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Description
The cleansing flame of my Inferno Pistol roars down the hallway, but fails to hit the Heretic, who darts down a side corridor the very instant I pull the trigger.

“Damnable whelp!” I curse. Wanting only to destroy this blasphemous rebellion and get off this Emperor-forsaken ball of dust and steel, generously referred to as a planet. After six month of hunting down the members of the Chaos cult throughout the cramped halls of this hellish Hive, I have grown weary of it’s endless grey walls and insufferable heat.

“Gael!” I cry, calling the new Penitent who had recently joined my Henchmen after refuting this very cult. “Where does that tunnel lead?!”

“To the Tzeen-ehk my lord.” replied the snivelling wreck.

“The what?!” I questioned. “What in all the Emperor’s domain is a “Tzeen-ehk”?!” my patience for Gael’s tendency to be indirect and dance around the matter at hand had grown thin.

“The Hall of Change, Inquisitor Lord. It is the cental meeting place of the cult. Where all the ceremonies to Tzeentch are held. There should in fact be a ceremony in progress as we speak my lord”

“Good, then let us follow him, and end this at last.” Gael has been very useful. He knows the Hive, and the cult, quite well. Without him this will take another six months. It’s a shame that I shall have to kill him when this is over. He’s to good at his job, he effortlessly grounds every psychic attack against us, he has clearly been touched to deeply by Tzeentch. But he has truly repented, and he knows that he will find final absolution in death alone.

“No doubt there will be a trap waiting, Inquisitor Lord” interjects Huggin, my Calculus Logi.

“Yes, I agree.” Adds Munnin, my Lexmechanic. Of course he agrees, the two always agree.

The hallway is long and well lite, I see down it for what looks like miles. Every step echos along it’s impossible depth.

“How is this possible?” I inquire, to no one in particular. “One can see for miles here. Why can we not see the Heretic who fled down this hallway?”

“It is an illusion my lord, the hallway is only 20m lon...” replied Gael

“So where is the entrance to this hall, whose blasphemous name I will not speak” interrupts Fenrir, my Crusader, self-righteous as always.

“At the end of the hall,” continued Gael, unperturbed. “There is a cypher, we must open it. I only hope that news of my treachery to the cult has not reached the Magister, or else the cypher will have been changed.”

“For your sake,” adds Fenrir, most threateningly. “let us hope that it has not.” Fenrir does not like Gael in the least. He protested when I allowed Gael to join my retinue, insisting that we should just kill him for his heresies. I have no doubt that he would kill Gael himself if given even the slightest bit of justification.

We continue along the hallway in silence for another two or three minutes before Gael stops us. He takes three more steps, and then mutters a short incantation under his breath. When he finishes, there appears a bizarre, bleach white dial made up of circles within circles in the air in front of him. He looks at it briefly, and then sinks to his knees.

“The cypher has been changed!” he wails. “I have failed in my duties! I am a disgrace to the Emperor!”

Wishing not so much to console him, but to silence him, lest we be heard by unfriendly ears, I kneel down to speak to him. “You have not failed Gael.” I tell him. “You have served me faithfully this far, and you shall serve me again once we have gotten through this cypher.”

“But my lord,” he whimpers. “there is no way though, the symbols themselves have been changed, I cannot open the way.”

“If only Sister Marie were here, she could decipher this.” bemoans Huggin, referring to my Sister Dialogous. Sister Marie is currently in my suitably large chambers in the upper levels of the Hive, attempting to read a bizarre and heretical text found on the body of a cult leader I killed yesterday.

“My lord,” says Eir, my Sister Hospitaller, and most trusted Chirurgeon. “Perhaps we need not unlock the cypher, merely open it.”

Understanding her implication, I extend my open hand, into which she places one of my Power Stakes; which I proceed to thrust into the psychically powered cypher. The cypher then explodes into white hot, purifying flame. Though my Psyocculum, I see the psychic field of the cypher collapse. The very walls of the hallway before us fall way, and we find ourselves in the entrance to a great hall. At out feet is a staircase, which goes down about twenty feet to the floor of the hall. Directly across from us, at the other end of the hall, is a similar doorway and staircase.

Below me, I can see thousands upon thousands of minutely powerful psykers, each bowing upon the floor in front of me. I look towards the direction they are pointing, and see the horror before which they prostrate themselves.

“Merd.” I whisper under my breath. For never before have I seen so powerful a psyker, more than a match even for me.

“The Magister.” says Gael, cowering before the presence of the mighty heretic.

“What are they doing?” I ask, turning to Gael.

“Emperor protect us all, they are preparing for the Coming” replied, clearly repulsed by what he is witnessing.

“The what?” I question.

The Coming my lord.” continued Gael. “The time when the lesser cult members will sacrifice themselves to open a portal into the Warp, from whence shall be summoned a grand army of daemons, all at the command of the Magister.”

