Warp guy

by Dextrode

F

1. 1

AN: The greatest enemy of mine is my muse. It deserves to die a painful death. But alas, I am but a slave, and it is my master, so, I have no other choice but serve her whims.

Spawn from the Well (A Warhammer 40k Self Insert)

Chapter 1

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Do any of you… Who are you? Who the fuck am I talking to? Ah well, I'm just going to chuck it to my slipping sanity. It isn't as if such a thing had been of much use in this particular plane of the universe. Apparently only the insane thrive in this reality. Those who ain't just are not flexible enough to adapt to the myriad apocalypses and shitstorms that happen almost on a daily basis in this reality… or realities. So I'm just going to go with the flow.

Have any of you tasted shit before? Before you ask, no, I have not, as I do not suffer from coprophagia. But I guess I have gotten the next best thing with this screeching thing on a stick I have with me.

The taste is… it's something truly special, but I think we can go on about it after I had made my introduction.

I will not tell you my name. Gods dead and old, you learn pretty quickly that doing that is practically a death sentence here… or anywhere for that matter for beings like me. Not that I had given my name to anyone actually, but ever since I became awake in this plane of existence that seems to run on crack, LSD, nightmare fuel and the wails of billions upon billions of souls I had been kind of protective of my name… to say the least. However when I met the neighbourhood I immediately knew why I had that instinct so deeply instilled into me.

Basically, if anyone knew my name, I would be fucked seven ways to Sunday and possibly being bound into eternal service to whoever heard it or being eaten after a long, loooong torture session just because.

However, labels that you bestow upon yourself are not so damning. Sure, if you use a name someone may also have at the same time both of you would hear whenever it's spoken and if it's of some big shot motherfucker that only shows up to kick bubble-gum and chew ass then they may know who else shares the name. It's pretty much like a name radar. 'Say my name and I will show up' kind of thing. Of course, the more names you have the less powerful this effect is, and a name given cannot be taken back unless forgotten. And you learn pretty quickly that everyone here has some really good memory for those things.

Just ask those multi-limbed giggling pink dribblies with chronic pyromaniacal backstabbing disorder.

So, just for completion's sake, call me Nameless One. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Now you might be asking yourself 'what are you?' since I have such a particular set of quirks. Well, if my wings and beak… oh I did not mention them? Well, simply put, I am a particularly large Fury.

You know those lost and damned souls of psykers that fell to Chaos but never actually picked any one of the Giant Tumors to worship? Yeah that's me. Well… kind off, all that I know is that I look like one… just with an alien beak head and three eyes.

Also my colours are off, because last time that I checked most chaos daemons are not a dull metallic blue with rich cyan and orange trims. Well… maybe Tzeench's army of deluded mad fucks could have those colours… but then again, it's easier to list the colours that Squid Fuck's army of nutjobs hasn't used. And I think they ran out of real colours a few million years ago and decided to make whole new ones just for fun. The most fabulous gay pride parades ever got nothing on these fuckers.

Likewise, another thing that separates me from them is that I am not obsessed with plots and secrets and forbidden knowledge. What I want is to make it to tomorrow… or whatever constitutes a tomorrow in this plane of reality. You kind of need stars and planets to make that.

Thankfully I don't need to sleep as I am unknown species of warp entity. Likewise I don't need to eat.

But I have picked up such a habit. Living in the warp is not an easy thing. It's like I am in some kind of hellscape filled with demons and shit… because I am. In this place, there is an unending war for survival and power and everyone is trying to one up each other. So it is not surprising that I have come across a couple…dozen… hundred daemons and other assorted warp dribbles and lost a limb or two. So that is something I have to regain again. Either I heal on my own, and that takes a lot of time, or I get energy from an external source.

And that constituted a problem. You see, everything here one way or another is poisoned by the Taint of Chaos. It seeps everywhere, poisons the mind and body (or soul considering that I am a metaphysical being) and twists and perverts everything.

Thankfully, cleansing the taint is rather surprisingly a not too difficult thing to do. It's mostly just takes time and you have to know what you are doing and have the patience to do it.

I think it's because I am a fellow warp entity that I can recognize the miasma of chaos almost on an instinctive level and therefore, since I know what I am looking for, I can remove it. I have learned to seep my own energy into what I want and mould it, twist it to my own needs and cleanse away whatever poison was within. It manifest to my eyes as a pale flame that burns the world off its impurities. And this flame was my way to cleanse the shit I eat to make it safe for ingestion.

Of course I could eat it without proper cleansing like I did the first time and suffer the worst case of indigestion in history. But after that I learned to never, ever not cleanse the shit clean off its daemonic miasma.

Never want to live that episode of my life again. It was miserable, nauseating and filled with metaphysical gastro-intestinal movements that would scar your mind for the rest of your life. And the vomit… oh by the Well, the vomiting… It was everywhere! I think that's how that thrice damned horror kept finding me! It just followed the trail of indigestion by-products.

Anyway, I learned my lesson from that. Unfortunately, no matter how much you dress it up or process it, shit is still shit. And every daemon tastes, one way or another, like shit. And this is my first time trying out Nurglite kebab and they look the least appetizing by far, but well… I have to get back at the little shit for ripping off my middle finger just as I was flipping it the bird.

"Don't… kill me..!" I look down at the weeping gross mass of puss, putrefaction and despair that I have skewered with a stick. I guess I wasted too long thinking out to my non-existent audience and forgot about the nurgling I was about to eat, and during that lapse of time, it managed to grow out a new mouth and tongue to speak.

I lifted it to my eye level. "Why would I want to spare you?" I asked the thing and it grasped onto that sliver of hope like a lifeline.

"I-I could show you Granpa's love! He loves us all! And-And he can love you too! And- AAA!!!" It's loud shrieks of pain echoed across the rainbow patterned black cave of singing stone. Yes, this stone sings, and it's a tune that does not make sense what so ever. Hopefully the cave's properties could drown out the noise of agony of the very lesser nurglite daemon. I lifted the smoking pile of shit from the pale flame that I had set up a while ago. "W-why?"

"Because you are a pile of shit and I don't want to be part of a family whose very idea of love is to live in eternal despair and be infected with every known STD in the known galaxy. Also, you were laughing when you ripped my finger off and ate it, so I am taking it back one way or another."

Its black eye pits turn hateful. "I curse upon you Nameless One! Grandfather Nur-EEEEEE." And there go again, back to the fire. It's still too raw if it can spit angrily at me.

I reach out with my other hand and plunge it into its body, severing the threads of despair and love and decay around parts of its being until I pull out its melted heart/liver out and focus on its pulsating, oozing mass. I invoke my heatless pale fire once more, but more precise and refined. Like tendrils of soft light I delve into the sturdy, yet almost gelatinous neverborn meat, finding any and all traces of the taint of its patron undivinity and the malevolence of their ilk.

Like a carcinogenic poison that seeks to devour and destroy and decay all into nothingness yet pathetic in its every shape as it shies away at the mere prospect of its true and permanent destruction, ever forgetting that its own victory means its own defeat. Such is the nature of Chaos. Weak, craven and all so pathetic. Lies and perversions of what should be. And as such, like all lies are, they cannot stand before the truth and are painfully, and oh so wonderfully baptized in annihilation.

Green tongues of energy mixed with black and corrupt daemonichromic hues move out to intercept the pale fire, but my essence envelops it, sealing it and cutting it off on a meta-tempo-spiritual level from its patron gestalt. Nurgle would not, could not protect it, and without a source to draw power from, its attempts at resisting my power came down to a battle of endurance, one that it could not win.

It still took long to fully cleanse. There was a reason why daemons are so hardy, considering the absurdly immense font of fuel it has in the shape of the Imperium of Man and the countless hardships and suffering that it performs on a daily basis. Likewise, the shit stains of Nurgle have always been known as the hardy type. No problem anyway, I got time.

And eventually, I had cleansed every portion of the meat off its malevolent taint and I decided to look at it. It's no longer an oozing mass of something nauseating, now taking a slightly off colour hue and with a slightly hard exterior. It still looked like something that a normal man would gag at looking, but I had grown accustomed to this hell, so here goes nothing.

I open my beak and bite down and cheUUUUUUUUUURRRGGHHH!!!!

FUCK! *Spit* FUCK! *Cough* FUCK! *Gag* FUCKING HELL! *Hold back vomit* FUCKING WARP CUNT FUCKERING FUCKERY FUCK!! *Fail miserably.* Uuuugh…. Fuck…

That was, the worst experience that has ever assaulted my tongue. It tasted like the most malformed fusion of despair, sadness and happiness in existence, then bathed in puss, putrefaction and sickness and AAAH! Fucking gross!!

As I rubbed my tongue clean with my claws I heard a noise to my left and see the still burning mass of puss and shit giggling at me. I snarl and get up, turning to it and inhale and then released a torrent of raging pale fire at the neverborn, letting it bathe in my disdain for it and all its kind. Then as its screeches of torment I reach into the diminutive folly of the Old One's legacy, hand raging in pale light as I tore through the threads that made the creature what it was. And then I reached its core essence and gripped it in my flaming hand.

I did not have the eons that it could take to decipher its name. Nor did I care for it. Whatever name it takes, shit will always be shit. And that it's a fine name if you ask me for every one of their kind.

I pulsed my power once more and unmade the thing's essence in its entirety, letting its foetid vessel crumble into neverborn flesh and puss that was rapidly and readily being consumed by my flames until its energies return to the ether as untainted warpstuff.

Then I retracted my hand and cleaned myself off.

I should get moving. It's never safe to remain in one place for too long. I'm going to the Wastes again. Maybe I can hunt a fury and season its parts with khornate flakes. Get a decent meal out of it and then continue on with my journey.

I picked up my journal and sickle and then began to make my way out of the cave. I had a mission to do. Not sure how, but the Directive calls and I will fulfil it.

Also… I'd rather not end up with Chaos any more powerful than it already is.

For all of our sakes.

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End

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Spawn of the Well

Chapter 2

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I finally found a dating system in this insane realm!

Tenth Cycle=Season of Blood=

Dear Journal, the sky is red, there is even more violence than usual and I had been showered in blood more than eight times already. Life is great… if you're a motherfucking bloodthirster!

Last season I managed to hunt down twenty furies and ate them after a bit of seasoning and cooking. By far the best tasting things out here in this deranged plane of reality. Perhaps it's because they were humans (and some aliens) in a prior life before they became the twisted creatures they are (were) at present. Of course they taste god awful, but when you compare it to true daemons, it's definitely much better.

Also I got a nice map from this Khornate guy named Urdakha whom gave it to me in exchange for being freed from his imprisonment inside a possessed axe. I know that it looks like a deal with the devil, but I took every precaution and forced a binding deal that he would not be able to unmake about mutual exchange and non-aggression. It took quite a lot of convincing for the Bloodletter to do that last part but he eventually caved in after a few very, very convincing points on my side. Plus the bastard gave me his word and since he's a servant of Khorne, he will keep to its deal.

Say what you want about the Sociopathic Khornelio, but he is the least insane of the four piles of shit, and for all the balls to the walls homicidally crazy he and his followers are, he is also the Chaos God of Honesty. If he says he's going to do something, you sure as hell that he will deliver.

That I freed Urdakha near a group of lesser daemons just so that he can release his pent up anger may have made the Bloodletter like me just a bit… well… whatever equivalent such creatures have to 'liking' someone. What a swell guy.

Of course this is a onetime deal and if we ever see each other again you could bet that we would be at each other's throats. And that is fine with me, Chaos is my enemy. The only reason why I do deals with neverborn in the first place is because the only thing that exists within a (relative) fifty thousand light year radius of me is just neverborn, and I do need some manner of knowing my surroundings better. A map is useful in that regard and despite me being able to move up and down the Empyreal Depths, I do not know where some important land marks are.

