Has anybody seen the new 40k map that came with the 8th edition? Because there is a planet named "Salem" in the bottom right corner...
In other news, here is a new chapter. Lots of Legion stuff again. Also, remember that young byy that was taken by Caruleon at the end of V2?
Chaos is the Prize chapter 35
"In raising these men to watch over mankind, we have bred a legion of inhumans whose sole purpose is to defend that which they no longer understand. Their duty, borne with pride; their curse, carried with grace - but let it never be forgotten what we have done to Caliban's finest sons.
Unending Imperial ambition has not bred warriors with the warm hearts of men, but angels with the cold hearts of weapons.'
No soul so changed will recover what was lost. No weapon so savage can be wielded without cost."
-The Verbatim, Lutherian Amendments
"Are you leaving already?" Cerin asked as Nox opened the door of the chamber, about to step out.
Nox glanced back at the small Neophyte that followed him to the door. The little guy was so far away from maturity, and Nox found himself strangely kinda hoping he would live long enough to reach full elevation. "I must go. I need to return to Beacon. I have already been away long enough," he said as he stepped outside. But the space behind the door was not empty, there was someone waiting outside, standing in front of a different door close by. A Legionnaire.
"What, you just came back and now you are leaving already," came the soft accented voice and Nox turned to find Tsagaan standing in the main chamber. The Warrior of the Vth Legion stood in front of the XIXth Legion chamber door, seemingly about to enter. What business he could possibly have there, Nox did not bother to guess nor care.
"I need to go," Nox simply grunted as he turned to give Tsagaan a quick look over. The Scar seemed well, which surprised Nox somewhat. He had always thought Tsagaan as very weak and foolish, and was baffled how he yet lived unlike so many others. "Sangur is there and needs me to keep him out of trouble. I must return before they start questioning why I not in the Academy."
"Oh yeah, I heard something about that," Tsagaan mused, before seemingly realizing something. "Wait, the huntsman school you attend is called Beacon, right?"
Nox lifted his brow a bit. "Yes?"
"What a coincidence… " Tsagaan simply replied. Nox almost cared enough to ask what Tsagaan meant by that. "I heard it is a quite… interesting place," Tagaan continued.
"You should take my place," Nox murmured. "You would fit right in all those soft fancy mancy kids playing warriors…"
Tasgaan chuckled. "Oh, nothing would ever get me to join such an institute. You know, Azuhrius actually asked if I wanted to come with him, can you imagine?."
Nox was surprised quite a bit by that. The fact that the snake had trusted Tsagaan enough to ask him to join his misadventure baffled Nox. Not because Tagaan was untrustworthy, but because Azuhrius was. "Really? Why didn't you?"
Tsagaan shrugged. "Somebody needs to guard Laguna, and I can't just leave it completely to Slate." He replied lightly. "And I have no faith nor trust in Huntsmen schools. After all, all Emperors and headmasters are liars…" He said with much colder tone.
"You said it," Nox said in agreement. "I leaving now."
Tsagaan nodded "Until we meet again, cousin."
"Yeah, right," Nox snarled to Tsagaan as he turned to go.
Cerin watched his recently discovered brother go, simply looking at his back that was moving away. Why did he have to go? What possible reason could he have to return to this "Beacon" place. Cerin kept looking after Nox until he could see the older Legionnaire no more.
Maybe I should have gone with him.
"Don't worry," Tsagaan said next to Cerin. "You will see you brother again."
Cerin lifted his gaze to look up at the scar faced Legionnaire. "How can you say that for sure?"
Tsagaan smiled slightly as he leaned to grab the door handle of the XIXth Legion Neophyte chamber. "Well of course I can't say for sure, I simply have that kind of feeling." He pushed the door open. "He is a living weapon, and he craves for the company of other living weapons. I am sure you can understand the feeling." Tsagaan entered the room.
Cerin leaned into look in the revealed chamber behind the door. Shrike was in there, sitting in center of the poorly lit room with his legs crossed. There were Neophytes around him, other than just from the XIXth. There were Salamanders, White Scars, Blood angels, and even one very lost looking Death Guard. They were surrounding Shrike, some even climbing onto to sit on his wings that showed no signs of buckling under the weight.