Digesting what I had just been told, I turn my attention back towards the Magister. I wonder what hideously evil machinations have passed through his twisted mind that he might conceive of a plan such as this. And I realise that I have no hope of stopping him. My only option is to flee, find a large imperial force, and come back to fight the Magister and his daemon army.

“My lord.” says Huggin, tapping my shoulder. “We cannot hope to stop this force, and this world has nowhere near the necessary military to fight such a foe, we must flee, and return a suitably large imperial army.”

“I agree.” adds Munnin.

“Then let us flee.” I tell them, turning towards the way we had come. “This is not a battle I care fight, armed as I am.” I pull the vox-caster out of my pocket. “Marie, this is Gabriel, gather the others, we are leaving.”

Even as I replace the vox-caster, there is a grand explosion of Warp energy behind me. Returning my gaze towards the hall, I see that the Coming, has arrived. The corpses of the thousands of cultists have fused together, forming a great, gaping Warp portal on the floor. Out of that portal, poor the ever-changing servants of the Lord of Change. To my horror, a great Lord of Change, flying out of the center of the portal, sees us, and wordlessly informs his master. The Magister, aware of our presence for the first time, bellows a command in a language I do not care to understand, and the daemons of Tzeentch begin to make their way, slowly, and inexorably towards us.

“Flee!” I call to my henchmen. I know that it is hopeless however, never will we be able to escape.

As we begin our retreat, I see that Fenrir has not moved. Not interested in dealing with him, I yell a brief order, and prepared to run. Fenrir however, remains where he is.

“Fenrir my friend!” my call echoes through the hall. “This is not something worth dying for!”

“Any cause of the Emperor is one worth dying for!” he retorts, quoting some obscure scripture the existence of which has doubtless been forgotten by all but him. “I shall die,” he continues, drawing his power sword and activating his suppression shield. “that you might live.”

“No!” cries Gael, grabbing the sword from Fenrir’s not yet steeled hand. “I shall die. My death fighting for the cause of the Emperor will assure not only your escape, but my own forgiveness. Go now, and live to destroy these unclean things.”

Seeing this righteous fire of the Emperor burning in his erstwhile colleague, Fenrir patted Gael on the shoulder, and joined the rest of us in our flight. We could hear Gael screaming the litanies of righteous hatred even as we fled down the hallways, and towards the Upper-Hive.

Description
The cleansing flame of my Inferno Pistol roars down the hallway, but fails to hit the Heretic, who darts down a side corridor the very instant I pull the trigger.

“Damnable whelp!” I curse. Wanting only to destroy this blasphemous rebellion and get off this Emperor-forsaken ball of dust and steel, generously referred to as a planet. After six month of hunting down the members of the Chaos cult throughout the cramped halls of this hellish Hive, I have grown weary of it’s endless grey walls and insufferable heat.

“Gael!” I cry, calling the new Penitent who had recently joined my Henchmen after refuting this very cult. “Where does that tunnel lead?!”

“To the Tzeen-ehk my lord.” replied the snivelling wreck.

“The what?!” I questioned. “What in all the Emperor’s domain is a “Tzeen-ehk”?!” my patience for Gael’s tendency to be indirect and dance around the matter at hand had grown thin.

“The Hall of Change, Inquisitor Lord. It is the cental meeting place of the cult. Where all the ceremonies to Tzeentch are held. There should in fact be a ceremony in progress as we speak my lord”

“Good, then let us follow him, and end this at last.” Gael has been very useful. He knows the Hive, and the cult, quite well. Without him this will take another six months. It’s a shame that I shall have to kill him when this is over. He’s to good at his job, he effortlessly grounds every psychic attack against us, he has clearly been touched to deeply by Tzeentch. But he has truly repented, and he knows that he will find final absolution in death alone.

“No doubt there will be a trap waiting, Inquisitor Lord” interjects Huggin, my Calculus Logi.

“Yes, I agree.” Adds Munnin, my Lexmechanic. Of course he agrees, the two always agree.

The hallway is long and well lite, I see down it for what looks like miles. Every step echos along it’s impossible depth.

“How is this possible?” I inquire, to no one in particular. “One can see for miles here. Why can we not see the Heretic who fled down this hallway?”

“It is an illusion my lord, the hallway is only 20m lon...” replied Gael

“So where is the entrance to this hall, whose blasphemous name I will not speak” interrupts Fenrir, my Crusader, self-righteous as always.

“At the end of the hall,” continued Gael, unperturbed. “There is a cypher, we must open it. I only hope that news of my treachery to the cult has not reached the Magister, or else the cypher will have been changed.”

