Life in the Nightmare Asylum.
*book four of the Women of the Night Lords series*
Chapter 1C
Deep in the magenta glow of the warp, near the eastern fringe of the Ultima Segmentum, all was relatively chaotic as it always was. Daemons battled against other daemons, souls travelled to heavens and hells, and warp predators snatched up and devoured the unwary.
Since the beginning of time this particular patch of pure chaos had been more or less the same, flowing hither and yon with the currents and tempests of the great immaterium. It was chaos, but as chaos went it was rather calm and peaceful chaos.
A nurgling was floating around the currents, not doing anything in particular, just relaxing and taking a nap. For 5897 years this nurgling had existed, ever since a great unclean one puked it out, and life was really good. The nurgling sighed with diseased contentment and stretched his diseased joints.
The nurgling was just thinking about what to do next when something absolutely huge hurtled through the warp and splattered the nurgling in a colossal impact, destroying it and ending it's long life in complete indifference. The huge thing didn't even notice the nurgling splattering against it's Gellar field, a long and mischief filled life snuffed out without so much as an acknowledgment.
The huge hurtling thing continued on it's way through this never before disturbed patch of warp space, obliterating a multitude of local daemonic wildlife with its brutal indifferent passage. In its wake it left a ferocious plasma plume and the occasional bit of jettisoned trash, to the dismay and confusion of the local wildlife.
The huge hurtling space ship, for spaceship it was, had been traveling for some time. It would in fact be traveling for a very long time more before it reached its destination.
As one got closer to the huge dark shape, the distorted bubble of real space trapped inside the Gellar field cleared to reveal a colossal baroque shape. The shape was huge, a full 20 kilometres in length, and dark midnight blue in colour. It was festooned with brutal weaponry from end to end, and in giant blood red letters along the side was painted the words NIGHTMARE ASYLUM.
This ship was the Nightmare Asylum, personal flagship of Chaos Lord Luke Sevenson of the Night Lords Traitor legion. It was a Gloriana Class Command Battleship, like the Primachs of old used to use. It however had been built less than two years ago, using stolen Tau technology, the first of it's kind to be built since the time of the great crusade.
The theft of the technology to build this ship had led to a hugely destructive war with the Tau Empire that left billions of dead in it's wake, a war only won by the Night Lords by manipulating the prideful Ultramarines chapter into doing the bulk of the fighting for them. Playing the Ultramarines and the Tau Empire against each other from the sidelines, the Night Lords had then swooped in at the end of the battle and annihilated the exhausted forces of both sides to claim a sneaky and underhanded victory.
Now with it's holds filled to capacity with loot and it's decks filled with chained and wailing human and Tau slaves, the Nightmare Asylum was embarked upon a lengthy voyage to the Segmentum Solar on the other side of the galaxy.
***...
The hallways and corridors of the Nightmare Asylum were dark and poorly lit. Here and there a high efficiency light emitting diode illuminated occasional sections of deck in harsh bright light, little islands of illumination in a sea of darkness.
Strange things lurked in that darkness, terrible things with horrible jaws, hungry things, silent things. For the most part these horrible things fed on carrion, ripping it from the cadavers that littered the entire ship, but only for the most part. Not everyone returned from the dark.
For such a new ship the Nightmare Asylum was surprisingly filthy. It was a body strewn trash heap, with a never ending carpet of maggots, and flies so thick that the already darkened visibility was reduced to mere meters.
Within this unholy filth cowered chained prisoners of half a dozen different sentient races, mostly human and Tau, all of them filthy and starving. These damned wretches were the source of most of the cadavers, poor unfortunates cursed with not having died yet, like their more fortunate dead comrades.
Amid these wailing unfortunates and mountains of fly strewn filth, a pair of unchained people were walking around in the dark. They moved fearfully, avoiding the light and doing their best to blend in with the swarm of flies.
The huge nameless horrors living in the dark suddenly crashed away with heavy thuds and slithers through the filth, sensing extreme danger radiating from the pair and fleeing from their presence.
From what little the slaves could see of him, the larger of the two was a horribly mutilated man. He had cut up stumps for hands, only his palms remaining and had a bionic speaker implanted into his neck.
The smaller one was a little girl, no older than 11 or 12 at the most. She was very clearly a mutant with bird talons for feet and blue feathers for hair. Her head was capped with a strange high tech looking helmet that was securely locked around her head with thick metal bands under her jaw. The thick metal bands had been locked and backup locked so many times that the sides of her head were covered in a multitude of padlocks, clearly someone had gone to extreme lengths to make sure this helmet stayed on. The helmet itself seemed to pulse with some enormous strain, as though it were containing some terrible force.