The beaked mask of the oldest Legionnaire rose up from a large book he had been reading to look at Cerin and Tsagaan.
"May we join you, Kierana?" Tsagan asked with respect.
"Oh, yes yes, come in, come in," Shrike chirped hoarsely as he beckoned them in. Tsagaan walked forward and proceeded to take a seat across from Shrike. Shrike's eyes turned to Cerin who was still standing by the door. "Come in, come in, youngling." Shrike rasped. "Come to sit and listed with your cousins."
Cerin walked in, closing the door behind him and taking his place in the circle beside of Neophytes and Tsagaan.
"Come and listen," Shrike said as he lifted the old book in his lap. "Listen, listen as this old raven tells stories of the past. Stories of the Primarch, who was also a raven, the greatest of ravens…"
Nox was heading for the exit, but the route he chose traveled rather close to one particular location in the catacombs. So on a whim, he decided to take one last detour before leaving this cursed place behind.
The space he entered was massive. It was a vast hall, longer than many others the Legions still used. It had once been a simple area of travel between the different locations, but the collapse of many of the forking corridors had caused it to become a large, almost closed chamber instead. The space was rather empty, for the only meaningful things in the hall were hanging from the walls.
Plates of metal, some crafted to a form of some sort like a shield or a flame, were lining the walls, row after row after row on top of each other. Each of them had writing in them, at least a name if nothing else. The Hall of the Fallen it was called, and it was here that only real records of the existence of individual Legionnaires were held.
Each of the metal plates was like a gravestone of a Legion warrior dead in the Long War. The Warriors name and Legion was carved into the metal, as well as any deeds of worth if there were any, but most of them were empty of such things. There were probably a hundred unworthy warriors who had their deed eternalized into the metal, and a thousand warriors who would have deserved litanies of their deed, yet their plate remained empty of such honors.
Nox walked deeper into the walls, the metal plates gleaming in the poorly lighting around him. There were thousands of them. Nox did not know how many, nor did he care to count. He did not want to know.
They were not organized in any way, so warriors from different Legions had their memory immortalized side by size in rag tag collection of the dead. Nox could see names he did not recognize, ame she had not ever heard of. Sometimes a particularly decorated testament of deeds catches his eye, causing him to spare a glance at the memory of some long gone champion.
Most of the plates had a simple Legion symbol in them, or at least a number. Legion identities could be seen reflected on the grave plates as well. Some, like the IIIrd and XIIIth, displaying much more decorations than average, the Colchisian runes on the XVIIth, and the tribalistic imageries of the IInd, Vth and VIth. One particular quirk like this was with the XXth. None of their plates had any honor recordings, every single one of them simply sportted one identical sentence: "A true Alpharius." under the name of the fallen.
"What was won? What was lost? Will our deeds be remembered?" Nox muttered quietly to himself.
As Nox washed his gaze across the hall, he suddenly spotted a person hunched near the other long wall. The robed cultists slave was holding a metal plate, seemingly a new addition to the long list of death.
Nox approached the figure, and the slave turned around as he got closer. The woman was old, her hair showing very visible graying and her face had not been young in years. "My Lord" she said with a slight bow as Nox stopped to loom over her. "Nox…" she whispered after observing him for a moment. "Is that you?"
"It is me," Nox said without much care for the slave, focusing on the metal in her hands. It was a work in progress testament to a dead warrior, one form the XIXth apparently based on the picture of a Raven the slave was in the middle of carving into the piece of metal with a worn tool.
Her name was Siena, and she was the oldest living being in Terra, not counting the immortal Deamon Sythonax of course. She was over three times older than Nox, and had been here in these ruins long before all the currently living Legionnaires had even born. She had seen much over the years, and had survived unlike so many Legionnaires around her. She was the one who took care of updating the Hall of the Fallen.
Her orange brown eyes were slightly paled by the age as he looked at Nox, the wrinkled face portraying a look that Nox did not know how to read. She was missing some of her teeth, and her neck was scarred from a time Legionnaire had tried to strangle her. Nox was pretty sure that particular Legionnaire's skull was still somewhere in Shrike's chambers, from where it was brought forth every year when it was time to "celebrate" the end of Legion Wars and hoisted up into the top of a decorated war tree.