“For your sake,” adds Fenrir, most threateningly. “let us hope that it has not.” Fenrir does not like Gael in the least. He protested when I allowed Gael to join my retinue, insisting that we should just kill him for his heresies. I have no doubt that he would kill Gael himself if given even the slightest bit of justification.

We continue along the hallway in silence for another two or three minutes before Gael stops us. He takes three more steps, and then mutters a short incantation under his breath. When he finishes, there appears a bizarre, bleach white dial made up of circles within circles in the air in front of him. He looks at it briefly, and then sinks to his knees.

“The cypher has been changed!” he wails. “I have failed in my duties! I am a disgrace to the Emperor!”

Wishing not so much to console him, but to silence him, lest we be heard by unfriendly ears, I kneel down to speak to him. “You have not failed Gael.” I tell him. “You have served me faithfully this far, and you shall serve me again once we have gotten through this cypher.”

“But my lord,” he whimpers. “there is no way though, the symbols themselves have been changed, I cannot open the way.”

“If only Sister Marie were here, she could decipher this.” bemoans Huggin, referring to my Sister Dialogous. Sister Marie is currently in my suitably large chambers in the upper levels of the Hive, attempting to read a bizarre and heretical text found on the body of a cult leader I killed yesterday.

“My lord,” says Eir, my Sister Hospitaller, and most trusted Chirurgeon. “Perhaps we need not unlock the cypher, merely open it.”

Understanding her implication, I extend my open hand, into which she places one of my Power Stakes; which I proceed to thrust into the psychically powered cypher. The cypher then explodes into white hot, purifying flame. Though my Psyocculum, I see the psychic field of the cypher collapse. The very walls of the hallway before us fall way, and we find ourselves in the entrance to a great hall. At out feet is a staircase, which goes down about twenty feet to the floor of the hall. Directly across from us, at the other end of the hall, is a similar doorway and staircase.

Below me, I can see thousands upon thousands of minutely powerful psykers, each bowing upon the floor in front of me. I look towards the direction they are pointing, and see the horror before which they prostrate themselves.

“Merd.” I whisper under my breath. For never before have I seen so powerful a psyker, more than a match even for me.

“The Magister.” says Gael, cowering before the presence of the mighty heretic.

“What are they doing?” I ask, turning to Gael.

“Emperor protect us all, they are preparing for the Coming” replied, clearly repulsed by what he is witnessing.

“The what?” I question.

The Coming my lord.” continued Gael. “The time when the lesser cult members will sacrifice themselves to open a portal into the Warp, from whence shall be summoned a grand army of daemons, all at the command of the Magister.”

Digesting what I had just been told, I turn my attention back towards the Magister. I wonder what hideously evil machinations have passed through his twisted mind that he might conceive of a plan such as this. And I realise that I have no hope of stopping him. My only option is to flee, find a large imperial force, and come back to fight the Magister and his daemon army.

“My lord.” says Huggin, tapping my shoulder. “We cannot hope to stop this force, and this world has nowhere near the necessary military to fight such a foe, we must flee, and return a suitably large imperial army.”

“I agree.” adds Munnin.

“Then let us flee.” I tell them, turning towards the way we had come. “This is not a battle I care fight, armed as I am.” I pull the vox-caster out of my pocket. “Marie, this is Gabriel, gather the others, we are leaving.”

Even as I replace the vox-caster, there is a grand explosion of Warp energy behind me. Returning my gaze towards the hall, I see that the Coming, has arrived. The corpses of the thousands of cultists have fused together, forming a great, gaping Warp portal on the floor. Out of that portal, poor the ever-changing servants of the Lord of Change. To my horror, a great Lord of Change, flying out of the center of the portal, sees us, and wordlessly informs his master. The Magister, aware of our presence for the first time, bellows a command in a language I do not care to understand, and the daemons of Tzeentch begin to make their way, slowly, and inexorably towards us.

“Flee!” I call to my henchmen. I know that it is hopeless however, never will we be able to escape.

As we begin our retreat, I see that Fenrir has not moved. Not interested in dealing with him, I yell a brief order, and prepared to run. Fenrir however, remains where he is.

“Fenrir my friend!” my call echoes through the hall. “This is not something worth dying for!”

“Any cause of the Emperor is one worth dying for!” he retorts, quoting some obscure scripture the existence of which has doubtless been forgotten by all but him. “I shall die,” he continues, drawing his power sword and activating his suppression shield. “that you might live.”

“No!” cries Gael, grabbing the sword from Fenrir’s not yet steeled hand. “I shall die. My death fighting for the cause of the Emperor will assure not only your escape, but my own forgiveness. Go now, and live to destroy these unclean things.”

Seeing this righteous fire of the Emperor burning in his erstwhile colleague, Fenrir patted Gael on the shoulder, and joined the rest of us in our flight. We could hear Gael screaming the litanies of righteous hatred even as we fled down the hallways, and towards the Upper-Hive.