Day 20


The tear was a strange thing, not least of which because Tide's sight was two-fold in his Domain. On the one hand, he saw the tear as someone like Purilla would have seen it. A rip in the void, held open by countless strands of silk, nigh-invisible to behold, yet impossibly strong. Through the gap was a realm of hellish madness and horrors, both tantalizing and revolting, as infinitely complex as the universe's inner workings.

On the other hand… When he 'saw' the tear with the aid of Neural Physics, it wasn't so much a tear as a looking glass. The realm he saw wasn't orderly, by any means, but there was something of a way of things that he could discern. Not a hierarchy or a food chain, but something like those material concepts.

Within the roiling thoughts and emotions that made up the Warp were predators that prowled its depths, feeding on the very waters they swam through and upon one another. Of course, this was a metaphor for a realm that could not be properly defined in any language, even its own. Even Tide had difficulty understanding the concepts that he was being shown, almost like a sort of sensory overload. To put it simply… he wasn't intelligent enough to understand the Warp at its most fundamental.

Yet.

To continue the metaphor, the predators were varied and utterly unique. They, like Vra'kzil had been, were made up of fractured thoughts and emotions, the waters given shape and pseudo-existence. Most were 'small', weak, with little power in them, but numerous, like a swarm of some kind of… vicious bacteria. He imagined these to be the 'Least Daemons', like the microscopic daemons Nurgle used for its plagues. Some were of a size like Vra'kzil and these ones usually fed on one another or the smaller entities. Lesser daemons, likely.

Others were titanic, leviathans that drifted along the Warp's currents, like great whales that opened their maws wide and sucked in countless entities. Greater Daemons. These were the ones Tide was most wary of, watching them carefully, searching for any sign of reaction at his presence. Fortunately, they never noticed him. Whatever power he had to hide from the gaze of creatures like Vra'kzil seemed to work on Greater Daemons as well.

Would it work on the Ruinous Powers? The Emperor? Tide wasn't sure, but he also wasn't really interested in testing such a thing. While he had defeated Vra'kzil easily enough, a single Greater Daemon, even the smallest of which had possessed hundreds to thousands to an unimaginably greater number times the power of the bird daemon, had been enough to convince him that he was just a medium-sized fish in an ocean vaster than he could conceive of.

Each daemon was unique, but some were more different than others. Something akin to colors of certain emotions and thoughts were ascribed to each of them. By far the most common were shades of green, red, blue, and pink. It didn't take a genius to figure out who those daemons swore allegiance to. Daemons of the four Ruinous Powers were by far the most active and aggressive, mainly towards one another. The Reds were highly confrontational, the Greens were more placid if dauntless in the face of the others, while the Pinks darted in and out to strike with wicked glee, all the while the Blues struck in areas seemingly both random and calculated, foiling the designs of the other three.

What was more interesting, at least to Tide, were those entities that lacked any of the four main 'colors'. They were far fewer in number and varied in size, power, and aggressiveness. Some were even more vicious then the Reds, others stiller than the Greens. They struck where they pleased, not guided by any greater force Tide was aware of, not participants in the larger game, but actors in it regardless. Some, like the daemons, were fractured, wrought from a larger whole, but others seemed whole.

From what he knew, Warhammer Fantasy had many minor Chaos deities, but in 40k most attention was given to the Ruinous Powers, with only a few entities like Vashtorr and Be'lakor being independent of them, at least to a degree. Were these powers gone entirely or simply less active? Some were only the size of Least Daemons, others as large as the Greater Daemons he had seen.

Those questions fell from his mind after he, almost absentmindedly, cast his gaze further afield. In the distance, he could see things floating in this ocean of psychic power. Far away yet indescribably close, four icebergs the size of what could have been whole galaxies floated in the roiling waters, surrounded by predators so titanic they may have been the size of stars. They seemed to cast everything in their shadow, forming a dark cloud between them all, beyond which he could see only the barest flashes of golden lightning, like the flickering sun behind the canopy of a forest. These icebergs were beyond anything he had seen and, even with all his power, he could not fathom the roiling and raw power contained within each of them.

The Chaos Gods, parasites though they were, had more than enough power to back up their claims. And yet, Tide could tell that this was only the barest fraction of their might, like the shadow cast by the sun during an eclipse. If he saw them as they truly were, even with the mental strength of millions of humans, he'd likely go mad.