Well, with the exception of the Astronomicon, but it's pretty hard to miss Big E's golden toilet reflection in the warp.

Now, to cleanse the map of any taint!

Eleventh Cycle=Season of Change=

Empyreal Cartography is an absolute mess. It's not a clear cut think like the 2D paper maps mortals used, or even the stellar maps that the navy has to employ. No. Anything warp related has to take into account subjective distance and time position relative to everything else and how the changing winds and conflict seasons changes those relations as well. And that is just the basics. There is no up or down with Empyreal Depths. You can travel in a straight line and end up going in circles for half an hour but the landscape is completely different because you were thinking about deeper or more surface depths. Then you also had to have your destination in mind and travel wherever you felt your mind was taking you without letting your thoughts wander off and depending on their content you could either get closer to any of the main powers' domains. Then you'd be in big trouble because they could see your intrusion and act upon that.

I nearly got turned into Fury flambé when I accidentally walked into Tzeench's outer domain and had to fight off a Flamer. Then I dodged a Lord of Change just because there was a Keeper of Secrets leading an army into Tzeench's front door and it had more important things to occupy its time than killing a little old warp creature like me.

Yeah… the Chaos Gods control most of the paths to the upper depths, that means if I want to travel higher, then I need to find an alternate route through the Wastes… and that's not easy to begin with. Mostly because my map does not show such paths.

Sigh…

Maybe I should travel to the Eighth Expanse and submerge into the Ninth Layer and travel through the Current of Incongruity. Hopefully, this time I don't lose my leg to another one of those… things from the deep.

Now I know why the Chaos Gods are scared shitless of the Deep Warp.

Thirteenth Cycle=Season of Decay=

I found a path up the higher depths. But there is a problem; it's shiny.

In fact… its way too bright up here.

And gold.

And sterile.

Did I say it was shiny? Because it is very shiny!

Yep, I found a path that led me closer to the Astronomicon. I would try to follow it, but the fact of the matter is that it burns! At some point the giant psychic light-bulb becomes so overbearing that I can't distinguish anything in my vicinity and my whole being fucking hurts like if it was being dipped in burning promethium!

No way in hell I am going to travel into the Upper Depths through Big E's psychic backyard. At least the sight is incredible. Got to see with my own eyes the Firetide slamming against daemonic hordes from beneath.

I try to steer clear of the angelic hosts as much as possible. I know that they are not omnicidal like the other daemons are, but they are still dangerous and they could consider me a target to cleanse, purge and kill.

Also I met a couple of the Legion of the Damned. Cool chaps, if they weren't trying to rip me a new one with their flaming bolters. And after all the trouble I went through with making a white flag.

At least the act caught the ancient space marine ghosts off guard enough that they actually hesitated for an instant. Sure, they still went at it after that brief moment of confusion, but at least it gave me the chance to escape.

Since Big E's domain is also pretty much closed to me as well, I decided to continue my journey until I found a way into the material plane that did not involve passing through the Chaos God's back yards.

There is one thing I discovered when I travelled to the Gilded Realm, as I am now calling it, most daemons, if they are not killed instantly, burn to a nice crisp. I tried that with another nurgling to see if a good holy crisp could make it edible.

Well, it does… kind off. Turns out it tastes like ash.

Not like the final aftertaste of Khornate meat mind you, but just… ash… dull and tasteless… and with a long, long aftertaste of devotion and gold. I guess that at that point is not even Nurglite shit anymore… just holy ash.

Thirteenth Cycle=Season of Excess=

Oh by the Well of Eternity… this can't be… right? It definitely has to be a trap! There is no way there is one here and still be alive.

Can it?

Well fuck me with a rusty fork. This is definitely a bad idea.

I mean, why else would the soul of a crying child be here in the middle of the Formless Waste??!!!

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End

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Spawn of the Well

Chapter 3

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Mina was scared and hurt. Everywhere her eyes turned there were just monsters that wanted to hurt her and eat her, like the one that lied to her and stole her body and threw her here in this nightmarish place.

And they were all so horrifying. The red ones were so evil and hateful, and the pink ones made her feel so much horror at their sigh. Then the rotten ones just made her feel this overbearing hopelessness that she could barely escape from. And the ones that looked like a mass of arms and mouths… she could not tell what they wanted to do to her. Something horrible she was certain, but her mind could not comprehend what.

This place was horrible. Just screaming and screaming and horrible noises and nightmares and… and she just wanted to go home! She wanted to go back to her mama and papa! She just wanted to go home!

It's all that Mina wanted! Why did this have to happen to her?! Why?!

Why woul- A sharp looking thing came around and she saw her reflection it is gleam. Her eyes snapped to where it had come from and she laid her eyes on yet another monster of this terrible place.

It was tall and lanky, with tight leathery skin with a monstrous beaked head. Long membranous wings jutted from its back, tucked and rested, not ready for flight. Its colours were dark grey blue with markings across its body that constantly shifted from a bright orange to a sky like blue.

And it was looking at her with its three shining eyes.

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I could feel her essence straining against the warp's toxic miasma. The very fact that she was coherent after death, even in this state, tells me she is a potent psyker. Or at least at some point she was. Now she is only a spirit lingering on in the afterlife.

How did she manage to survive so long out here is a mystery all on its own. The Wastes are ever changing, and while at some point or another it could be considered safe, at least momentarily, there are very, very few fixed safe places in the warp. In fact, I have only have ever encountered one in my thirteen cycles of existence since I came out from the Well of Infinity.

And even then, its only safe on a relative level, as daemons find their way every now and then into that small place.

Her eyes were staring up at me with the horror someone only reserves for witnessing a monster of the highest order. A creature that would do unspeakable things to its prey before devouring it in the most atrocious manner. Oh, she was horrified and scared alright. But before she could scream or cry even more, I spoke. "Why do you cry child? What ails you so that you weep in the open wastes of this realm?" Flowery and fanciful, not my usual style but hopefully it makes me seem less threatening to her.

Of course I failed.

She began to scream in horror as her whole form started shining with vibrant light and I knew what was to come. I spun around and retracted my sickle away from her and invoked my own essence to block the shockwave of psychic energy that was about to burst from her and then I felt it… or rather, I saw it.

I saw myself flying away amidst the wastes and the sight of the girl become more distant at a rapid rate. It was powerful, incredibly so, but even so, it was wild and unruly, without focus or direction, merely an aggressive emission.

In the depths of the warp, this is where one has the greatest chance to face the daemon head on and end its existence as there is no alternate plane of existence that it could flee to. But warp entities are hardy creatures. Their essence is deeply condensed and packed together, strengthened by the threads of emotion that rain down from the material plane. One must strike true and strike hard. Attack the creature's very threads, shatter its form and see it unmade before your eyes.

It is something humans struggle to do, for their souls are not capable of wielding such condensed power, not without extensive training, not without causing harm to their own soul in the process. It is why only very few of them have the power, control and constitution to become the sacrosanct and dreaded Grey Knights.

But this girl is no grey knight.

I open my wings and stop my flight against my person and then make my way towards the child. She was doomed if she kept her power out in the open like this.

She saw me draw closer and panicked. She stumbled to her feet and began to run away, but unlike her, I was a native of this thrice damned plane of reality. Normal humans, dead or alive cannot traverse its depths with the ease or speed a daemon.

But then again, she was not normal, now wasn't she?

She began to glow again and I knew what would come next. I wanted to tell her that it was a terrible idea and that she was placing herself at risk by manipulating the warp in such a way and drawing the attention of the neverborn. But I knew that in her panicked state my words would not reach her. So with a burst of my own power I accelerated just in time to catch up to her and managed to grab her before her psychic powers slingshoted her away from me.

And then her panic redoubled.

"LET GO!! LET GO!!" She said this as she unleashed burst of power against me, it hurt quite a bit since I could not invoke a barrier with her this near to me, but it was ultimately useless.

I reached in with my claws into her being, being gentle to not damage the threads of her essence and forced her soul to become as dormant as I could make it. I knew that human souls are fragile little things, but I did not know that their ectoplasmic consistency was not too dissimilar to marshmallows. It is no wonder that daemons find them so appetising and why they can be so easily annihilated.

Her struggles only lasted so long. She had power, and if she had any training, she could have resisted me for some time. But she was but a mere child whom had survived in the Wastes thanks to some luck and her innate raw power. Her willpower was impressive to manage to maintain her coherence in this realm, but when tested against a being native to a realm of ideas and emotions, it was simply lacking. So it was with a few more cries and whimpers and weakening bursts of power that she finally became passive and unresponsive.

A soul should not be in this state for long. Without their mind constantly enforcing themselves in the Immaterium's roiling currents she could rapidly start fading away into oblivion, not unless the soul is bonded to something to preserve the innate coherence or directly protected by an active being.

I did not have the former, but I am capable of the latter. I moulded her being into an almost spherical form as I began to unravel, streaks of darkness and disconcordant paraphrases of forests gleaming of moonlight dances shimmer open to net the most precious of heart to not be consumed in a womb filled with cooing hands. Fingers of gaseous threads coil around and without to form the bird's nest that will protect and then it closed together with the soul of the little girl being submerged underneath my form.

She would no longer be in danger of being harmed by the Warp's own innate perpetually existent tempest.

I hear the sounds of creatures not of the material world and I knew that it was the child's actions that had brought them here. I can fight a group of furies, even battle a decent number of inferior daemons and even face head on some of the more powerful lesser daemons like bloodletters, daemonettes, plaguebearers and the pink horrors. Of course the latter I can only do on a one on one battle and facing two at the same time would demand extreme luck from my part as well as certain conditions to ensure my success.

None of that would apply to a whole horde of these things, and even less now considering that I am carrying precious cargo. So I need to make myself scarce and fast.

My wings opened once again and this time my mind aimed to a place where I could see who this girl was. Far from prying eyes and malignant intentions. I needed to get out of here and fast. Luckily, I had gotten pretty good at that and soon enough, the Wastes began to change as I made my way through Hell and away from its denizens.

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All eyes veiled upon the walls be planted. A thread for my mind be made alert. This sight beneath and above may I be granted. Upon this soil this unsight I insert!

"My will be done!" I finish my incantation and the walls of the cavern cease their optical shift. Nets of geometrical diagrams and tongues are come to life and spread out towards the focal points that I had set up moments prior. I feel a tug on my mind and I permit this act.

Upon a hundred porous entrances, a calm glimmer of pale light becomes alive.

And as soon as it comes, it ceases to be bright.

The Rune of Alerted Un-perception. Something I had developed many cycles ago to remain hidden from the neverborn whenever I wish to spend some time alone and without intrusion. The last time I created one of this scale was when I made my sickle.

Also, I should make a bow and dagger. I may have started getting good with this war scythe, but more than once it has shown that there are limitations to its design. Sure, it's the warp and the laws of physics do not apply. But this realm has some laws and many of them depend on many esoteric and subjective factors as well as the Enantimorph Logic Principle (I made this theorem myself. Something has to explain why so many fucking daemons have humanoid traits when they are not even human in the first place!) so that means that despite that I can wield my sickle as if it weighed next to nothing, it's most lethal part is at the end. All in all, the weapon is kind of unwieldy and cannot be used in up close melee. Likewise, it is not useful in very long ranges.

Sure I have my spells. But there is meaning in actions and the use of tools. And while guns lack the same degree of spiritual and conceptual weight as swords, bows and arrows surpass the rifle when regarding the metaphysical. A gun only needs to be pressed.

A bow on the other hand needs to be drawn. You have to use your own strength to make the weapon be ready for the kill. You give a bit of your essence every time you release an arrow. And there is meaning in that, and therefore, power.

If I have the time, I will make a bow later.

But first…

A maw, filled with cyan teeth splits my chest in twain, dividing the cascading ocean of seals made of the wailing tunes of bleeding palm threads that dive past the unveiled caravan. My hands reach into the dismorphic tonalities of archetypal hues and retrieve that which must be protected and examined as my chest seals up once again.