"Are you here for you brothers?" Siena asked, guessing somehow the reason for Nox's visit.
"Where are their records?" Nox replied, for he did know where the plates of the three Legion brothers he had known were, since he had left Terra right after their deaths. The slave pointed to the other side of the hall, at the bottom row.
"How have you been, Nox?" the cultists serf asked as Nox looked at where she was pointing, finding what he was looking for.
Nox did not answer and simply walked away from the slave, leaving her to work. He found the testament of the existence of his brothers side by side, all three of them showing the winged skull of the Legion over their names, but no mention of anything they had done or who they had been. Nox was glad his own name was not hanging alongside them, even as he wished the three pieces of metal were not there in the first place.
The three of them were quite close, by change, to another plate that was a bit higher than them. One form another Legion that was actually sporting some eternalized deeds under the warrior's name. Nox had long ago personally ensured that the dead Legionnaire had received some markings of his life beside his name, that he was slightly less forgotten like so many before him.
The warrior had done something for Nox, something Nox could never repay. It was thanks to this warrior that Nox had something to walk with after the Xenos had mutilated him. Nox flicked the talons of his metal legs subconsciously. The Legionnaire had been a quite resourceful and talented with metalworks, and in this age when talent with weaponcraft were in short supply, his steady hands would have certainly been needed. His steady, firm, Iron Hands.
There was pain. So much pain. And confusion. The confusion was not as tormenting as the pain, but it was an agony completely of its own class. The thoughts…. The thoughts that flooded his head and clawed at him his every waking hour and and even the ones he slumbered in the realm of unconsciousness. The thoughts… It was scary, so scary… because the thoughts were in his head, but they were not his thoughts. Or were they? That scared him even more.
He was changing. He could feel it in his blood, mind and soul. Bit by bit, he was leaving something very human behind, he could sense it. And what was taken away was replaced by… something completely different. Something he could not understand. But he would, in time.
He kept seeing glimpses of things he had not seen before in his life. Fragments of memories that were not his own, dancing hypnotically inside his skull. They offered information one fragment at the time. He could not yet quite decipher any of it, but with every piece the image grew clearer. He kept seeing, hearing and sensing things like the Legion, the War, and something… someone very important called... the Primarch...
Yes, there was pain, but there was meaning in that pain, something that required all the suffering. At first it was only torment of his nerves, but as the time went by, he started to feel the change, the progress. There was helplessness, uncertainty and fear before, but it was all fading away, slowly, slowly… And in return he gained strength, he gained conviction, he gained power… and power was quite intoxicating.
The more he felt the pain reshape him into something more powerful, he came to see his previous life in a completely new way. Humans… Normal Humans, the others, they were so weak. Humans were frail, humans were uncertain, and they were scared of everything… He found he could not understand how anyone could live that way… How the lesser beings could live that way. He did not understand, anymore at least. The more time passed, the more alien all his previous humanity felt like.
Time…
How long had he been here? Where was he? Who was he?
He had a name… yes, he definitely had a name. He had been called Gavin… It felt like he had not been called that in a very long time, despite some small part of him telling it had not been that long. The name was only part of him that stayed with him. It was one of the few aspects of his identity was was not thrown into turmoil by the thoughts that stormed in his head.
His eyes snapped open. Had he been unconscious? Had he been half awake? He did not know. He found he could not move, his limbs and head had been restrained against a flat surface. His eyes moves sloppily, scanning the few things he was able to see without moving his head.
He could see the gray stone ceiling, dotted by few light bulbs that were hanging from haphazard wires. On the his sides, he could see gleaming metal tables, and all sorts of instruments on them he knew not the purpose of.
Yes… the Apothecarion… that's where he was. Where his pain, his change had begun.
Then he saw a face coming from the edge of his vision to loom over him. His vision seemed a bit crocky and it was hard to focus on things, but he could make out the blue hair and green eyes of the Apothecary… Chief Apothecary…
"How do you feel?" A voice asked. It came from the lips of the looming face a bit out of sync with the movements of the mouth. He struggle to bring some focus into himself.
"It… hurts…" he sobbed. "It hurts… so much…"
"I know…" the Chief Apothecary replied. "It is a pain that one will never quite forget. All power requires sacrifice. And pain."