He tore his gaze away from those four blights on reality, hoping their gazes did not wander from their endless conflict with the Emperor. He did not need the attention of the gods in this place.

Tide waited for a long while, at least for him. For the Materium, the amount of time passing was relatively slow, a few seconds for them, days for his mind. His ability to slow the passage of time, at least in his Domain, had expanded greatly.

The Warp was strange in how time worked for it. Perhaps it was because of the local Warp Storm, but the waves seemed disturbed, rippling. Despite this, the daemons seemed fine, assuming viciousness was their natural state, though it wasn't like he had many encounters with them.

The flow of time, likely as a result of the storm, was distorted. It seemed to skip forward and back in places, move slower or faster than the Materium. However, there was a pattern in it, somehow. Every four changes, it reverted back to time slowing down. Always after four changes. There wasn't any specific amount of time the changes came upon, the types of changes weren't in any way connected from what he could tell, except for that fourth change.

Was Tzeentch fucking with him? He watched the roiling madness for hours, but he couldn't find a pattern beyond the fourth repeating change.

He was aware this was something that often drove people mad in the Warhammer setting. Staring directly into the Warp was… unhealthy for most. He might have had some resistance to it, but he couldn't say if he was outright immune. He wasn't going to bet on it.

To that end, he receded from his studies. He may have resolved to study the Warp to better understand and combat it, but he wouldn't let himself get so caught up in it that he drew attention away from other, more immediate matters.

The Sisters of Battle were coming to Malum and it was clear which enemy would be their first target. As far as they knew, the western cities were not corrupted so much as simply led by traitors. That would already be a bloody affair where innocents would die. More concerningly, however, an attack would almost certainly result in the discovery of the Chaos cult and result in a much more thorough purge of the city.

He would prefer they attack the Genestealers or the Orks, but it seemed the Inquisitor had 'explicitly' forbidden them from attacking those enemies for the moment. The traitors were a loophole that the canoness had exploited and forced the Inquisitor to accept. How long that would last would depend, but he doubted Ellen would take it lying down. From what Purilla knew, Deimos was already left bustling with the preparations for their regiments to strike out and shatter the Orks besieging it.

He had held off from infecting anyone else in Deimos beyond Purilla and the tech-priest assistant and had chosen not to infect their lungs to prevent his normal method of spreading. If he could, he would prefer Ellen to be the first one he infects, if only to remove that particular threat to him. However, she had not called for Purilla, nor had she returned to the spires ever since her meeting with the Lord-General, instead heading down to the mustering fields where her army was assembling.

Tide wasn't sure the forces the Orks had at their disposal, but they were a varied army with infantry and heavy vehicles. With the benefit of Deimos' high walls and heavy defenses that was not so much of a problem, but the guard regiments Monstrum raised were solely of the infantry variety. The planet had the capacity to manufacture some of the smaller and more standard pattern of tanks and transports, but not in sufficient numbers to support twelve regiments, not against the horde of Orks.

Whether the infantry alone could carry the day was a question Tide didn't have an answer to. The Guard were stubborn and well-trained, but they were still just cannon fodder compared to many of the threats in the galaxy, Orks included.

He was less worried about his own infantry managing the task of dealing with the Orks. Ignoring the fact that he had essentially already made them out to be mobile bioweapons against xenos thanks to a certain 'Organism-04', he could expend their numbers without issue since the eight regiments the Sisters would be receiving command of were solely made up of Puppets, each with zero qualms whatsoever about giving up their life for the mission.

Tide's mission, however, not the Sisters'. If they sought to outright purge the hive cities… He wasn't sure he could allow that to happen, even if it meant revealing his presence to a greater degree than he already had or using whatever means he could to stop them.

Ethics be damned.

Ahsael sat in his throne, his Rubric Marine standing to his side, ever watchful and ever silent, empty gaze looking out upon the gathered sorcerers and servants.