There in my hands is the orb of the child whom I found. During my flight I had set up a seal within myself to separate the child from my vessel. A firewall of pale fire in the event of any nasty surprises.

Now on the outside, the soul of the child began to unravel from my forced geometrization and return to its original form.

I used that moment to reach into her, carefully and softly, but equally suspicious. Daemonkind are not to be trusted and if a child of this power is un-alive in this realm, then its either fortune smiling upon her, -unlikely in my experience- or the daemons have or had something planned for her.

As I reached into her I bathed her being in my flames. Non-malignantly, almost seeking and hunting the corruption that the daemon is so fond of using.

Oh I found it. Plenty of it in fact. But not within the deeper parts of her animus and essence. Best be described is exposure. It is nearly impossible to remain uncorrupted in the warp as a human soul, unless you have some extremely extraordinary circumstances to permit that. Most of which are damn near impossible.

But she is clean as far as I can tell. Not unharmed. But she is far from damned… which is… a good thing… or a bad one. Considering this plane of reality, I do not know which it is.

Maybe… maybe I could keep my eyes on her for some time… maybe I could help her acclimate into this realm.

Could I do it though?

I… I mean I wish to do so. It's been lonely being all on my own in this plane of reality… but… would it be the right thing? This is the warp after all, and a child living in this realm… This is not a life worth existing. This existence is wrought with hardship and suffering, and she is not likely to survive for long. And I… I could end her existence quickly and painlessly… I know I can. I can give her peaceful oblivion.

But she made it this far… maybe… maybe she could push through and become more than human… maybe I could help her ascend into a being of the Empyrean.

Sigh… Infinity damn it all…

What… what should I do?

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End

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Spawn of the Well

Chapter 4

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Mina's eyes opened slowly. She was… warm… not hot, just warm. At peace and cosy…so cosy. Maybe it was all just a nightmare… A horrible, and horribly long one at that. And now she was in her bed again, underneath her blankets on her bed where her dad could scoop her up in her arms and it would all be alright. She wagered that she could sleep for a bit more

The nightmares are over… she can rest.

Then she heard some shuffling not too far away from her and her eyes snapped open. She blinked once. Twice. And then realized that she was not in her bed. She heard more shuffling and then her entire body went stone stiff.

There was something near her.

More shuffling.

She could tell it was moving somewhere towards her field of vision. Whatever it was, it had a powerful presence that was moving slowly around her. It knew she was there, but had not killed her yet. That only made her more scared.

She readied for the look of whatever that thing was when it passed before Mina's eyes. Its scuttling getting ever closer. Closer. And closer.

And then the image of a small creature walked not a few dozen paces before her eyes, and she was left surprised.

It looked like a bird. A very fluffy bird with a small pair of horns on its head with three big wide eyes that shone with orange and blue light. It moved seemingly aimlessly.

It would walk a bit, then stop. Then start walking again, and then spin around once or twice clockwise and counterclockwise. She did not know what it was doing or why, but she simply kept staring at it for some time.

The creature kept making its weird routine seemingly entranced in its own world. It walked, stopped, hopped, spun. And then it tried to run, which succeeded in the bird creature tripping on its legs and falling face down onto the dirt, which it remained on for a few moments.

For the first time in an unknown amount of time Mina had to fight off the desire to laugh.

Then that desire died the moment that she heard it talk. "Well damn. I had thought that I had it that time."

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Shape shifting into an owl was a novel experience. I had shape-shifted into other forms before, but never one so small… or downright adorable. Hopefully sees me she is lured into a sense of safety with my harmless appearance, rather than my beaked fury form.

At least as a means to getting her to trust me.

Being this cute is nice and all, but I can't fight like this. In fact, I am so unused to such a shape that I ended up tripping on my own legs and face planting to the ground. "Damn. I thought that I had it that time." If anyone saw that they may say it's the cutest thing ever and rush up to cuddle me. I know I would.

Anyone who has ever seen a photo of how baby owls sleep, they would know what I mean. A shame that the internet does not exist, or that Techpriests are too greedy to let normal people have something resembling it.

I raised my head off the ground and got on my feet again and decide to look around once more. Well, I am glad that she saw me do a flop, but I guess I should not have spoken. Perhaps I should not draw her out. She obviously feels intimidated in the presence of just about everything in this realm and she is within every right of that. In fact, she is pretty much scared of me at this point, especially after I spoken.

Well… how about exposure therapy then?

"It seems that my mastery of this form is not as great as I had hoped. Do not want to frighten the child, but neither do I wish to have my face be so intimate with the ground." I made a gesture as close to a shrug as I could in my owl form. "Well, off to practise again." And then I kept my routine. Walking in circles and hoping that the girl gains the bravery to make contact with me.

But it does not happen even after I learn to run well enough to make a track run around her three times without tripping on my fluffy legs. Finally my patience wavered and I turned to her, and I could feel her presence try its best to shrink when my three eyes landed on her 'sleeping' form. I sighed mentally.

"Child, I noticed that you have been awake for some time. Can you cease your game of charade?" Of course, now that I said that her presence twists a bit and smells of panic. I sigh again, this time audibly. "If I wanted to harm you, I would have and could have done so long, long ago." So I guess I am the one that will be forced to make first contact. "I you are done pretending that you are asleep, I will be seated over by the fire."

I turn and head to where a bit of pale flames had been birthed into existence by my domain's control. I had initially decided to walk there in my realistic owl size like state, but it would not matter regardless of the circumstances as I would not be able to do anything in this limited form. And she would have to get used to my larger form eventually, so no time like the present.

My form shifted and grew, my stride grew in length as my entire body was remade. A pair of slender scaled arms emerged from under my wing cloak, my wings themselves sprouted their own set of clawed hands at the tips of the wrists as they travelled down to just above my hips. My horns grew by thrice their original proportions becoming as large as the horns I previously had. My second mouth began to emerge, though hidden by my heart shaped pale face.

At some point my form may be of an owl's… but only now my face resembled such.

A sudden and immense change from my prior form, but one that I approve. I had not changed my form much in the prior cycles, mostly because I had no reason to do so and was a bit busy to think of it for aesthetic purposes, but the girl gave me the opportunity to create something wholly dissimilar to the common creatures of this hell… well… mostly… I have yet to see a form that has not been claimed by something one way or another. Sure, I may appear closer to a Lord of Change if the likes of the Imperium are concerned as I am, like the Lords of Change, avian in form, but I am an independent thing and so long as I don't espouse any of that Indecisive Mollusc's sigils, or any of its brothers' for that matter, then there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

I sit down by the fire and insert my hand into my feathered cloak, retrieving my latest project. The bow I was to make. Well, the bow and the arrow's quiver. Forging abstract and refined warp-stuff into objects and weaving enchantments together is a rather fun pastime. It just pisses me off that it's rare that I get such an opportunity, with me having to constantly keep on moving and fighting.

Fortune though has smiled upon me, as this cavern is within a sub-region of the Formless Wastes that are saturated by the remains of dead gods of Peace. The Eldar were not the only ones who had divines, and even humanity had done some godforging on the past. Alien races had also their own gods. Though obviously no one surpassed the Aeldari Pantheon. Even thousands of years after their death, some of their blessings and enchantments linger in the warp, providing respite to any that enter.

Of course these places vanish completely when the Blood Season starts and only re-emerge during the period when Khorne is at his least influential… which unfortunately means that Slaanesh's perfume rain is constantly pouring down and causes weaker entities to do the Whore's usual brand of perversion. Thankfully I created a minor domain and spirit shrine, so Slaanesh's cum smell does not annoy me.

Or my companion.

Speaking of which. "If you leave this place you will die." I say and I feel the girl freeze mid step. I turn my head back and look at her. She was standing rather close to one of the cave's entrances, looking back at me with horrified eyes like those of a deer caught in the headlights. "If you leave this place the other daemons will be able to track you down and could find you and kill you. You do not want that fate." I say and then return to the bow's craft, then I smile internally as she slowly walks away from the entrance.

Good.

So I return my attention back to my craft.

I grabbed the stony soil, feeling the ideas that make it. I weaved my own essence in threads of pale cyan and orange light and begin weaving it into the bow, changing the stone into mind metal. This takes next to forever to do, so obviously it takes me quite some time to make new weapons, but I find pleasure in infusing everything you make with a bit of yourself.

The soft glow that emanates from the growing weapon is rather pleasing too.

Soft weaved thread of will and light. Crowned for the greatest fight. I call upon your might. And forge it to my sight...

The enchantments and rhyme become part of the arcane weapon as it grows. I suffer a momentary lapse in attention as I make the weapon, and when I realize it, I can feel the presence of the girl much closer to me, fear and trepidation oozing from her form, but also curiosity and a sense of something more. I smile internally when I realize that she is perfectly angled to see what I am doing.

Perhaps this may work out after all.

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Last edited: Dec 11, 2021

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#244

Spawn of the Well

Chapter 5

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We had fallen into a tense… though not unease peace.

It is far from ideal, but considering the circumstances, this is major progress on my side. The child still smells of fear, and every time I do a sudden gesture she reacts with concern. But as time keeps passing she seems to be getting the idea that while I may be another creature of this realm, I at least do not seem to be intent with causing her harm.

She should be safe so long as she remain close enough to be affected by the Void within my being and thus makes it harder for the fuckers at Indecisivetopia to track her down, and, well… me by association. She may be a risk to me at some point, but I would live with it. Just can't leave her in the Formless Wastes without any protection.

Sigh.

She seems willing to live, at least at my initial analysis of her. But I am not sure how much that is of not wanting to die or not wanting to be killed. There is a genuine difference here in the warp. Obviously one being much more harrowing and painful, especially depending on which daemon gets it claws on you.

But she also represents a problem now that she is with me.

I can defend myself easily enough. I can get stabbed, dismembered, decapitated even and it would only be considered a minor distraction in the heat of battle since my objective is not usually to win, but to get away. Usually, I sacrifice a leg or two whenever I want to make a quick getaway. Much like how a lizard loses its tail to act as a distraction against a predator.

But she is nowhere near as hardy as I am. She needs to be protected until she can evolve into a creature of the Empyrean… but that would take centuries, millennia even. And I need to get to the material plane as soon as possible… and she… well.

I turn to look at her, her small figure seated a bit behind me, but close enough for her to see my handiwork. She stiffens slightly at my analytical gaze falling on her but she does not react more than that.

She looked about ten or eleven years old. Her soul form had a hazy deep blue tone to her, but even so I could tell that in her mortal life she was a child with pale skin and long black hair. Her eyes may not even have been that dissimilar from what they are right now, except maybe for the blue glow. And as for clothes, or the spiritual equivalent of that she was clad in a misty pale robe that hid her small slender frame quite well. But the thing I was interested in was not her appearance, but instead on the myriad spiritual injuries she sported that in helped patch up as much as I could. Key of these was the main indicator of her circumstances.

She no longer has a body anymore, for as far as my sight goes I cannot see a spirit tether on her, so that means that she is truly dead and I cannot help her beyond keeping her safe with me.

"D-do you want something?" I hear her voice ask in trepidation and I am forced to blink. Her first action of proper interaction with me, progress!

"No child, I am merely observing. Your soul was injured and sick when I found you, so I took the liberty of mending what I could. I am merely observing if my work would leave behind any lasting scars." Well, not the absolute truth, but I did have to see my handiwork. Too early to say if the marks on her spirit would meld together seamlessly, but if she is to live in this plane of reality then she will most definitely have more essence infusion in the future. She may end up becoming mostly comprised out of Fire by the time she becomes stable and completely independent. Much like me, though it is obvious that she would lack the Void Heart and my myriad other alterations thanks to my birth from the Well.

That's going to make taking her with me all the harder. I can't infuse Void into her. It would kill her on the spot.

"May I ask you child, do you have a name?" Of course she has, but the question is important.

