
The noble, Jacob, had stayed back even though he was shaking with uncontrolled fear.
"Calm." His augmented voice sounded like a growl and made the young man flinch.
"Tell me of this world, of its governments and of... those things." He motioned to the dead Red Templars, left to rot in the rising sun.
Jacob gulped. "Well... right now, you are on the lands of the Kingdom of Ferelden." He began.
Lucian listened silently, coaxing more information out of the man as he began to tell of the events they know as 'Blights' and the events afterwards, culminating in the destruction of a significant religious center in the City-State of Kirkwall. The young man was evidently well schooled as he even told the Astartes of the existence of mages and a brief history of the religious organization known as the Chantry and its military arm, the Templars.
After Lucian got all the information he could from the man, he let him go, as promised.
By that time it was mid morning and before the Astartes melted back into the foliage they heard a loud roar. The looked up, bolt weapons and autocannons ready as a large reptilian beast flew over head without seeing them.
"Raise Captain Cassiel. We have information to act upon. We make for Haven."