Unlike some of his brothers in the Thousand Sons, Ahsael was not one so disinclined towards their patron god's brothers and their followers. While worshippers of the Architect by far made up the bulk of his forces, at least those that knew the truth of the organization he had spent decades so painfully handcrafting, they were far from the only members. Khorne's bloodthirsty butchers made useful attack dogs in the underhive, provided the proper guidance and occasional disciplinary action. Slaanesh's seducers and courtesans made excellent infiltrators and recruiters both, whether among the starved and deprived impoverished or the eccentric and gluttonous nobility. And even Nurgle's wretches could prove useful, though Ahsael harbored more disdain for them than even those followers of the other gods.

The leaders from these groups were the ones he had called, alongside Uirus, Ahsael's fellow brother of the Thousand Sons. While the man was not as powerful as Ahsael in the sorcerous arts, he was an adept warrior and, most importantly, a symbol of just how outmatched the other gods were on this world. After all, he was the only other Space Marine on this world, not counting the dust-filled Rubric Marine, and an ardent worshipper of Tzeentch.

"Why have you called us?" The question was blunt, as expected from the foremost of Khorne's worshippers on Monstrum, a beastman named Kalak Bronze-Blood. Of all those in attendance, he was the only one that came near to not just the height but also the bulk of a space marine, standing nearly seven-and-a-half feet tall with a frame that rippled with powerful muscle and barely contained rage. His ram horns glinted in the low light of the chambers, having been replaced by bronze fused to his skull some years ago. This was one of his calmer moments, shown by the fact that he was not currently frothing at the mouth and his horizontal, slit-like pupils showed no signs of the Blood God's frenzying madness, though his cloven hooves beat and scraped against the carpeted floor occasionally, tearing up the fine fabrics of the city governor's former audience chamber.

"Consider this a review, of sorts," Ahsael began, ignoring the provocative and nearing disrespectful tone of Kalak. Large and strong he might have been for a mortal, he was no Space Marine, much less a Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons. His disrespect mattered little, his opinions even less so. "Kalak, since you seem so eager, you may begin. Tell me, what have your… warriors accomplished." It was hard to keep the sneer from his voice, but he managed it somehow.

"We have slaughtered many of the greenskins!" Kalak said, his fur-covered chest puffing out with pride and boastfulness. On the other side of the chamber, the silk-clad Lord Janiel rolled his eyes and feigned a yawn, covering his mouth with one manicured hand. "Their skulls have made excellent trophies!"

"So I see," Ahsael said, noting the pauldrons Kalak had made from the heads of two such Orks. They were splattered with blood that could have been leftover from the materials used or something… fresher. "And what else?"

Kalak snorted air, not in a prideful manner, but more out of confusion. Large, strong, brutal… but not exactly cunning. "We have done as the Blood God demanded! Blood has flowed and yet more will in the coming battles! What else could there be to report!"

"Perhaps you'd like to tell our lord of your casualties in those battles you waged," Uirus spoke up, the helmeted space marine making no effort to hide his mocking tone. "Assuming you can even count that high."

Kalak rounded on the space marine, blowing puff of steaming air out from his snout and looking all like the bull about to charge that he was, but held himself back, barely. Kalak, for all he espoused the virtues favored by Khorne, was not so completely taken by the Blood God yet and knew better than to charge a Space Marine like Uirus… Probably.

"The weak perished," Kalak gnashed with a snarl. "Their deaths have only made us stronger!"

"You've lost half your braying cultists," Uirus pointed out.

"And the xenos fled screaming from the walls of Janus because of us!" Kalak spat, a sneer coming across clearly even upon his mutated lips. "You're welcome."

It was Uirus' turn to snarl, coming to face the beastman, hand falling to the hilt of his khopesh at his side. His body radiated hostility and Ahsael could feel the sorcerous power beginning to build up around his brother's free hand. To his credit or to his folly, the beastman did not back down or shy away, despite doubtlessly being able to feel something.

"Enough," Ahsael said and the feeling bled away, as did the hostility in Uirus' stance, if not in his mind. His brother turned away from Kalak, who seemed almost disappointed rather than relieved as he should have been. "Janiel, how do your pleasure cults fare?"

Janiel strutted forward, ignoring the glower from Kalak that the beastman shot him. Of the three foremost servants of the other gods on Monstrum, Janiel was by far the one who could most easily pass for human. His face was well tended to and his frame was not overly monstrous or tainted by more obvious mutations, hidden as it was behind thin silk robes. The heavy perfumes that covered him were almost as rancid as a daemon of Nurgle, yet carried in them a tinge of something alluring and seductive. An air of authority, promises of power and, above all, danger hung about him.