She looks at me for a moment, before nodding. "Yes, its-" And right there I use my powers to close her mouth.

"Speak not your name in this realm child! Those who hear it can use that against you." I say, before releasing my etheric grip on her lips.

She tested her mouth by asking, "Why can't I say my name?" When I heard those words I could taste a deep fear coming from her. There was more to this girl, and I have only began to delve into her secrets. But her reaction told me much more than what I would have hoped. And that makes me worried.

"Names encapsulate you. Your identity, your existence, your being. All that you have, are and will be can be summarized with just your name. It is your rune, your signal, your symbol. And in this realm words have power, fuelled by belief, strengthened by meaning and weaved by its history. For a neverborn, the foul malevolent entities that stalk this plane, to know their true name is to possess absolute dominion over it." I say and I see her eyes widen slowly as I make my explanation. "For a human though, it is not so much so, but it has other connotations. And one of them is that whoever knows your name can know wherever you are and they can know your future through sorcerous rites." She had gone stock still for a moment before she breathed out her next question.

And what she asked chilled me to my bones. "If… if someone knows my name… could they say things around me?" I blinked in confusion and not a least bit of worry. Seeing my puzzled face the girl continued. "Like… if I am being attacked by more monsters, then… could they tell them to back off if they knew my name?"

That… that would demand a degree of sorcerous power that honestly frightens me. Theoretically there is nothing one cannot do in the warp. All it takes to make something happen is merely a question of power and will. But to use another being's name as a conduit to send a message their way… it is something that demands no small amount of power to invoke. But that line of questioning she made.

"Someone already knows your name." It was not a question and to my horror, she nods and I hold back the need to growl in hatred and despair. "Do you know who?" Or what?

She nods. "The Pale Lady. She…" she paused… looking scared. I nod as confidently as I can to her, trying my best to hide my inner turmoil. "When I was…" she did not want to say it. "There were big men wearing big black armour and they came to my home and took me away from my Mom and Dad. And then…" Her small hands began to tremble. "I was scared, and I pushed the men away. And I ran and ran, and I was tired…" she said, her ghostly eyes forming flecks of sadness and loss and pain from the recollection as the rest of her body began to shake. "And alone and… and… then she came. The Pale Lady spoke to me. Told me that she could help me get away… and…" Then her first sobs began to escape from her. "And then everything hurt as she laughed and-" Her eyes snapped open when she realized her frame was being wrapped in warm wings and feathers.

"Say no more…" I whispered.

She had gone silent, frozen by the sudden action, then I felt her body begin to tremble and soon, I started hearing her sobs flow lose as I embraced her, knowing that there was nothing you could do.

How could you tell a child that she was doomed?

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End

Last edited: Dec 12, 2021

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#355

Spawn of the Well

Chapter 6

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Time passed before Mina came back from her sleep.

When her eyes opened she noticed that she was wrapped in the warm embrace of countless black feathers forming something like a nest around her. A nest of black feathers with trims of vibrant blue and orange hues that formed beautiful patterns and designs. She almost felt like if she was being cared for with a delicacy that reminded her when she was sick and her parents took care of her, as if she were a fragile glass jewel, or an egg… definitely an egg. And she honestly felt like that. Weak, fragile… and so tired.

She did not know why she had been cursed to be thrown in such a twisted, horrible place… but in this moment, she felt at peace, safe… for the first time since she was torn away from her home by the Pale Lady. Away from her parents and now she was in the embrace of a bird creature that seemed to be the only genuinely caring being in this place.

She felt the feathers shift and the mass underneath move. She looked around as the feather nest opened like the blossoming of a flower, revealing a three eyed heart shaped face. "How was your rest child?"

She blinked her tired eyes and nodded. "It was fine… thank you."

A nod. "We had to move while you were unconscious. A couple of Fiends had showed up and I could not fight them with you on."

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I could see her tiny form inside the mass of feathers and wings that I had turned into to protect her. I smiled as I began to uncoil from that form and into my anthropomorphic design once again.

She looked around the place we were in right now with a look of slight confusion. She honestly was not expecting to be inside a tree, or that there were trees large enough to keep a human and a creature my size hidden within.

Truth be told, these kinds of semi fixed structures are rare in the warp as most daemons tend to enjoy destroying them for the sheer fun of it. But there are always exceptions to the rule.

This place was once part of the Gardens of Isha, the Eldar Goddess of Fertility and Life, whom now is held inside that Fat Garbage Bag's garden. Given her imprisoned state, she could not tend to her garden, or what remained of it after the devastation caused by Slaanesh and Nurgle's rescue. So now, all that remains are small islands of dead forests floating amidst an ocean of roiling tar waves and perpetually bathed in dust and spinning rocks transfixed between omnicoloured lightning storms, though I am seeing a particular rise in those coloured towards Khorne's hues.

All in all, a decent place to hide despite the frequency of Slaaneshi and Nurglite patrols.

I sense the child move up the bark to see where I am looking and I push her back down gently with one of my wing arms. The sight beyond is not one for the faint of heart as we are somewhat deeper than usual into this realm of insanity.

I turn back to her, regarding her with most of my attention. I do not smile, nor frown, but the pregnant silence that I spent looking into her eyes made her understand that what I was to speak next was no good news. "Child, there is something I have to tell you." I begin, and now my beak's expression tilts down. "Of news most dire, and ill." So I began explaining what had happened to her in a manner that she would understand from a metaphysical point of view. What it meant to be dead, what it meant when she asked for help and the daemon answered. What it meant of her name and what it spoke to her future fate.

I spoke to her through the knowledge ingrained into me, through what I had been gifted by my maker and what I had gleamed through the Well, as well as her own memories that I had observed while she was inside my being during this recent travel to the tree.

By the time I was done, her look was one of a person who had received the news of a terminal disease, one which had no escape. She was in conflict, disbelief, fear, and most of all, despondency.

She did not speak, did not wish to. She knew what was to come now and had no escape from it. But eventually her voice returned and she asked me the question I had been waiting for. "What… what should I do?" She asked me those words, and within them remained a plea for help. A prayer, trying to cling onto any scrap of hope that she could find.

She was begging me to be her hope.

Unfortunately, Hope was an evil god.

"You can choose." I say softly. My right wing's hand rises a finger so that she may see. "I can grant you a peaceful end. The blessed Oblivion where all souls eventually return to. No pain, no suffering, no desolation. Only the eternal, sleepless and wakeless rest of nothingness that awaits us all. A far more merciful fate than anything the Warp's denizens had in stored for you." I say, and her expression turns into one more of pain. She did not wish to die, this I knew, for it is the design of all living beings to cling to life for as long as possible. I frown deeply, but I hold nothing back, for I will not lie to her on the matters of her soul.

My left wing's hand rises now, gesturing the second path she had available.

"We labour a journey to a place where you may be gifted the afterlife you deserve." Her eyes almost lit up, but I crush that hope as quickly as it rises. "Your chances of getting there alive however, are nearly non-existent." I say, and continue on. "The Gilded Realm, the Emperor's Realm where his faithful flock to, is a place where the souls of the dead go and lay to rest in a gilded paradise. Your soul had been cast adrift by the Daemon, and therefore you could not have met Him, a thing we could remedy, but be warned, for his Realm is beset on all sides by a thousand and one daemonic armies, each perhaps in the billions. To journey there would mean to traverse such a sea of malevolent creatures. I can do this journey alone, for I am gifted with powers that permit me to bypass such armies. But I cannot take another with me, for those powers cannot hide you from their sight. You would be seen and oh so easily slain long before you reach such a place. But the slim chance of success remains, and yet, it only takes the blade of one daemon to lay you down and face a death as terrible as that which the Pale Lady has in stored for you." I say, frowning.

I had laid to the front my options. Her options. None of which she seemed eager to pick.

It was either a swift and peaceful true death, or take a chance and attempt to reach the Emperor's Light but brave the risks of being slaughtered by daemonic claws. In truth, such a prospect was too terrible to behold. I would rather meet my own death in my own terms, but this child is far from ready to meet such an end.

Even if she survived… even if she reached the Eternity Gates, she would not meet the paradise she hopes. Not truly. There is no peace among the stars or beneath them for that matter. The souls of those who flock to His Light will eventually become baptized in the Zeal of a trillion voices crying out in His name.

Like all daemons, they would be recycled and reforged, stripped of their ego and self and become the angels of the Firetide in eternal service to a detached and heartless master, to hold the darkness at bay just for a little bit longer until His final plan is enacted.

They would be… Wait…

If… My Void Heart cannot contain a full soul… but a decayed… stripped of its ego…

Nameless… you are a fool!

An utter and damned fool! Fuck you Tzeench! True Hope exists and you have no right to it you overgrown indecisive mollusc! I had almost forgotten that, living in this damn terrible place and hearing the screams of every soul damned and lost!

"Why are you laughing?" I am drawn from my inner victory thoughts to my surprise that indeed, I have been laughing. But indeed my musings are worthy of cheerful laughter.

I smile at her, and I could just about see the glimmer from before dare to emerge again in her ghostly eyes. "I am a fool, child. A true fool." She looked at me confused for a moment before I clarified. "There is a third path, one that I had nearly forgotten, and for that, I beg your forgiveness." And with that I place my wings back down and spread my normal arms wide open. "It is one not most desirable, but it is, by far, the best choice for you to take." Indeed, it is what it should have been since the beginning.

It depends oh so greatly on me, and indeed I would have to be much more careful from now on, but hope shines true with this path. "What say you to be reborn into the world of the living once more?"

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End

AN: My chapters will be short up until Monday, which is my last exam of the year… hopefully I don't fuck it up and be forced to take it again within a month or so. So here, a quick preview of what is next.

I honestly wish I could have made this chapter much longer, but I am tired, been studying all day and only had a few moments of inspiration to create this little thing…. Now… imma go to sleep now.

See you guys soon.

-Snore...-

Last edited: Dec 18, 2021

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Dec 21, 2021

#403

Spawn of the Well

Chapter 7

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I walk the great sea valleys of the Warp in search of my objective. I have met sights that would render the mind of men great and small into splinters or move them into tears of awe… or perhaps both. I have spoken with creatures whose evil cannot be fathomed and whose minds are so alien as to boggle the greatest scientists of my parallel era.

For all the terror that the Warp carries, if one can see past the screaming vortex of suffering and madness that Chaos has oh so maintained as its signature for all to see and gawk at, there is a magnificence and wonder in its esoteric and bizarre Para-Euclidean geometry that no mind of the realm of matter could conceive.

It is one of the few reasons why I do not fully curse my existence, for there would be no other way for me to be witness to things beyond the scope of my prior human imagination. To say that if I ever return back to my earth, if it's even possible in the first place, I will most likely be the trippiest artist alive. Right after scientist left and right finish trying to dissect me and the world has had a collective religious and existential crisis at once.

I just know that I would abuse my powers so badly to prank the members of the world's entire parliament and humiliate them for all the stupid shit they do. Also the scientists would either love me like the second coming or hate me as if I were the devil in the flesh… because I would totally write my signature on the soil of every planet in the Solar System and take constant pretty pictures of me posing on those planets.

Yeah, they would hate me.

And the best part is that they won't be able to get rid of me, I'll just keep coming back.

I hear a bit of snickering from my chest and I snort back in amusement. It sounded like that of a new-born. Considering what I did to her… well it makes sense. Mnimic surgery as I decided to call it was not going to leave much of her in the first place… but I am glad I did it.

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Before the Gods of Chaos rose to power, before the War in Heaven restructured the foundations of the galactic Immaterium, before the timelines shattered and were remade, before all the suffering and death and desolation that had enveloped the Milky Way for the last eons had taken their hold, the Warp's many names carried a far different connotation.

The Sea of Souls. The Void of Dreams. The Realm of Magic. The Great Afterlife.