"What… what is happening to me?" He asked with a frail voice. The confusion, the confusion was a terrible feeling. He could not be quite sure what was real anymore, what was just in his head, and the feeling of uncertainty caused him great despair.
"Elevation." The Chief Apothecary said patiently. "You are becoming one of us, brother…"
"I… I…" He could not finish the sentence, his mind or lips failed him, he was not sure which.
The Chief Apothecary took something from one of the tables. It was a needle, a syringe, and after a moment he sunk it into the flesh of the boy in front of him.
He did not feel the needle pierce his skin, his muscles were cramping so hard that the sting of something so small did not register.
"What is your name…" The Chief Apothecary asked as he lifted the syringe filled with blood and observed it.
"Ga… Gavin…" He managed to utter, though his left ear did not hear the words for some reason, causing him to question if he had managed to speak in the first place… "Gavin..." he repeated…
The Chief Apothecary smiled. "Not for long," he said. "Soon you will know what to answer, what I want to hear, when I ask you of your name." He turned half away. " But I guess I need to come up with a new real name for you as well. I will give it some though."
"Why…" Gavin squealed silently. He was not exactly sure what he was asking, or what he was expecting for an answer, but he asked anyway. "Why…"
A small laughter escaped the Chief Apothecary's lips. "You know, I also asked that same question once. Back when it was me on the operation table, going through the implantation procedure. I asked 'Why'."
The Chief Apothecary fixed his gleaming green eyes on Gavin. "And I did not get the answer, not then, for I was not yet part of the Legion. However, after my elevation was complete, I was revealed the answer to the question 'Why'. And what an answer it was, what an answer indeed... It explained everything, much more than what I had intended when I spoke the question. It explained why we, do what we do, why we did what we did long ago, back during the Heresy. It was all revealed to me… All of it..."
"What… what was it?" Gavin asked desperately. He needed to know. He needed to know.
The blue haired boy smirked. "That I cannot tell you, for you are not of the Legion…"
He took something from a metal table."Yet..."
His serpentine smile was wide, and for a moment Gavin though he saw a forked tongue when the Chief Apothecary spoke. "But if you want an answer now… well, for the true Emperor of course," he chuckled to himself.
"W- who?" Gavin asked in confusion. He did not like the confusion. He wanted know something that would make the confusion end. "There… is no... Emperor on Remnant…"
"No, there is not." Chief Apothecary replied as he turned some sharp object to point at Gavin. "We made sure of it..."
He spasmed, and then darkness took him again. Darkness that failed to fully shut out the thoughts and the pain. And especially the confusion.
"Ceuleon!" Came a shout from another chamber.
The head of the Chief Apothecary snapped up from where he was leaning over the unconscious Neophyte. He was in a small chamber, a separate operating room of the main Apothecarium. The recently arrived Neophyte was the the only occupant of the room. There were no other Neophytes in the middle of the elevation procedure, he was the sole project in Ceruleons hands. He was a special case. Ceruleon could not let anyone find out.
"I am Coming!" Ceruleon yelled as he put away his instrument and checked the child's vitals one more time before heading towards the door. He opened the firm lock, slipping out and locking it again from outside. He turned to face the main Apothecarium chamber, and the only other occupant standing near the only exit.
"What is it?" Ceruleon asked as he walked closer to Maroos.
"I need something." Maroos said as his golden eyes curiously looked at the door Cerulean had just locked. "Were you in the middle of something?"
"Just some testing, nothing new." Ceruleon lied effortlessly. "I am constantly trying to improve the survival rates of the implantation procedure. It is a never ending task. What did you need?"
Maroos turned to look at Ceruleon. He had his Crozius and Book of Lorgar with him as he always did, but there was a large backpack hanging over his shoulder that captured Ceruleon's attention. Was he going somewhere?
"Temporary reclamation capsules." The "Dark Apostle" said with his smooth voice, his gaze taking a quick sweep at the chamber as if seeking the objects of his request. "I need some."
"Why?" Ceruleon asked with surprise. The reclamation capsules were sterile containers that could be used to store harvested Genseed for a while if there was no proper Narthecium available. They were simple improvised capsules that with combination with ice dust kept the Geneseed in secure state until it could be stored more permanently. Ceruleon had given them out couple of times to people heading to the surface when there was a hight change of casualties.
