Here we go with chapter three, once again thank you to the people following and favoriting this story it really does mean a lot to me, and feel free to comment on anything you think I could have done better on or whatever you might want to see in the future
There may come a day I own 40k, but it is not today
Beginnings
I felt tired and groggy as I opened my eyes, the usual feeling one would associate with waking up from sleeping all night, I looked around for a couple seconds and saw a fire being tended to by someone I didn't recognize from where I was I saw she was around six feet tall with brown hair, there were some sticks with the remains of some animals stuck up beside the fire so the meat could cook, and as I looked up I saw that it was night and once again took a couple seconds to marvel at the beautiful night sky. After a couple seconds of thought I remembered what I was and quickly got up onto my feet and prepared for a possible fight. This movement alerted the person and they turned away from tending the fire and looked at me, the person was female and she had blue eyes, and in her gaze was not fear, disgust, or anger as it should have been, but awe and admiration. That was when my memories from before I passed out came back, and I realized why she was acting this way, the Genestealers Kiss, it changes the body and mind of the person it infects causing them to admire and worship the Genestealers as servants of the divine. The woman then spoke in a somewhat nervous tone,
"G-greetings great one, I see you have awoken, if you want you can have the food I have prepared." As she said this she motioned towards the cooked meat by the fire. As she spoke I could not help but cringe internally, this was not who this woman was, this was nothing but a corrupted copy of whoever she was before, but the deed was done, the most I could do now was try to be a good leader. I wanted to thank her but I didn't think I could speak, then I remembered another ability a certain Genestealer had and decided to test out whether or not I could do it. I looked at the woman and concentrated and then I felt it, almost a click in my mind and I could feel a connection, I then tried to say something simple through it,
"Thank you." I then walked over and took one of the sticks and started tearing into the meat, I found myself surprisingly hungry after I woke up. After learning of my new ability to use telepathy it was quite clear to me, when I passed out it seemed my body evolved into the form of a Genestealer Patriarch, as I looked myself over I only found I was taller and bigger with my claws also being larger I guess I shouldn't have been surprised I probably should have remembered that is what happens to the first genestealer who infects someone in a community. The woman had been standing in shock for a few seconds, she probably didn't expect me to actually be able to speak before composing herself and walking over to sit cross-legged on the other side of the fire. "This is pretty good." I said trying to make this situation a bit less awkward, 'I'm a giant alien and conversation is still something I suck at.' The woman looked pleased at the complement and said,
"Thank you great one." I then asked her a question,
"Why are you calling me "great one"? She looked thoughtful for a moment and then shrugged and said,
"I don't really know, It just felt right, after I woke up earlier today and found you passed out I just sorta knew I should help you, so I pulled you away from the river and looked after you while you slept." It seemed like the infection had caused her to have a strong desire to see me safe but she didn't know why, this also made me curious about something else,
"How long was I asleep?" I said as I set down the first stick I had finished and reached for a second, after not eating cooked food for so long it felt like heaven to eat it once again.
"You were asleep all day and a good portion of the night great one, but don't worry I brought the water back after I hid you so my family isn't going to worry about me." That was relieving I didn't want anyone to worry about any missing people just yet.
As I was eating I started wondering what else this telepathy was capable of, so I tried looking across the link into her mind, 'Well, time to add invasion of privacy to the list of crimes I've committed.' I needed information of the planet, who lived here, there culture, etcetera. What I found was good and bad, the planet was called Riln by the natives and it was mostly a desert planet with the poles being more temperate forests and mountains, across the desert was a crisscross of many large rivers which led to civilizations popping up around these sources of water. The people of the planet once worshipped these rivers each as distinct deities and named the rivers after the deities, or maybe the other way around, it had been so long that no one knew anymore, any city built along a river gained the protection of that rivers deity, this makes the city I was currently outside of, named Lugan, a very important city as it is at a place where two rivers meet it supposedly had the protection of two river deities, named Deltha and Sal. Lugan also had a rather expansive kingdom, at least by the current standards of the planet, it has Lugan and a good amount of towns in the surrounding area making it a rather large city state, a good real world counter part for it would have been Athens or Sparta, a strong regional power, but nothing more. As you might expect the worlds governments ruled with monarchies, with the ruling family supposedly being blessed by the god of the river they were built on, again making Lugan special among the other city states. Those who live in the poles were seen as godless heretics by the desert dwellers and they clashed frequently for centuries, thankfully Lugan wasn't near the poles so it was mostly spared all but the most determined of invasions.