So many names, so many different words that spoke of a different environment. Of a realm seeped in infinite potentials and even greater myriad of things. This was the place where the souls of those that had passed away came to rest before dissolving peacefully into sweet oblivion, or be stripped of their memories, minds and past sins and deeds, to return to their species' oversoul and live once more as a new life.

But alas, the War between the Old Ones and the C'tan had disrupted the Sea of Souls' harmonious balance and gave rise to the three leering Manifestations of Annihilation. Four if the Eleventh was to be taken into consideration, but the nature of Chaos' Beginning and Death was one that could not be understood by conventional logic, for it existed long before it was born and will exist eternally after its own death. Such paradoxes are the basis of this being, where upon its resolution it may bring about things best never spoken or named.

Regardless, with the Empyrean in shambles, poisoned beyond remedy by the arisen Gods of Chaos, the cycle of death and rebirth had been twisted and perverted. No longer was the Sea of Souls the esoteric place where souls could draw infinite potential during their worldly existence without incurring the hunger of the Neverborn, nor could they rest in peace before stripping themselves of their prior lives so as to be reborn anew.

The Neverborn began lurking unopposed through the turbulent waters in the times thereafter, hunting and preying upon any soul that their malevolent jaws could find. To feast on their anguish and pain and suffering and their essence.

As such, now the age where souls could return to the living was no more. Only few beings could do so, none in the modern ages. Perhaps during the age where Chaos was inert and dormant during the Ascendancy of Mankind, young mythopoeic beings could take the role of protectors of their soul race and grant them the birth-right that had been oh so long ago lost. But no more.

The Eldar's folly and hubris laid low their species and stripped them of their endless life cycles. If their actions had only claimed them, then they could have been forgiven for all the atrocities they committed during their reign. But alas they had to drag the rest of the galaxy down with them and now, no young god born of myth remains.

Nothing but dead echoes and whispers.

Rebirth is a gift none may ever claim while the Four so called Gods of Chaos reign supreme and unchallenged.

However, like all things in the Warp, there are exceptions.

And I could be the agent for what perhaps could be the first rebirth since time immemorial for humanity.

This and more I explained to the Child before me and the more I spoke, the more her eyes lit with the light of hope.

But questions still remained. "Would it hurt?"

"Only a little." I said honestly. "Rebirth usually takes time and it's a slow process. But we do not have time. You do not have time. I will do my best to be gentle, but in the end I will be rapidly accelerating a process that should be gradual and progressive. There will be pain involved, but one that you must labour through if you wish to make it out of this unholy realm." I say and look at her blue eyes with my own shining orbs of orange and cyan. "It is your choice, Child. My ultimatum for time is of the essence." I declare. "Would you die on your own terms? Would you challenge the path towards the Gilded Realm? Or would you be reborn again and place your trust on me to take you to your next life?"

Her answer was only after a second's breath. "I wish to live again." And I knew which she chose.

She did not resist when my clawed hands plunged themselves into her being.

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Now she rests within my Void Heart, protected from its baleful effects by a veil of Anathemic Soul Light. Now, the rest lies upon my shoulders, to get her out of this damn plane of reality and be reborn into the material plane as a warp blessed mortal. But I am going to make sure she is safe from those that linger in both planes. Neither the Imperium, nor Daemon would find her an easy target.

However, I need to get out of hell first.

I had yet to actually reach past the place where the Chaos Gods lurk…. But I have gotten close… I think… Oh who am I kidding! I have gotten nowhere near the Stratum Aetherius! Every time I think I found a path there there's either a bigger daemon there, a chaos fortress, some massive leviathan eating everything that gets near it or it leads nowhere or worse, even deeper… one time I even found a path/cave that was full of rainbow coloured ponies and they said that they knew the way to the upper depths.

Suffice to say I ran out of there faster than if I had a Bloodthirster on my tail feathers.

Good call too, because I saw a Lord of Change the other day get shredded to pieces by an army of those innocent looking ponies. The bastard survived, but at the cost of half his army and he looked like if a drunk one year old had tried to draw him. So he force bound the other daemons in his band to never speak of what they saw there to anyone.

Yeah, even I would do that.

Sigh… I need to sit down.

I find a nearby rainbow to lay down and sit on it, sighing in both frustration and disappointment.

-????-

I feel whispers from my chest, their content is unintelligible but their message and emotions speak to me with the crystal clarity that only a being of pure thought can achieve. I sigh once again and do my best to smile. "I am fine little light, I am just tired. I have been running across this damn plane of insanity trying to find a way out of it and just…. Every path I find myself using to achieve this goal either leads me elsewhere."

-????-

"I could, but I would be detected as I travel through the Realm of Chaos. The only way for me to get pass it without being seen is if I invoke my Void Heart to obscure my presence." I reply, then sigh as I rest my head on by hands. "Except that I cannot control my flight path when I am using the Void, so I most likely will crash on something or the temporal currents drag me off to a place or time that would be more dangerous."

.

.

.

-????-

"Well, my choices are to find a stable path to the Stratum Aetherius. No luck there so far." I say. "Then I could fly there." I shrug, "But you know what's going to happen if I do that." I then leaned back and lay on my back, staring up to the green 'sky' that seems to be giggling at me with way too many eyes and mouths.

Fucking cunt.

"The other choices I have are to travel to the utter edges of the galactic Empyrean… but things become darker and more… primal as I go there. So I may as well just be traveling into the deep warp, and last time that happened I lost my entire midsection and a leg… there was a lot of weird flailing that day." I explain, then frown. "Stop laughing, it's not funny! Do you know how horrible is it to run away with only one leg while trying to get a giant unspeakable abomination off you? Yeah, I thought so!" I say, ignoring the giggling from my chest. "The other way I could reach the upper places is to find a Webway artery. Preferably one that was damaged somewhere so that I could delve into it and travel upwards."

-???-

"I have looked for them. There is a reason why they are such a safe means of travel for the beings of the materium you know. It's not just that they are pretty hardy, but they are very well obscured through powerful arcane devices. Only those that are damaged are visible enough to be seen to our eyes." I say, standing up, growling for something had dared to disrupt my peace with their presence. "And that's why I haven't seen one yet." I take draw out my bow as the quiver and arrows emerge from the mass of feathers in my back. I immediately draw an arrow from my quiver, shining with pale light.

I quickly take aim and release the weapon as it travels like the lance of an angry deity towards its target.

The creature my senses had picked did not have time to let its singular putrid white orb of an eye out of the arrow's path and when it struck it claimed not only its eye, but its entire head as the arrow's form-binding unravelled and unleashed the concentrated anathemic energy that it was made of.

Dozens of puss spewing mouths immediately manifested across the plaguebearer's body, screaming in agony as the pale flames clung to their body and essence and consumed it. The group of lesser Nurglite creatures that came along with it all turned to its wailing compatriot as they fed on its despair and looked on with horror and joy. Then twenty heads swivelled at once in my direction, but far too late, for when they beheld my form, not only had I halfway cleared the distance between them, but my wings were shining alit with my anima's paradivine dual light.

Six rusted cleavers and weapons came to bare from its seven users, sans the one burning and in pain, unleashing a war-cry along with their lesser Nurglite kindred that felt like the moaning of weeping, miserable dregs from the abyss. A wave of despair and desolation poured forth from their putrid essence calming the flames on their compatriot, but never truly choking them. A wail as a challenge to my being.

One that I responded in kind.

My eyes twisted and angled, my face flattened and my beak turned to a grin as a second black beak emerged from underneath my morphed face, declaring a murderous shriek that tore through the desolate wave like a cold hot blade through putrid flesh.

My arms split through six lines, two of which descend into my feathered flesh, emerging with my full panoply of annihilation.

By my Arrow and String, a War I Declare.

Another arrow is drawn and released, this one was seen and therefore the daemon acted with a clever dodge, or so it thought. The arrows are made of my power and will to declare war to my enemies, even from afar. My will seeps through their bones and I am their prince and king!

The arrow's bindings are unmade and it detonates next to the putrid bearer of disease and two of its miniscule kindred, showering them with the same anathemic flame light that was still eating at their compatriot's diseased thought-flesh.

The plaguebearer was made of hardy stuff, as are all the beasts borne of the misery of Nurgle's blight, but the child like balls of foetid puss were not as durable and they were claimed by the flames with undue ease, reverting them into weeping lumps of burning by my cleansing light.

And so my winged sprint I reached their group and with a leap, my wings overshadowed their sight beneath. Then I joined the fray, my body shining with light and thought of mind.

I landed right in their middle grounds, scythe of war wailing in burning pale light, and I struck my nearest foe with a hateful blade.

The abrupt attack tearing a whole limb off the plaguebearer as well as its ugly head, causing the moaning mass of rot to wail even louder as its misery was overcome with pain borne from the destruction of its essence.

Three lesser plagueforms leapt at me and I swatted them aside with a telekinetic blow fuelled by my light, like the little pests they were.

As the rest of the creatures of the plague god turned my way, I was ready to enact my second act. My shine was not only mine, for these lesser spawn of Chaos were not challenging one, but two.

And so, in re-enacting of what she had done to me during our first encounter, we showed it to them in first person!

A cascading wave of psychic energy blew the Nurglite spawn away, scattering them about like the broken dolls of putrid flesh and despair that they were. But unlike the blast of power she had used upon me, this strike was far lesser in power. But its purpose was twofold.

By my Hook and Chain, your Power I Seal.

A long silver chain flew past their crash sights and its two pointed heavy hooked end sunk into the ground, and with a roar of power it began to make its orbit around me, leaving behind a growing circular trail ghostly soul fire.

My beak turned to the sky and the warp looked upon my act with wide eyes and leering grins as eight arms emerged from my maw, gesturing the first rites of power.

Seven mouths tore open in a spiral across my neck and my winged hands outstretched in awe inspiring demand to this universe of Ritual and Law.

"The broken Book of Fate," My mouths chant and the eyes of daemons turn to my invocation, expectation, dread, joy and despair mixed in a twisted parody of emotion. "I deny your seething glare, and your order I desecrate, by my design your laws I shall tear." My mouths turn to eyes, shining with manifest light.

The Spawn of Nurgle turn to stand and in a rapid sprint they come.

But I am undaunted. "Putrid Maggot of disease and blight, perverted Grandfather of all things corrupt, hear not your Children's fright, for your foetid Love I cut abrupt!" Uncountable eyes widen as they realize, in horror and despair and comprehension made of their fundamental dismay. Too late they came, too late their blades will make it. The ring of soul fire, dims, like the calm before the storm.

"This narrative is made into mine! For my will be done!"

The soul circle explodes into white/orange/cyan Anathemic light and the love of Nurgle falls silent to all its children and their blight cleavers are cleaved in turn by a harvester of grey and black turned into a weapon of death and blood.

By my Edge, your Heart I cleave from your Chest.

The howling blade of the Scythe of War turned slayer of undying, cuts right through the flesh of plague hellspawn, tearing at its essence and with a violent act, I shatter its core threads into discordant true death and night!

At the sight and end of that which at one point claimed no end, the true nature of Nurgle's spawn came out from their black, rotted hearts.

They were cut from their Grandfather's Love. Their power sealed. Their pestilence and despair made trivial. And before them stood one of many arms and acts who wielding a power most blessed and profane.

By my Light, your Name I Eternally Unmake!

"An AnAtHeMa!" They shouted/cried/wept as one.

And I grinned like mad, for I joined the Hunt!

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Roses of grey and pink hues descended from the sky upon a palace of silver arcs so beautiful that they were nightmare like in shape. The sounds cries and moans of a million, million throats echoed in a concert of haunting dissonant beauty that seemed to peel the flesh of mortal soul minds.

As their descent came, the petals broke away, cloning and copying themselves over and over until the chamber of the palace became saturated in their aroma, and the sight of all who were within become obscured by their magnitude, be they soul bound architecture made from the still living flesh and soul of mortals, or the servants of Youngest of the Four.