"Work continues in Ate, but Eris' governor is nearly ours, as is much of his court." Janiel's voice was smooth and dark, like a serpent's. Many mortals had been lured into the grasp of Slaanesh by that voice, but it had little effect on a champion of Tzeentch, beyond marking him as one to watch carefully. "We've also begun reaching out to the officers of the local defense forces tere. While they will obey their governors, it will be much easier to move more openly if they are fully ours."

Ahsael nodded, cutting off Janiel before he could continue. Many among Slaanesh's lot were as enraptured by the sound of their own voice as others were, perhaps even more so. A swift end was preferable and it kept Janiel aware of his position in the order of things. Finally, almost reluctantly, Ahsael turned his gaze upon the final individual under this little 'review'.

"Doctor Ferrik, what have you learned from your studies?"

The jubilant mass of pale flesh and jolly mannerisms that was Doctor Ferrik glanced up, having been distracted by some document on his dataslate. A wide, loathsome grin stretched his face disproportionately and the doctor chortled in a way that set his flesh aquiver, looking as though it might slough off him in clumps. "My initial examinations have proven illuminating on the nature of the genestealers and their infections! While purely biological in how they infect, their appears to be a Warp element that connects the mind of the drones to a greater mind."

Ahsael knew this already, but he pretended to be interested in the Nurgle-worshipper's findings. "And might we be able to disrupt this connection?"

"Possibly," Ferrik admitted, a wide frown coming across his face. While not as 'gifted' as many other followers of Nurgle, even some on Monstrum, Ferrik had proven intelligent and, most intriguingly, curious in acquiring new knowledge in a way that was almost Tzeentchian. By making him the leader of the Plague God's faction and focusing him and his cultists on a relatively harmless task, Ahsael could ensure they stayed out of the way until they were needed or could be disposed of without issue. "It would require an immense amount of psychic power or a very focused and precise attack."

Ahsael knew that as well. These were not the first genestealers he had encountered and studied, nor even the first outside this cursed region of space. However, they were acting strangely, even more so than most of the cults that had been twisted by the Ghoul Stars. This strangeness, as seemed to be the case more and more, was centered around the city of Malum and whatever strangeness had taken hold there.

"Then I believe you should begin researching into why the genestealers failed in their initial attack upon Malum," Ahsael stated. "It is possible just such an event occurred there and has somehow been left undetected by others. I will grant you command of twenty regiments to go and free Malum from the Inquisitor's grip. I would ask that you keep your more… obvious afflictions a secret, as the bulk of these regiments have yet to be introduced to the guiding hand of Chaos."

Kalak snorted derisively, while Lord Janiel all but glowered at the Nurgle worshipper, but Uirus was silent.

"Thank you, my lord," Ferrik bowed low, an odd sight that sent a waft of malodorous air towards Ahsael, temporarily overpowering even the exotic scents that covered Janiel. "I shall endeavor to ensure the city falls quickly."

"Another thing," Ahsael stated and all eyes were once more on him. "Word comes from Deimos. The Sisters of Battle have left for Malum via a route unknown to us and hidden from the assaults of the Orks. Presumably, some kind of underground tunnel. They will likely be in Malum by the time you have arrived. While a thousand troops is hardly a grand army, they are not to be underestimated and may prove… difficult for mere defense forces to handle. To that end…"

Ahsael flexed his hand and sorcerous might and the doors into the audience hall swung open. Dragged forward by robed cultists carrying heavy chains, a heavily and ritualistically scarred human man, naked save for a piece of cloth around his waist, stalked forward. Blue flames burned behind his eyes and his movements were stiff and jilted, as though he were unfamiliar with the action of walking and looking around. His flesh seemed to crawl and shift along his bones, like something was shifting underneath and the air grew cold as ice.

"A gift for you, Doctor Ferrik," Ahsael said. "One of a hundred like him. Unleash them as you see fit, but be aware that control is a fickle thing when it comes to daemonhosts."

"Y-yes, my lord," Ferrik said, turning back and bowing low.