"Where are you going?" Ceruleon asked. "Our grand operation is not scheduled till much later this month. All of us are not here yet. We have much preparation to do before that."
Maroos smiled. "This is exactly that, preparation. Me and some others are heading out to Mars to secure a vital part of the mission. Something I know we need to succeed in our attack, I have seen it in the tides of the Warp."
"Mars?!" Ceruleon exclaimed, that one word capturing all of his attention. He definitely had not expected that. Expeditions to the ruins of Mechanicum did not usually end well. The place was crawling with Grimm, and other very nasty things leftover from the times of the Heresy. "Why in the Warp would you go there? What vital part of the mission? This is the first time I am hearing anything like that."
"You did not need to know. Smurfus wanted to keep it a secret until we sent out. I assumed you would not want to join us even if we had asked you, and you are too valuable to risk on a endeavor like this anyway," Maroos explained. "I trust you understand why we need the reclamation capsules."
"I do indeed," Ceruleon said. "You are going to die. Forces of Legionnaires many times the size of anything we can muster have tried laying claim to the treasures of Mars. And we both know how most of them have ended. You will never reach anything worth the risk, or get back alive even if you did."
"We are not going too deep," Maroos assured without convincing Ceruleon one bit. "We are not trying to reach the weapon forges of the deeps, just the upper levels will be enough for our needs. Just give us the capsules, cousin."
Ceruleon observed the Word Bearer for a moment before turning to move for one of the closets lining the walls. He opened it, retrieving a basket holding capsules made of half transparent material. There were caps containing ice dust in the ends that could be activated to cover the container in ice that would keep any organic material sealed inside cool for a limited time. Ceruleon took them and returned to Maroos. "There. Take as many as you need. Try not to use them all…" He said with a dark smirk.
"I hope there will be no need for them, but better to be ready for anything," Maroos said as he picked up several capsules from the basket and moved them into his backback.
"What do hope to achieve with this?" Ceruleon asked as Maroos turned towards the stairs leading out of the Apothecarium. "If you are not after Legion weapons or armor, what is that you hope to find from the upper levels of Mars?" Ceruleon could not guess what this "vital part" was that Maroos thought was possible to retrieve.
Maroos glanced back. "Just one particular, little, almost insignificant, technological achievement of our old Empire…"
The Neophytes crossed their wooden practice swords again, the clank of the barely holding out wood echoing in the small makeshift arena. They were using wooden ones, even though metal ones would not have been much dangerous, because there simply were not metal ones available anywhere for them. Wooden ones were easy to make, even if they had to be replaced rather often, for they wore out quickly in the brutal training no matter the slight durability boost they got from their wielder's Aura.
There were four of the young Legionnaires in the chamber, all from the same Legion. His Legion. He was one of the few who had managed to keep his young brothers from getting killed by Grimm, or their young cousins. During the last recruitment batch, every Legion with the exception of the cult Legions had received four male childs to be implanted with their Progenitor's Geneseed. His was one of the few cases with no fatalities during the implantation, and he was one of the only two Legions that still had all of the original four alive. And he would try to keep it that way. They would wage war, yes, but only after they were mature. When all the other Legions had exhausted their recruit numbers early on.
The Neophytes parted, the two separate duels coming to an end almost at same time. None of them were equal, some were clearly better than others, but they were still able to give each other a challenge. But they would have to get better.
"We need new swords," Dunstan said after he stood up and circled around the Neophytes standing in attention with their practice weapons raised up. He picked up one of the swords, observed it and snapped it effortlessly in half with his armored hand after judging it had reached the end of its road. "You two, go retrieve new ones," He calmly ordered to of his young brothers as he returned to where he had been sitting and observing the sparring matches. He sat down again, just as the two Neophytes of the Ist Legion exited the training chamber.
One of the remaining Neophytes kept practicing sword swings with his weapon without an opponent, striking in fast thrusts and powerful slashes at the air around him. His fighting style was more driven by his fury rather than by technique, but that was not a bad thing. Skill was nothing without the zeal to fuel it. A good warrior, a good Legionnaire, possessed both.