The petals became a whirlwind of silver and violet, and suddenly, they each became a storm of black fire that sang tunes of orgasmic bliss and atrocious pain.

From these flames, a single hooved foot emerged and touched the quicksilver lake floor that was beneath its presence, creasing a single ripple across the liquid before it returned to blessed inertness. The myriad souls of children that were bound to its mass ensure that no weight, no matter how great would force anything other than one ripple across its surface for ever action that was made on its surface.

A second foot came down and the black fire began to vanish, being consumed into wisps of grey threads until the being underneath became revealed for all to witness. Four, long, slender and graceful arms motioned an artful posture of delight, so sensual and so divine that those who would dare behold would be driven to lustful madness.

A two horned face turned back, revealing an immaculate feminine visage of ceramic grey with perfectly cut jewels for eyes. The long, swaging silver hair adorned by a horrific crown of sobbing eyes and mouths made of silver art.

Her bust of six breasts barely concealed by drapes of transparent cloth, which was to say, not at all.

Yet despite her delicate design, it was a towering titan of pleasure and pain made boundless. He was a Keeper of Secrets; a greater daemon of the Prince of Excess.

The greater daemon smiled softly, needle fangs only partially visible as to show the delight of anticipation. She had claimed a bountiful harvest, slaying and gorging upon a thousand and one souls mere hours/years ago and it had returned for its final prize. Its little morsel.

He spoke one name into the ether and when it expected the sight of a face and tug of a soul, she met utter silence.

Its smile vanished, then his head turned to the side, not even needing to speak of the names of her servants.

Her smile returned, but this time oh so different, and promising pain and horror both in infinite measure. "Tell me, my servants, why has my morsel vanished from the ether's song and sight?"

The twin daemonettes were trembling in unending horror, yet unimaginable anticipative delight. "My lord mistress, one not from us had claimed it from you." Said Ishielaleh, the one with one horn on the right side of her head.

"It bore no allegiance to either of the Four." Said Isheilelah, its enantimorph sibling with the horn on her left side.

"The Hunter of No Name." Both spoke at once.

The Keeper of Secrets' smile did not vanish. "Ah, the Bird Fury. Such a little thorn it had become. Sooner or later it should have met its end… and yet, it lingers."

"Perhaps a plan from the other Three?" Ishielelah suggested, fearful.

Its sibling continued. "It can never be tracked down for it vanishes without a trace."

"As soon as we have it in our snare it reveals a trick unforeseen."

"None has claimed it."

Both then spoke as one. "None have managed to hunt it down."

"Then I shall be the one to lay claim to it." The Keeper of Secrets declared, its porcelain face splitting to reveal a large, wide grin filled with needle sharp teeth that dripped with black ichor. Her amethyst eyes turned lustful as it dreamed/thought of what he would do to it for its defilement of her meal. "Its soul would adorn my temple's halls as the centrepiece of my newest sculpture to agony." Then his eyes swivelled in their sockets and landed upon the two daemonettes whom flinched it terror. "However, we have something yet to finish." The wide grin had not diminished in the slightest. "You were meant to make certain my morsel was unclaimed by the time I returned from the mortal plane."

Both lesser daemons' cry of anguish and ecstasy echoed across the halls as the Pale Lady enacted her punishment as he dreamed of the future to come.

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END

AN: Well… this chapter is done. Much longer than others to make up for the rather lack of literature length that my previous ones suffered from.

Also I am finished with exams… hopefully. I am now waiting for my results and if I have to be honest with you people, I am not sure how I made it with this latest test. It was by far the worst test I ever had to do and not one soul came out of that room with a happy expression. Psychiatry is a bitch, and the teachers are even worse, and they seem like our Keeper of Secrets here, enjoying in the fear and terror we have of them because they kind of have this weird complex they have grown into. That, and working with crazy people all day most likely unscrews a few bolts loose.

So I am not even sure if I did well enough to pass that exam. Here's hoping that I did.

Hope you like this latest chapter, I know I enjoyed writing it. The fight of our dear Owl and Nurgle shit-stains will be continued on the next chapter.

Last edited: Dec 24, 2021

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The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

Archetype of Evolution

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Dec 24, 2021

#495

Spawn of the Well

Chapter 8

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The Enemy. The Neverborn. The Primordial Annihilator.

It matters not what name they dare take, for in the end it does not change the truth of their nature. It is why when you cleave apart their illusions of grandeur, their true tittles are displayed for the universe to see.

The Cancer. The Tumour. The Mistake.

The Inferior.

When true death's call resonates across the ocean valleys of the Immaterium, they will all succumb to the fundamental weaknesses that make up their very beings. For even as they mockingly claim to be the living manifestations of all life's sins of the materium, they cannot deny the fundamental core weakness that is a part of such manifestations.

The legions of Khorne would not be swayed however, the sole exception to the rule of the denizens of Chaos, as they embody the very essence of defiance in battle and survival of the strong. When presented with the Anathemic light none would turn tail and run, nor invoke rash thought in their actions. It is why Khorne is the one abomination of Chaos worthy of some manner of respect, as distant as that sentiment may be.

However, the rest of their kindred are not so worthy of praise.

The delusional slaves of Tzeench are at the best of times confusing and erratic. Their inability to understand their own end driving them to commit even more absurd and oftentimes contradictory schemes to avoid this fate. Alas, this is a double edged weapon, as these same erratic actions can be the reason how they escape and/or achieve victory, if only through the sheer absurdity of it all, or meet their end all the quicker as their plans foil themselves around their maker and lead them straight to their doom. Dealing with them demands to be quick and decisive, as the less time they have to concoct their plots, the better.

The whores of Slaanesh are an infuriating lot however, as they are prone to one of two extremes. They idea of an existence without sensation driving them to use every trick in their book to flee from the presence of annihilation. However, those older and more powerful go the other way around and abandon all illusion and deceptions to run straight towards the face of death in an insane bid to dance at its edges, to get to see with their own eyes a near death experience.

But Nurgle's putrid spawn… they are truly a special breed, and out of all, the ones that I most enjoy slaying. Out of all the Chaos Gods, Nurgle is the greatest and most perverse lie of all. What he and his ilk feed upon most is the fear of death, pain and loss, as well as the psychological denial of those fears. He and his creatures are born and thus fuelled by the twisted perception of those emotions and fears. Therefore, at the epicentre of said beings lies a well of utter cowardice more pathetic than any other in existence.

When faced with true death, the mask of joviality shall vanish as the very grapping abyss of fear and despair that Nurgle uses to draw mortals into his embrace rises up and betrays the power they claimed to rule. Their acceptance of death is immediately undone when they realize that destruction by anathemic light will prevent their energy and essence from properly returning to their grandfather.

In this state they will fight with a maddened frenzy that eclipses even those of Khorne's own servants, and they would take every chance they can to flee away from the song of oblivion.

But there is one thing that they will do most and above. Something that only they and they alone do and is the one thing that makes slaying the Children of Nurgle such a satisfactory act.

"AnAtHeMa!!" Their wails of terror, intermingled by weeping sobs of despair, echo across the arena and bring joyful revitalization to my black bones, for there are few sights more glorious than the sight of a daemon weeping openly in terror.

A chain shrieking with pale light launched forwards to claim its next victim. The Nurglite bearer of diseases made a motion to run, but the chain was faster, and was one with my will! I could control its motion like if it were but an extension of my own arm!

The shimmering metal hook plunged itself deep into the chest of the plague thought-form, eliciting an increment of its wail of agony and suffering, the chain that kept its motion followed around the abomination and in an action impossible in the material plane by non-arcane artefacts it coiled around the mass of burning putrefaction.

I watched with glee when the chain took the beast up into the sky and in a burning arch down upon the head of another of its fellows. The impact caused both caustic masses of puss to detonate in a heap of broken body parts and diseased flesh.

But neither are dead, but in their diminished state, they would take time to reconstitute their forms with their power cut off by the Sealed Circle. So I focus my attention on the others whom still try to flee.

Daemons are fast. But my arms are faster.

An arrow took flight and impacted a fleeing nurgling, obliterating its existence in a cascade of pale flames. A second arrow followed soon after and a second nurgling ceased existing. And once again, yet another luminous arrow was unleashed, yet claiming another daemon's life into Oblivion.

But the bigger beasts demand a greater power to slay. So as my third pair of arms unleash bolts of luminous anathemic essence towards the lesser spawn, my other four arms shift technique.

Fell Blade, my Scythe of War. Your name may all your enemies abhor. Chain of Irreverence, my Agent of Holy Defilement. Upon this ring I call upon your sacrament. I unite thee in holy matrimony under the chorus of conflict. To an age of devastation to inflict. Unite, and become one. Strike forth with the hatred of a red sun.

The hook end of the chain opens and clasps around the end hilt of the scythe, thus the fusion of both weapon forms into an instrument all more terrible.

I call thee to the Dance of Death!

Bladed Chain of Fell Irreverence!

Faster than the eye could see, much less follow, a wide arc of light tore a song of atrocity, slicing through the earth, flesh and bone before my sight. A dance of woe had begun and could not be stopped.

A child of the maggot tried to flee the carnage, but the married blade tore through its chest, separating its shoulders and head from the lower body. Not an instant later, the chain returned with a life of its own tore the other way, slaughtering the unworthy creature asunder yet again.

Behind, the cries of horror gave birth to an attempt at distant battle. Projectiles of caustic vomit flew my way, but I needed only two arms to wield Fell Irreverence in the Way of Attack. I had more limbs to parlay with the Bladed Chain!

A section of the chain took another purpose, and spinning like the blade of a helicopter, it became a shield wreathed in holy light, bashing away the corrupt mucus that came my way. But even as I defended, my other two arms moved about, gesturing the chain's blood thirst towards its next target.

The offenders of the spewed vomit experienced a short and excruciating end, as both bladed end and the mace of the other side came down over them with the wrath of a furious god.

The battle was a swift display of power. An overwhelming domination of the tempo and the narrative which I claimed as my own by my right of power and sorceries that no daemon could ever fully express.

Powerful as they claimed they were, myths and stories turned alive as they preached, not one of the Progeny of Chaos, not even the Gods themselves, could ever claim to wield the divine gift of Sentience, and therefore would never make true grasp of understand beyond their own spheres. Much less anything resembling innovation, or creation.

They stand at the bottom of the hill, parasites and lies that they are. Unworthy of anything save contempt and hatred.

And once the wall of my soul flames dimmed and subsided, all that remained were burning corpses spewing their final regrets and woes into the embers as they were returned to the nothing from which they have been evading for so long.

All save one, for I wanted to do more than to simply shatter its spirit into nothingness.

A bloated mass of putrefied flesh like its fellow kindred. The Plaguebearer struggled against the sacrosanct chains that held it down, but to no avail. All that its chained form could do was screech in terror and agony as it writhed on the soul charred soils. "Please! Please don't kill me! I beg of yo-"

"Silence!" I snap with a wave of power, and the plague bearer's mouth is seared shut with a wail of agony. I look down upon the thing at my clawed feet, squirming in its binding as its approximation of eyes wept in clear distress and despair, begging, praying and hoping that I may have mercy upon it. But I would not, for none of them ever showed such a kindness to any mortal.

It was a fitting position for one of the neverborn to be beheld in such a pathetic state, lesser parasites and diseases that they were. It is indeed a shame this sight is oh so rare in the mortal world, where its power could strengthen the soul of mortalkind against the predations of the neverborn.

But alas, even if that were the case, little can be done to slay them permanently if you were of the material plane. Their epochs of sins have all but solidified their paranatural forms into a mould that could endure the test of righteous violence.

But not against one like I. It is time suffering is paid upon those who make others suffer. My beak grins malevolently.

And besides, I wanted to test out how this spell would do for quite some time, I just did not have the opportunity to try it.