Catherine Ellen strode through the mustering grounds in full regalia, her freshly polished and anointed armor gleaming in the buzzing lights of the massive market square that had been requisitioned for the task of holding twelve regiments as they prepared for war. The Inquisitorial Rosette was emblazoned across the black power armor's chestplate in Imperial crimson, outlined in gold.

The Guardsmen who saw her made the sign of the aquila, but she made no gesture in return. The commissars pointed her out, telling the common infantryman that the God-Emperor's own representative, divinely appointed, had been sent to lead them to victory. She ignored them all, moving ever onwards with purpose.

Some Inquisitors preferred to move secretly, believing they could accomplish more from the shadows. Ellen was not one of that lot. The Inquisition's authority was absolute and anyone who denied that was a heretic.

The Lord-Inquisitor who had sent her to Monstrum in the first place did not seem to understand that. Yes, Calistis Hroth was her senior by several centuries and renowned throughout the Ghoul Stars, but she did utilize the authority and recognition that granted her as often as Ellen felt she should have.

There were many threats to the Imperium in the Ghoul Stars. The roving Ork, the hidden genestealer, the subversive Chaos cultist, these were only some among them. Xenos empires ran rampant throughout the Ghoul Stars, whether it was the Togoran Bloodreeks, the wicked Cythor Fiends, or the shapeshifting Thexians, all with their own little empires.

Threats that could have been crushed by Hroth centuries ago. Now, those filthy xenos were likely taking advantage of the Imperium's division and Hroth's inaction.

Ellen would not be so lax. Once this thrice-cursed Warp Storm had ended, she would reunite the Imperial forces of the Ghoul Stars herself and launch a crusade that would scour clean a thousand star systems of the filth and create a bastion of the God-Emperor that would never fall.

Never.

The Broodmind stalked through countless halls and across bridges and in factories. Hordes of screaming cultists mustered at its command, but they were little more important than expendable fodder, loosed like the rounds of one of the autoguns they wielded into the endless tide of greenskins. Its true forces, packs of vicious monsters and mutants with horrific forms and even more terrible powers, waited in the deepest parts of the hives, readying themselves, equipping themselves.

Yet, not all was silent in the darkness of Whiro's burning spires. In one section in the highest towers of the hive the crack of lasfire could still be heard. The shouting of defiance and adulation, not for some xenos false-deity, but for the God-Emperor of Mankind and for Monstrum.

The Broodmind sent pack after pack into this place, intent on slaughtering the last remnants of its enemies, but something disrupted its concentration, its clarity, more than even the taint of these wicked stars and the storm in the ocean had.

Pack after pack, expended like empty cartridges, slain by some threat that, while not great in and of itself, nevertheless refused to die. Refused to break.

On the spires of Deimos, just below the black clouds that covered the world in darkness, all was perfectly still and silent. Even the roaring of the greenskins, the cacophony of the machines and foundries, all the activities of the city far below could not be heard, only seen. Only watched.

In the distance, Warboss Grinhide's roiling horde crashed against the bulwark of the Imperium's defenders again and again, endless in their numbers and perseverance. Yet, the Warboss himself was oddly absent from the battlefield, despite the front gate being the most heavily defended and, as a result, most contested area of the warfront.

Just behind the gate and its stalwart defenders, regiments of the Imperial Guard were massing, preparing for their great push outwards. Catherine Ellen could be seen among them, sometimes, accompanied by her guard of Tempestus Scions.

The Orks were waiting, as much as the greenskins had the capacity for such a thing. More specifically, the Warboss was waiting, lulling its enemies into a false sense of semi-security. Encouraging the belief that all they needed was a single, great push.

He was not so sightless. From the spires above Deimos, he saw all and he comprehended much more. Throughout his observations, he had seen the signs. Ork mobs pulled back, like rabid beasts having their chains yanked upon by their masters. Hordes sitting idly or having their attention turned by a guiding hand towards less valuable targets, simply to keep them busy while the plan ran its course. This Warboss was a tricky one and one that would not reveal himself before the greatest battle yet to come.

The Inquisitor seemed to be preparing to provide that battle, though she had no idea what she was getting herself and her forces into.

Perhaps the Imperial forces would be decimated before the time came. Perhaps they would survive. It did not matter to his mission and, as a result, did not matter to him.

He would wait. He would watch. Until the time came.

On the spires of Deimos, all was perfectly still and silent.