Of the two, the little girl was somehow the most dangerous, something about her radiated danger, intense enough to even send the nameless horrors fleeing from her.
Having traveled a sufficient distance, the little girl stopped and squeezed in beside the wailing slaves. She hissed in pain as she gingerly sat down between the slaves. The man silently sat down between another pair of slaves, silent and stealthy as a spider.
The slaves tolerated the pair's presence and resumed their usual wailing lament, a symphony of woe and suffering.
The little girl looked at her wailing neighbours and a look of terrible sympathy entered her face.
In a strangely bird like voice the mutant girl said, "I am so sorry that this happened to you, I tried my best to stop this."
One of the neighbouring slaves stopped wailing and looked at her.
With a broken voice he told her, "You are only a little girl, you didn't do this to us. The chaos lord is the one who did this, it is HE who's name we curse."
The little girl started to cry and she sobbed, "I know! I tried to make Daddy set you free, I tried I really tried but he laughed at me and mother gave me another beating! Mother and Father never listen to me, I really tried my best!"
All the slaves within earshot went silent and looked at the little girl with intense hatred. You could cut the tension in the place with a knife.
"WHO are you?" The slave who had spoken before asked her.
The little girl shivered and wretchedly said, "I am Egg Sevenson, oldest daughter and heir of Chaos Lord Luke Sevenson, born by his wife TigerLily. Please believe me that I tried everything to make Daddy be nice to you! I REALLY tried!"
There was a stunned silence of complete shock as the slaves processed this information. When they did, they grabbed the little girl by the neck and started strangling the life out of her. The mutilated man gave an electronic shout of horror from his neck speaker and savagely beat the slaves with what remained of his hands and feet until the little girl squirmed free, gasping for breath and moving out of range of their wall chains.
"You should not have done that! My parents are on their way now... I am SO sorry for what is about to happen to you!" The little girl croaked sadly through her bruised windpipe.
The slaves wailed in fresh horror that the PARENTS were coming to avenge their daughter!
A truly terrible supernatural presence filled the space, evil and full of rage. It chilled the air with it's tangible evil, filling the slaves with a certainty that they were now in the most terrible danger.
First in ones and twos flies began dropping out of the air dead, getting exponentially more extreme in scope until the air was positively raining dead flies, clearing out a massive space. Inside that space a ball of magenta lightning started to flicker and with a blinding flash the ball exploded outward, setting trash and insects ablaze!
As the blindness from the flash abated the slaves saw something absolutely terrible, far more terrible and deadly then any of the horrors that lurked in the dark! This deadly evil thing was deceptively harmless looking in its physical form. It looked like a rather beautiful woman, a mutant almost identical to the little girl only a fully grown adult. She was floating supernaturally in mid air, wearing the blue robes of a Tzeentch Sorceress and holding a leather belt in one hand. This floating thing radiated terrible power and it's face was a mask of madness and hatred.
The little girl got down on her knees and begged, "Mummy PLEASE don't hurt them! Please have mercy on them!"
The woman did not physically speak but within every mind a terrible rage filled woman's voice roared, "SILENCE!"
The woman glared in the most complete rage and hatred at every slave who had tried to strangle the little girl. The slaves screamed in horror and terror and tried to back away as far as their chains would allow.
A terrible magenta glow surrounded the woman's head and suddenly the slaves floated up off the floor with their arms and legs stretched out and fingers hyperextended. With a sickening snapping sound each of the fingers were bent around in a full twist and tied in a knot, one finger at a time... Slowly...
The slaves shrieked in the most indescribable agony as titanic psychic forces proceeded in tying each arm and each leg into knots with even louder sickening snaps! It was slow and drawn out, absolutely appalling cruelty. When the slaves had run out of body parts to tie in knots, they fell back down to the trash covered floor, still very much alive and conscious.
The woman then turned her terrible attention to the little girl, who silently dropped her pants and bent over, exposing a hideously bruised and beaten backside. The woman flexed the leather belt in her hands viciously.
The terrible woman's voice boomed in every mind, "YOU ALMOST DIED! I KNEW THAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE REDUCED YOUR DAILY BEATINGS! COUNT THE BELT STROKES YOU BRAT!"
The little girl cowered in fearful obedience as the woman administered a brutal and excessive beating with the belt. The girl counted out 99 blows before the woman finally stopped.