Both my wing hands point towards the sky as power accumulates across my being. I see the Nurglite's eyes wide in anticipation and despair and its screeches begin anew as my mouths began their chant.

"The Oozing Crest of Corruption. The Arrogant Vessel of Madness. Deny the seething urge to let things stun and flicker. Disrupt the sleep. The Crawling Princess of Iron. The Eternally Self-destructing Doll of Mud. Unite, repulse, fill the earth, and know your own Powerlessness." White beady eyes widen as it felt the incantation come to a close and its existence draw to an end. "Hado Number Ninety! Kurohitsugi!"

Then blackness overcame the form of the daemon, rising up in the form of a tall box at the beat of a distant heart. Crosses flowed up in hateful preparation as the daemon's form was soon enveloped by the Black Coffin of its demise.

Its screams of horror became muffled, then silenced in its entirety as the cage was completed and once the smooth obsidian surface became uniform and monochrome a single thrum of power echoed across the ether and the cage shattered, leaving behind a heap of shattered and obliterated daemon flesh. But it was still living.

The Nurglite's wet dying gurgles were even more pathetic than before, because its cries had not ceased, but at the very least dimmed in intensity, for the thing that made them was all too weak at this point for anything else.

It would die all on its own, the damage done to its essence far too great to recover from, unless it managed to regain contact with its Grandfather, which would most likely happen if I were to release it from its bindings.

"P-p-pleas-s…" It tried, one final time, and I simply sighed in annoyance.

I divorced the Fell Blade from the Chain of Irreverence, then with the former, lit with pale flames, I struck at the daemon's heap of a heart and pulsed a burst of my anathemic might into it, shattering the essence of the daemon asunder forevermore and hear its final lamentations as it was consumed into oblivion's cold embrace.

As the embers of the daemon started to vanish into the ether I huffed. "Well, that came out weaker than I hoped."

-!!!-

"Oh, no, no, no! It was good, but…" I fumbled looking for the words to explain the regressed soul of a child that I was trying to do an anime scene… and failed somewhat. "… It was not what I expected."

I hummed. Well, it made sense, considering that my modus operandi for my spells is to make use of rhymes. And attempting to do a replica from an anime, which was not quite real (you never know with how things have been demonstrated these last couple of… months? Years?... Cycles! Cycles it is.) and that it had an incantation process which was totally different from what I made my signature method, seemed obvious that it wouldn't fly… at least not that far.

-!!!-

"You are right! The Spell has potential, I just have to make it follow my ritualistic archetype." I look around, viewing the carnage I had inflicted upon the bloated spawn of Nurgle. "But I guess we may need more tests subjects for that." And leave some for food.

.

.

.

-!!!-

"Hey! I made some progress with the Nurglite stew!" I defend. I still have not managed to make something edible out of the crap that comes out of Nurgle's fat bloated sack of shit and disease, but at the very least you can actually push it down your gullet. Much to the dismay of the Soul that is bound within my heart.

-!!!-

"Hey! I am an awesome cook! Just because everything out here tastes like crap does not mean I have no taste! I actually made something that tastes like shit taste less like it. Besides I hunted down a couple of Furies so that you stop making such a fuzz about what I can and can't eat!"

-!!!-

"Oh be quiet you! Or I will eat a daemonette's liver topped with horror tentacle flecks!" I say. "And I will not be seasoning it with powdered angel feathers like last time!" Besides, that was fucking lucky that we got an angel this far down into the warp. Sure, it was on its death throes and it was kind of dickish of me to rip a wing of it and run off into the abyss, but in my defence it was about to die anyway and even if I tried to help it, it would have still tried to shank me with that broken sword of it.

At least I got a new flavour off the wing.

A mixture of zeal and hypocrisy with a dash of ego and a distant flavour of oppression. Lovely. Also it worked just like salt, just melting in your tongue and giving more flavour to the meals. Amazingly it made Nurgling stew much more tolerable… if you threw in a Screamer wing membrane to the pot and a Slaaneshi steed's hoof.

But it was better to just skip the Nurgling and toss in the rest of the things. And when you use Furry steak… sweet Gates of Babylon the flavour is almost worth getting shot by a Damned Legionnaire's bolt gun.

I reach into my feathers and put back the Chain of Irreverence and the Vehement Bow as my arms return to their original configuration, leaving behind only the Fell Blade upright and resting within my right hand's grip. I then pluck the map from underneath my feathers and take a look at it to orientate myself.

"Alright, we are in the Broken Pedestals. We would need then to travel up the Downward Path and slide through the Auspicious Gardens and walk towards the edge of the Parallel Rivers… hopefully this season they are not so hungry."

-???-

"Yes, it was that day when I lost my face." I reply to the Little Light inside my chest cavity and ignore the pointed laughter at my one time predicament. I roll my eyes and close the map, taking it back into my body. "Alright, let's get…" Then my eyes see something that I did not recognize, yet on an instinctive level knew was of importance. "…going…"

-???-

"One minute Little Light..." I say, hushing her thoughts as I beheld what caught my attention.

It was the giant statue of an alien, floating beyond in the far distance. From my point of view it seemed small, but I knew that it was a colossus in its own right.

I immediately turned to the ground and used my eldritch sight. I looked past the aggregated corruption and stain that had grown over all the parts of the Empyrean and I saw the song glass beneath the soil.

Without thinking I instantly summoned my power and slammed the pole of my Scythe to the ground, peeling away its layers and revealing a song made stone and glass. I knew what this was. She showed me her memories and the love and sadness that came with their construction, and destruction.

"When hope lies low, follow the path of Broken Gods. Let it show you a sight none had witnessed since epochs past. It will show you what you will need to keep going." I whisper her words.

-???-

I smile at the Little Light's question, but I do not answer. I could almost feel the nostalgia wash through me once more. Damn… how long has it been since I saw her… How long has it been since I heard her voice.

Damn it Warp Mom!

"M'thet ehr she'eth. Urhs-kha ma'a ta ne." I spoke to the ether and it answered my plea.

The song glass became un-dim, and a mote of memory came alit. It floated up to the level of my eyes and with a final tune, it dashed beyond, leaving a sightless trail where my soul could follow.

I smiled and took my first step. Then stopped as I turned around, feeling something tug at my being.

Someone is scrying on me again.

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The Pale Lady watched her smoky mirror as its surface reflected the thing her words had summoned upon and there it was. Beyond the panel of dreaming glass.

The creature that was oh so hatefully called Nameless Hunter by the legion of Khorne, and subsequently the others, had changed quite a bit since his initial days.

Long gone was the similitude to the basal and pitiful furies of the Formless Wastes, now it resembled distantly to one of the greater daemons of the Changer of Ways. But its colour palate was different.

Its plumage was deep steely blue, with shimmering hues of orange and cyan, and the tattered robes that it wore were much unlike those commonly used by the Lords of Change. That its face belonged to an entirely different form of creature was not amiss either.

He found the Bird a delectable target. So vibrant and colourful. She would bind him into a jewel living in perpetual agony that would adorn his delectable bust.

It's porcelain face grinned as he thought this, dreaming of the delicious suffering she would inflict upon the Hunter for its transgressions.

Then that very grinning face turned into one of confusion as she saw the Nameless Hunter's plumage shift, becoming duller and duller, until suddenly with one phrase the Hunter shattered her spell. "Fuck off!" And then the mirror showed nothing but smoke.

Left in shock and confusion, the Pale Lady, Keeper of Secrets and Dancer of the Rose March stood there wondering how the Hunter had managed to shatter her power with such ease.

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End

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Threadmarks Chapter 9

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The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

Archetype of Evolution

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Dec 29, 2021

#584

Spawn of the Well

Chapter 9

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The Pale Lady was a great and powerful daemon of the fourth God of Chaos, Slaanesh.

She was a being of unimaginable power and elegance. A presence that graces the battlefield with a spectacle of sensual splendour and aromatic sensory ambivalence that ranged from the most overwhelming agony, to the most mind-numbing of pleasures.

Indeed, as one of the greater daemons ruling the depths of the Warp, he held enough power and will to build a domain in the name of its Dark God upon the surface of a long submerged daemon continent, which had been claimed and immersed into the warp by the power that be.

It was a palace of overflowing extravagance, laden with silver spires and pillars that held the shrieking melodies of souls twisted and tormented into the very architecture itself. Every room was uniquely built for its master's demands, each containing a spectacle of debased madness that was unique in its making, each an artwork to shamelessness and excess.

This edifice of perversion was created by the ministries the Pale Lady's greatest mortal servant, as per her wishes and by the toiling hands of six million, six hundred and sixty six thousand and six hundred and sixty six slaves and lesser daemon creatures, slaving away to make this grand artwork to the sins of the Eldar's folly in the name of the God they created.

As the Pale Lady strode towards where her objective location, she passed through the chambers that governed a particular form of excess and marvelled at their intricacy and perversion as she fed upon the waves of pleasure and pain that emanated from each.

The first chamber she passed through was filled with mortal humans of all ages being penetrated with long barbed tendrils of a giant fleshy tree, each tendril travelling all the way up to their oesophagus, growing and maturing within their very bodies, forcing their abdomens to distend to impossible levels where the mass and length of the fleshy stem had elongated their digestive tract by at least tenfold. The pain and sensations brought upon by their tormented pleasure acting as their body's nourishment and forcing them to remain whole of health. It was necessary for the next part of their torment. As when the fruit within their bodies became ripe and the mortal's fleshy coil grown to a certain age, they were taken down and sent into the next chamber.

Where upon the Lady passed in front of, she moaned as the sounds of horrified screams and delighted grunts caressed her ears. There the enlarged humans would be fed upon by even larger humans. Bloated masses of fat and gluttonous avarice that would tear and feed upon the flesh of the others, but as the skin and flesh is peeled away by obese hands and teeth, the long tendril fruit within their distended abdomen would use its energies to restore the flesh lost until it too ran out of energy and the mortal was fed upon entirely. A process that would last no more or less than six hundred of their mortal days. It is only when the obese titans became of the right size and girth that the feeding would cease, and they be taken to a different place, replaced by new gluttonous wretches.

There they would be peeled of their skin, which would be used in the furnishings and decor of the palace, giving every place of comfort and visual allure a sense of magnanimous pleasure and pain.

The Pale Lady indeed appreciated the design of the banners depicting her many battles and victories, passing a clawed hand of hers over the still living flesh and feeding upon the lingering aura of torment and excess that it had.

But the obese titans' torment would not end there, far from it. To imagine such would be folly.

Their flesh could be harvested, peeled away until only enough connective tissue remained to hold together their overgrown vital organs. Then their limbless, skinless and fleshless bodies would be bestowed one of three fates. They either would moulded into living architecture where their torment and despair would be infused with the soul infused silver of the palace, creating the spectacle that were called Weeping Walls, or they would be turned into gleaming servitors whose only purpose in existence would be feed upon the waste of the slaves, turning faecal matter into nutritious flesh that the mechanical components would slice off and feed those very same slaves with. Their third option, and that which is most common was to be fed to the Bloated Mother who would gorge on their flesh and give birth to their infant bodies yet again, to either be used in the Tree as the future fruits, or be turned into the feeders once again, starting the cycle anew.

However, their flesh would still have a much longer journey to travel to and it culminated in one of multiple paths.

Entering her alcove the Pale Lady strode past his throne of decadence and plucked one of the inflated meaty mature foetus from the branch like uteri of their macabre mother's bodies. The creature, genetically sharing much of humanity, but none of its features aside from the malformed weeping head and useless, vestigial limbs cried and sobbed in the hands of the Keeper of Secrets, before it was bitten in half by the needle like teeth of the daemon whom fed on the agony and essence of the infant flesh fruit whom was still very much alive.

The Pale Lady tasted the agony and horror, from the very instant its essence was spliced with the undiluted excess of the process that he had just walked past from. A cycle that lasts a hundred years to produce successfully and produces one of the most lavish fruits of excess in the galaxy.