Next I learned of the bad news, the Imperium was on Riln, or Eidilus nine as they called it, Riln and it's natives were in the Bronze Age so the Imperium had little trouble squashing all resistance in a matter of months, they landed on the North Pole and South Pole of the planet, probably preferring to land in forests than the heat of a desert, they easily got the pole dwellers on their side, they then conquered the planet and installed either loyal pole dwelling natives or Imperium officers as the new leaders of the planet, as expected they also outlawed the native religion but the conquest happened only around a century ago so some still pray in secret to the river deities, the Imperium had also pretty quickly moved on because Riln was pretty okay in their eyes, no chaos cultists or terrifying xenos in sight so the planet still has a lot of people who want to see the Imperium gone and the Imperium doesn't care enough to send more people to crack down on them.
Overall, I would have preferred to not have the Imperium to deal with but other than that it was the perfect situation, low Imperium presence, angry locals, complacent military forces, easy pickings. The woman who I had infected was named Saradiel, and she was 23 years old she came from a family of merchants who still worshiped the river deities in secret.
As I finished eating Saradiel asked me a question,
"Great one, may I ask your name?" I was about to respond with my name before realizing how stupid that would sound, a big alien monster named Steve or Miranda or something like that, I proceeded to panic internally trying to think up something that wouldn't sound dumb as hell before blurting out the first thing that came to mind,
"My name is Velz." I cringed internally at the name thinking I may have tried to hard before Saradiel responded by saying,
"Thank you great one, Velz is a name worthy of your greatness." As our short conversation had been going on I had been thinking of a story to go along with the cult I was going to found, and now I decided to put the story I had come up with to the test, I started by shifting the topic and asking Saradiel a question,
"Saradiel, do you know why I am here?" She looked surprised that I knew her name and responded by saying,
"No, great one, I'm afraid I do not know why you have come here." She looked a little disappointed in herself as she said this.
"Well I shall tell you Saradiel, if you are willing to listen." Saradiel looked up and nodded her head, I then continued, "I am not a being of your world of Riln, but a creature of the vast night sky, but I am also not kin to the stars that twinkle on high, I am a being of the dark void in between them, and I am a servant of the power that lurks there." This caused Saradiel eyes to narrow and she said,
"Are you a servant of the invaders?" This surprised me a little, it seemed that even though the Genestealers Kiss was strong it was not absolute,
"No Saradiel, they come from those stars on high to conquer others, the power I serve opposes them and wishes to see your people grow and one day throw off the shackles of the invaders, all they desire from you in return is that you devote yourselves to the gods of the dark void instead of the Emperor the invaders force on you or the river deities who failed you." Saradiel looked conflicted for a few moments, and I understood why, I was asking her to throw away all she knew and what she was raised to believe, but after a few moments she got to her feet, kneeled before me and said,
"Very well, then I vow that I will cast off the deities of the rivers and the Emperor of the invaders and that I will devote myself to the gods of the dark void for the rest of my life." I was both pleased and saddened by this, a small part of me wanted her to return to her senses and run, I would have let her go and just went to a different city, instead though she gave in to the Infection, but now I had my first subordinate, hopefully the first of many that would help keep me safe. I got to my feet and then took one of my large clawed hands and lightly tapped each of her shoulders in a ceremony vaguely reminiscent of a knighting ceremony, while I did this I said,
"I accept your vow Saradiel and as you are the first of your people to accept us I make you my prophet to the people, rise Saradiel." As she rises she looked a little shocked but also quite happy and she said,
"Thank you great one, I shall not fail you." I then responded by saying,
"I know you won't, now return to you're family and stay in hiding, if you can when you are fetching water try to lead one of your fellows away from the group, I shall be watching and will come to you." Saradiel then left the clearing and I was left to ponder my actions alone in the night.
Well, I hope that was an alright chapter, sorry for this one taking longer than usual, as I started actually having to write dialogue this chapter instead of it basically being an internal monologue and I really just had to take more time to think about what I wanted to write, also if your wondering about the Steve or Miranda name thing, I kinda wanted Velz to be an ambiguous character, someone you can kinda project yourself onto so as long as I didn't accidentally gender them in an earlier chapter I want to keep their gender ambiguous, they are a regular 40k loving nerd with a interest in the genestealers thats kinda it for their character. I also saw one of your comments saying you were worried this might turn into a harem story, don't worry I'm not turning this story into something like that, I've never written romance so it'd be terribly written and Velz feels bad enough about brainwashing so I don't think they would want to do that anyway