The little girl was shrieking with agony and the mutilated man had a very pained and angry look on his face.
"I don't care what you think about how I discipline my own daughter. You are lucky that you just saved her life, as long as you continue to protect her I will resist the urge to kill you!" The woman's voice said coldly in every mind, apparently directed at the mutilated man who's mind she seemed to be reading.
The mutilated man glared at her in intense hatred and the woman psychically said, "FINE, but you better keep her safe!"
With that the woman grabbed the little girl and the man, and with a magenta flash the three vanished in a teleportation jump.
The wretched slaves who had their body parts tied in knots wailed in absolute horror when they realised that she had gone without putting them out of their agonising misery! She had just left them like THIS, still living and conscious!
They wailed for a long time in the most indescribable agony, begging and pleading for the horrible things that lurk in the dark to rip out their throats and put them out of their suffering. For once those horrible hungry nameless horrors did not return to the corridor, shunning the smell of the terrible woman. The slaves wailed and pleaded for death, but death it seems wanted nothing to do with them...
***...
Egg Sevenson was in tears, her bottom was red and swollen, burning with pain from the savage belting! It just hurt so BADLY!
Egg clung fearfully to her abusive mother, desperate to appease her.
Mother looked at Egg with deranged overprotective eyes, eyes burning with maniacal obsession and psychotic love.
"I love you so much my beloved daughter. You have no idea how much I love you! You precious, priceless thing! I would kill for you! I would DIE for you! No cost is too great to keep you safe!" Mother's crazed voice said faintly in Egg's mind, muffled somewhat by the helmet.
"I love you too mother!" Egg said desperately, absolutely terrified.
"Do not lie to me! You HATE me! You don't see that I am beating you to protect you from yourself! You MUST be protected!" Mother replied maniacally.
Egg got down on the floor and grovelled before her batshit crazy mother.
"ENOUGH! You have abused my child enough for one afternoon!" Came the deep booming voice of her father from his command throne.
"DADDY!" Egg wailed with desperation and ran with all her might and nestled in his protective lap.
Egg felt the reassuring touch of her father's deactivated lightning claw palm gingerly cover her backside protectively. Mummy glared but Daddy held her stare until she looked away subserviently. Egg beamed at her father, he had just saved her!
With Chaos Lord Luke Sevenson protecting her, Egg was absolutely untouchable. Daddy's lap was by far the safest place to be in the entire Nightmare Asylum.
Daddy was a huge and ancient space marine. He was over 8 feet tall and he wore a suit of terminator armour, though he wore normal clothes in the forbidden sanctuary of the family home. Egg was one of the few mortals who had access to the personal chambers of the Chaos Lord's royal family, the privileges of being his daughter.
Daddy was a very very bad person, a very evil person. The psychologists said that Daddy was a "failed psychopath", apparently meaning that he was a psychopath who had gained just enough conscience to be able to love certain people (and ONLY those certain people). Egg was very very fortunate to be one of those few people who Daddy loved.
Daddy was a serial killer AND a serial rapist AND a war criminal AND about a million other bad things. Most recently Daddy had performed genocide against millions of poor Tau in a disgusting excess of sickening violence.
Egg sobbed her eyes out in this brutal despot's lap, and he looked down on her with a vague flicker of pity and affection, dim empathy flickering in his psychotic mind.
"Your mother means well, she just gets a little crazy with the discipline." Her father said tenderly.
"I have not been able to sit down for months Daddy! How much longer must I be punished?" Egg pleaded in tears.
Her father turned his terrible gaze and glared at her mother and said, "I wonder that myself. I grow tired of seeing my heir constantly suffer for something long in the past."
"She has still not learned her lesson enough! She needs to have all thoughts of suicide completely beaten out of her! I am not seeing enough progress!" Mother's voice angrily replied in their minds.
The chaos lord and his daughter exchanged an incredulous look and the chaos lord pulled out his bolt pistol and shot at Egg's mother.
The bolter rounds stopped in midair, caught by mother's psychic shield. This had only been a warning shot, not intended to kill her. Mother froze in apprehension and slowly raised her palms in peace as other nearby chaos space marines trained their weapons on her.
The Chaos Lord spoke, "I am not surprised that my daughter is suicidal with you beating her so much. You will only drive her to suicide if you punish her anymore. As Lord of this warband I command that my daughter has been punished enough for threatening suicide. Any more violence towards her will be SEVERELY punished, do I make myself clear?"
Mother paused for a long moment before eventually hissing, "Yes Master."