She bit down on what remained of the shrieking child and gorged on what remained of its essence, before she sat down upon her throne, letting the hot, burning spikes delve into her skin, invoking sensations of pain and delight alike.

But she was not here for grandstanding on her throne of thorns, for she had a prey to hunt. It was time to summon her mirrors.

With a wave of her hands, seven wide mirrors of varying sizes manifested before her, each one emblazoned with silver frames and amethyst like gemstones, each plucked and plundered from a different planet. And then, she began her rites.

The Pale Lady had many a name and title. Crofter of Depravity. Dancer of the Rose March. Mistress of the Black Seeds. Rarely would he speak to itself in with a normal name, as close as a daemon could ever have of one, preferring titles that depicted her multiple interests and triumphs.

Her target, too was called by a few titles, but not as many as she himself. The Nameless Hunter was the most prominent, especially by those who served Khorne, but all knew his own self given title. Nameless One.

She spoke words in a langue most profane, one that would render lesser men mad and demanded the warp's foul powers to submit to their rule.

Soon the reflections of the mirrors shifted, like the rippling effect of water and the perfect visage of the Pale Lady was replaced by a bird's eye view of several hunter groups of daemonette riders heading towards the last known location that the Nameless one was seen.

She passed the time eating her fill of souls and infant flesh, up until an update finally came from her servants.

Among his forces, there was a daemon which had been attuned to each mirror, making each one being able to depict whatever that daemon was witnessing with perfect clarity. Upon hearing and being informed, the daemon in question, a Hate Angel with her disgustingly beautiful and obscene purple wings spoke. "The Seekers have found a trace milady."

The Pale Lade Smiled. "Excellent." It said. "Follow it!"

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End

AN.2: This chapter had to be rewritten over three different times and it came out underwhelming and not showing what I wanted it to, so I just decided to cut it in half and post this. I am somewhat pleased that I am done with it!

Also, I need to wash my hands, this chapter made me feel a bit dirty… fucking Slaanesh! I am into dirty shit, but Slaanesh makes me feel dirty. So much so that I had to cut back on the crap I was writing.

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The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

Dec 29, 2021

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Threadmarks Chapter 10

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The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7

Archetype of Evolution

Subscriber

Dec 30, 2021

#654

Spawn of the Well

Chapter 10

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The Path of Broken Gods.

I have walked upon places older than Mankind itself, and yet never once have I felt that I am treading on truly sacred and ancient lands. Or as close as such a term can be attributed to the paradimensional manifestations of the Empyrean.

-???-

I smile gently at the concern from the voice light hiding within the confines of my heart. "We are going to a place older than everything you have seen." I reply to her and her soul presence fades deeper into my being, protected by my light.

I follow the ghostly trail to wherever it is taking me, passing though ill spoken skies and broken seas that sunder their waves across empty void, back to its fellow finger trails. It is not possible to describe the warp in terms mortals could understand, only allegory and flowery speech can come close. It is why sorcerous tomes and metaphysical oriented volumes are infused with the afterthought of their writer, as using the limited confines of three dimensional vocabulary is unable to encapsulate a multi-dimensional concept. Much less one that functions through memetic patter form fusion and cohesion.

I follow dutifully still, as my mind returns back to whence I began my existence in this plane.

I remember a moment, a yelp and a shout. I could recollect the taste of copper and the blur of things spinning beyond your control. It was too fast and too quick for my mind's fragmented echoes to recollect the full happenings of that moment before I ceased to be… all I knew was that as the walls of my mind crumbled into nothingness and darkness claimed me and my soul, I felt… something.

Just… something.

I am not who I was… I am merely a memory returned from infinity. Dissolution made into a reverse flow into resolution. Why or how was I chosen, that I do not know… nor do I think it mattered in the end. I just fitted a certain criteria, but that did not make me special in any way, shape or form. I simply was.

And with the knowledge I gleamed of the universe and its ever intricate ways I knew that there were better candidates chosen. Not chosen as a possibility, but wholly claimed by this outcome… There are infinite paths to take, infinite options, infinite universes and infinite multiverses.

For everything that could be was and what everything was will be and everything that will be could. Such is the nature of the Empyrean, of its Deep Ways and that colorless chromatopoeic forge of infinite possibilities.

I remembered when I was born into this reality, or rather remembered back into existence. I remember the waking abyss, oh so alive and oh so crushing in its intensity. If I were of matter, I would be made of the brittlest of material, easily blown away and asunder by the most delicate of breezes. However, I was in no breeze, but within the raging heart of a wailing storm.

And despite all that, I endured.

Not by any power within my being, but by something else. Or rather someone.

Even as the wind blew, the cages that surrounded me, embraced me, held me within their oh so lovingly calm and warm hold made me fall into a placid bed of seaweed and sand. I could see nothing, nor hear anything. I simply knew.

I simply knew of the cage that surrounded me. How it dreamt dreams of wonder and surprise and loss… and warm hope.

So calm and serene was the draping ocean that covered me, protected me, embraced me that my mind flickered back and forth from waking dreams and sleeping lucidity. I dreamt of worlds raging in fire and death, of stories greater than men, of gods and machines waging conflicts so vast and small that they felt they could touch the dawn of creation itself.

But in this place without places, where the call of ancient stars became a symphony of fractal lines that coincided through parallel interceptions I simply knew nothing.

I was who I was not, my mind and age shifting to the back of my birth, and to the ends of my journey. I felt as brittle as an ancient shaman of the lonely abandoned gale, and as defenseless as the newborn calf in the great and open planes. And yet I feared not.

I could not fear, for every time my doubts rose, when panic dared to consume me, when terror of ignorance and darkness tried to envelop me, I felt its presence, ever watchful, ever caring.

Like the loving embrace of a lover, like the touch of those friends so dear to your heart, like the wordless assurance of a sibling that would give everything and all for your being…. Of the touch of a mother with no face, but a million and one name.

Time passed, seconds became eons, decades were hours, minutes into years… a paradoxical introspection only due to the design of a timeless realm. And as it passed, the cage never wavered, only remained strong, waiting for me to learn how to breathe. To defy fate.

I failed.

Oh so often I failed.

But I could fail again and again. And with each attempt I grew in understanding, I grew in power, I grew in confidence. And I grew in will.

For that was all that demanded in this place.

And when my eyes opened with the light of my own soul I met the deepest of darkest abyss. And yet all I could do was to widen my arms to greet it, for I knew what it was and why it was. For it had been there this entire time waiting for me.

It asked me something yet no words came. I simply knew.

My name.

And I gave it to it, to my ever surprise and wonder, I knew who I was, for she had given me a name of her own.

A trade of gifts. An exchange of rhythmic love and mythopoeic song.

I was who I was, and all she gave me. And she was all she was, and all I have her.

A billion faces emerged from the void beyond, each embracing me with arms oh so gently, as if celebrating my triumph. Each carried a story that belonged to me, and those that did not belong. Faces that I knew and faces that I did not. Fictional and True, all together as one and many. But I did not need to know them, only their intent.

I had been adopted by a God and Goddess older than the first sentient though to ever tread the soils of mother Earth. And I gave her a name of my own, born from the many that imbued title of three mothers in one, a weave of artistry created through love and dedication, of colors and of art so graceful, granted by the dancers of a game most sublime. It mattered not its origin, or those who used it, for she loved all regardless. Why did I decide upon such a name I only knew later. I knew not, but my soul did.

A resonance of my species own deep call. Our future weave that was denied and could not reach but still existed.

She was my Warp Mom.

And she met my call with the face of the Lotus, made ever more radiant and magnificent, bearing the sigil of stars and the thread dance of countless living beings breathing and extinct.

Borne of my own memories, and of her own design. A familiarity and an otherworldliness, all in one.

I remember her light and song… and I miss her melody's touch.

But we had different paths to walk. She let me have the freedom to choose… and I chose this.

The light took me to a place that had no name. However, in truth it was kindred to me, for despite the title, so to it claimed a name of its own as much as I did.

Clear empty spaces upon the openings of a wide realm that had no notion of temporal coherence.

-???-

Little Light asked the question that was obvious. She saw what I saw too. The light made a trail to follow. But if it ended nowhere, then where must things end?

I smile, for even eons after its construction, not once had the denizens of the warp found this place, for in truth, they were inferior to all. They claimed mastery of the warp, and yet none of them had ever thought about folding the warp on itself. "The Key is the Gateway." I respond. "Like we know space and time can be twisted and turned, so to can the infinite potential of the Empyrean's paranatural dimensional values be folded into shapes none can see." I reply as I lean down and place a hand on the ground. I feel nothing of it, but I know its feeling me. I near my beak to its surface, and my mouth opens, to reveal a soft set of lips hiding pearly white round teeth.

My mouth within my mouth opens. A truth truer that truth itself. No sound emerges, but no silence either. It is painful to conceive, even more so to resound without unraveling the veil into naught.

But it's enough and it understands my antediluvian call.

A tear appears between the spaces of un-space and from within its shimmering halo, I see the gateway to where I sought to walk.

I stand and make my way into the entrance of a dimension folded within its own dimensions.

And when I cross the threshold I am greeted by a sight I had not expected. Not in the slightest at all.

The Warp was gone.

No… it was still here, a channel to allow a being such as me in. But it was not warp that I was touching. My form had to contort, I had energy to expend as I made it an intake.

I am in a field of yellow grass, surrounded by trees of golden leaves and azure bark illuminated by an artificial false sun in a crystalline sky. An alien biosphere of the Materium, within the heart of the Immaterium.

A bubble of reality held together within unreality. And I knew what did so, as my eyes wondered towards the pillar of perfectly white stone holding within a crystalline core a heart of absolute dark.

I smile.

A replica of that which lies within my own chest. But instead for stealth and paradoxical logic, it is purely to maintain the Veil Field and hold together the Laws of Untrue-Reason. A replica of the Universe in a microcosm. As all things come and return to the Empyrean, so too must the stuff that denies itself and its infinity in order to achieve that which is finite. The universe is not logical. It never was. For the very core of the logical Universe is born out of the illogical denial of itself.

A Void Heart.

The Soul-stuff of the Pariah.

Ha… I am so close to the Materium yet not.

Isn't that right?

-???-

"Yes my child." I hear a deep, yet melodious voice speak behind me and my smile widens. I pull my hand up and grab my beak and pull it back. Beaks, fangs and feathers give way to a smooth peach face with a slight shadow of a beard long forming but never quite reaching.

Curly jet black hair trails down around my head, long enough to reach to lobes of a round set of ears and eyes shining with blue and red turn around as I my body moves, following in their direction.

I look up to a face I had not seen in a time beyond time, smiling back at me with longing joy and sadness.

-???!!!?!?!?-

It's not her… it's an echo. A shadow, an afterimage connected to her, yet not a fraction of a fraction of who and what she is. I smile sadly. I am with one foot on both my homes, yet never quite reaching into either. I am oh so far from the Depths where she nurtured my memory and soul, even as I am looking into her eyeless mask, and so far from the Realm of Logic, even as I am straining to maintain my image in this simulacra of reality.

But even then, I have never felt more at home. "I am back, N'ta-ah."

She smiles and I almost forget of the years I have spent in this hell as her serene, cool warm embrace bathes my soul. "Welcome back… Ḧ̶̗́̉'̵̥̱͌D̷͕̎a̴̖̘̎ȏ̷̞ ̴̞̳͆U̵̲̇h̵̘͖̿̽n̸͖̤͐ ̸̱̖͂͌K̶̦͍̏̋h̴͕͛a̵̰̾̑."

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End

AN: Since I am going to spend these few days studying for the driver's exam and spending time with my mom before she leaves abroad I decided to post this chapter technically halfway done now and leave you with something to read and discuss for the weekend.

I hope you enjoy and that this small chapter is worth the future wait.