The Veil of Rot : Prologue
I have seen a glorious vision. It compels me to act. The vast garden of my god stretching out in all directions. Every exquisite detail of his pock marked providence like a rare flower. Every silhouette blooming and drooping against a bleak pale atmosphere. Thick clouds of toxins and bacteria lazily churn amidst the buzzing drones of the winged carriers. Carriers of my father's gifts. The hum of the daemon-insects wash over the audible spheres, and dissonant pipes wail and sputter over sullen drums, dim gongs, and denuded bells.
With each step I make, pressing the earth beneath my ancient tactical dreadnaught armour, the craters become verdant with the decay that I too carry, that I too spread. We advance, the Veil of Rot. We are the new way. Entropy and Immortal. We are the truth, and complete, bringing what we touch into our fold. A static existence of eternal decay. Bear witness to this, the advent of Heaven to the galaxy, to all creation.
Many revile our approach. We tread to our destination none the less. It matters not what those do or think who have not had the veil lifted from their stares. The shutters of ignorance, the cobwebs of lies. We bear a new veil; one of betrothment. We adorn it evenly over every face we encounter. Beyond this veil, is the eternal paradise of the garden, the prize and gift of every bride of Nurgle.
And for those who do not kneel before the death god, and take on his gift as a blessing, then it will be ours alone to be blessed. For with their death from our plague, we are strengthened, and a new seed is planted in the garden. Like a creeping mold carpet, our wake is so. The loamy muck for the things of Nurgle to spawn, and a bed for those who oppose us to lay. It is true that those who take the veil willingly are prized of my god, and it should be so, for I know the glory of his gift.
The chimes sound dirty. The jangle of all manner of cacophony fills the air. Relic armaments and vehicles of the 30th millenia sound dull tones from reactors emmitting through rot filled grills. Even the rusted ceramite chainmail can be picked out with a keen ear, clanking with each heavy step from armour of antiquity. Brass bells mournfully ding and clang. And the buzzing. All these things made Lerol disgusted to the extreme.
The astartes clad in blue power armour was a librarian among his brethren, one who was endowed with vast psychic capabilities. He could do some to protect his brothers from the curses of the foul plague god's minions, but this force had a remarkable psyker among it's ranks. He could sense the terrible aura in the warp of the sorceror, and he found himself repeating so often in his mind,
"Emperor protect us."
This planet was a bed of chaos and corruption. The Crimson Fists stationed here and tasked with reclaiming the zone for the Imperium were fighting a cruel war of attrition. There was the order, and there was the reality. This place was fit only for the flame. A mere fraction of the world remained as the staging area for the Ultramarine's successors attacks on the Fraternitas Musca's infested territories.
A heretical cult devoted to the chaos god Nurgle, Fraternitas Musca (FM) ; the Brotherhood ofthe Fly, are servants to a Death Guard Vectorium, the Veil of Rot. Their mad vision of reality spreads to these cultists like the creeping infections the chaos warband spawn.
Picts and vox emmissions have divulged ; having either being salvaged or intercepted. Haggard spoken rhetoric spewed from daemon corrupt lips, utterances of zealous fervor toward their new resolve to bring all life into a state of permanent sickness. Hideous images of the once astartes, in terrifying detail committing to their sole purpose-enforcement.
Lerol too was an astartes, and understood the tactics and attitude of his brothers. He shuddered to consider it. These swollen plague marines are his brothers. They hail from the Death Guard Legion, who betrayed the Empepor of Mankind over ten-thousand years ago. Although it was a seemingly blasphemous thought, it remained true. Brothers.
This mission for the Crimson Fist detachment was one that was rapidly coming apart. The Captain also knew. Davion looked on at the incoming from a screen attached to a servo skull accompanying him ; a large mass of marching Death Guard, and waves of the flies, the weak but numerous heretics and cultist of the FM. Imperial tanks fallen to chaos rumbled and bellowed autocannon fire on the defenses of their holdings.
Davion was awestruck to see a mass of corrupted terminators teleport a mere 100 or so yards from his position. At first it was a dark mass of swirling gases- a smokey wriggling of condensed daemon insects swarming. Then the silhouettes of ghastly relics emerged. Their tactical dreadnaught armour was covered in streaks of pus, oil, errosion and rust. The exposed flesh was pallid and greenish, swollen and cancerous. Some were sunken and wasted, looking as true corpses given some eldritch power to move.
It was the end for this particular army of Crimson Fists, Davion and Lorel knew it. A tactical retreat was all that was left for the astartes-or utter annihilation. Every one of his honor guard knew as well, but stood valiantly ready for orders, and awaiting the force of Death Guard trudging toward them. Among the Blightlords a psyker was presently casting.
The sorceror was wreathed in warp light energy as his force axe held aloft cackled along with the display. Wind whirled about him churning the toxic clouds surrounding the squad, and Lerol's eyes blazed with white blue fire as the psyker was assaulted with a wave of sickness, a disturbance in the warp. The sorceror was opening a door for daemons to be wrought through. Lerol tried with all his will to blast the enemy psyker off his course, but to no avail; the ancient astartes was successful.
"The Sorceror is summoning!" The librarian stated strainingly.
"Tactical evacuation! Lerol, place a barrier! We fall back to the teleportarium!" Bellowed Davion.
Choleryngius was home on the battlefield, marching toward the enemy steadily. A retinue of plaguebearers-a humanoid daemon of Nurgle-crept up the zone on the Chaos Lord's left flank. Behind them, beasts surround and act as a vanguard for the warband's sorceror, who had just prior summoned all of them. A massive astartes, even by their standards-and a psyker of immense and terrible power. Surrounding Choleryingius, are his Blightlords.
The ferrymen had made their birth into the heart of the enemy, and sought to land a mortal strike to the army's most crucial aspect; it's leader. They were getting close...
A wall of light blue energy appeared in the chokepoint before and after Choleryingius and his Blightlords,trapping them in a confined area of the battlefield just a few yards from the Librarian's position. Slightly elevated, the Crimson Fists didn't hesitate to use the opening for their escape. The force wall had also divided the Death Guard's oncoming retinue of daemons and sorceror, and having utilized a great deal of energy to summon the plagubearers and beasts, the sorceror merely looked on steadily through his visor, this barrier would soon be sundered.
Dashing toward an entrance to an underground passage, the Crimson Fists exited. The captain making the order for all squads to fall back to the teleportarium, and for every position with ships to immediately evacuate. It would be a short and quick route for the astartes to enter the rooms where they would be teleported back to their vessels in orbit. Many never made it.
All over the world the remaining loyal astartes who could make their escape did so. Devastated, and in dire need of replenishment and repair, the Crimson Fists also quickly fled the outer spaces they occupied around the planet. Davion bitterly resigned to defeat, and was prodded by his resentful spirit to vow exterminatus on these vile betrayers. This disgraceful deed would know retribution in time.