The other of the Legionnaires in the middle of his elevation, the one who was now weaponless because Dunstan had broken his weapon, approached the older Legionnaire. He did not sit down next to Dunstan, but respectfully remained standing by his side as they both observed the practicing Neophyte.
"You are leaving soon, right?" Obsidiel asked from Dunstan.
"Yes," The older brother said as he rested his hand on the pommel of his black sword that was standing point to the floor in front of him. His collapsible helmet was open, showing his face as he glanced at the Neophyte. "Keep you brothers in check while I am gone. No fighting with the other Legion in any circumstances. If I come back and find that any of you have died, I am going to make the survivors suffer."
"We will not disappoint you!" Obsidiel said with conviction.
"Make sure that you do not," Dunstan simply replied.
The two of them were quiet for a moment, simply watching their brother spar against an imaginary opponent. The boy was making some small sloppy mistakes now that he did not actually have an enemy trying to best him. His footwork was too slow, his stance poor at times. But Dunstan did not say anything. Dunstan suffered the Neophyte's imperfection rather than remarked about it. He would get better when he got actual battle experience, no need to humiliate him front of his brother for something small like that. Dunstan would have liked not to antagonize his younger cousins against each other. Let them have have their rivalries, but it had to be controlled. He had to control their young passion and impulses.
"The times are changing…" Dunstan said quietly to Obsidiel. "We will be not caged by these old ruins much longer, one way or the other. The outside world is no longer but a distant dream to us, like has been to those before us."
"Our rise is inevitable," Obsidiel said confidently, and Dunstan wanted to believe those words. It was tempting to believe in them, but one must not become blinded by such thoughts. Fate was not a certainty, but an unwritten path forged into form by those strong enough to shape it. But there were always countless others on that road as well, eager to bend the future into their image. A certain caution had to be maintained in everything.
"Our rise is a possibility, one that we will do everything to achieve," Dunstan said. He knew it did not sound too inspiring, but he did not feel like sounding that way right now.
"It will happen," Obsidiel said with the conviction of youth and inexperience. "You will lead us, the Legion, into glory and victory in the name of the Primarch. I know that."
A small smile actually formed on Dunstan's lips. The Neophytes were curious things. They possessed so much optimism and faith that was not displayed as clearly in the mature Legionnaires, in most cases at least. Their minds were still in the middle of being shaped by the Geneseed they carried in their bodies, and all that hormonal mess in their head made them quite eccentric and eager, just alike an aspiring warrior should be.
"In the name of the Primarch..." Dunstan repeated. There was a small pause before he continued, filled with the silent swoosh of a single moving wooden sword. "There was once thousands of us... Thousands of warriors of Caliban. And now… there are the five of us. Me, you, your brothers."
Dunstan removed his gray eyes from practicing Neophyte in the middle of the room, choosing to focus instead in nothing in particular as his eyes stared blankly and thoughtfully at the gray walls of the chamber. "I think about it often…" he said with quiet voice, almost whispering. "The world. The Imperium is no more, the world outside that has moved on without us. Remnant is now ruled by frightened weaklings that cannot hope to prevail against the might of the beasts. The Primarch is no more. His war against the beasts ended long time ago, yet the beasts are stronger and more numerous than ever…"
"We will end them. Just as we will all our enemies," Obsidiel said, before the Neophyte turned his gaze as the door of the chamber opened. But on the door was not the two brothers with new swords.
Dunstan looked at Maroos of the XVIIth Legion, nodding as he realized it was time to go. He rose up, moving to hang his sword from his belt. He checked his wrist mounted bolt weapon quickly, addressing Obsidiel while he did it. "Keep training, remember my words and heed them," he said to the Neophyte. "I will return soon," he promised as his helm emerged from behind his neck, covering his face from sight with a armored visage of a knight.
He went to Maroos, and the two of them left the training chamber of the Ist Legion behind, with intention of traveling to place that had once been the most advanced sanctum of technological knowledge in the world.
Did anyone actually expect Ceruleon to say something that would provide any real info about anything?
So we are going to Mars, if anyone cares about an insignificant place like that.
Leave a review, if you feel it in your heart, and have a nice day.