Both as a warrior and as a general, Khaine had walked many worlds. He had seen worlds covered in water, and fought in flying cities. He had seen peoples both bizarre and powerful, and tested them in battle. However, always had he seen these worlds through the lens of war, he had seen them in their last throws as the world was annihilated by the superior invading demon force. He had strode through burning cities and fields of corpses, crushing all who stood in his path. It was a truth Khaine had accepted about the world, a state of being he believed to be the inevitable result of his nature. And yet, as he strode from the portal, he was greeted with open green fields. This world was untouched by war, save what the inhabitants had done to one another. It was a momentary oddness, that he found himself without an army, walking on a world so..... clean.

Seeing no viable threats to his well-being, Khaine decided to head towards a rather large structure he spotted in the distance. An immense construct of mortar and stone, similar in shape to an ant nest, but far superior in scale. The makeshift mountain was heavily reinforced, and as he strode towards it Khaine found himself musing on how to take it. He came to the conclusion that marching your troops up the heavy slopes would be suicide, as you bared yourself to enemy attack while tiring out your troops. It would be best to strike from the air, shock troops landing at a variety of locations as a strike force attempted to take control of the main entranceways. Lightly armoured troops could then be moved up the mountain, to be let in by the strike forces as they moved in to capture more important strategic points, and clear the way for the larger war machines to dominate the battlefield.

Of course, such speculation at this point was fruitless, for Khaine had no troops to throw at the mountain. While many demons would still have followed him into battle, he had abandoned his post, and exiled himself. It was a decision he often questioned, and it was mostly his curiosity that set him on this path. For he had seen the world through the Path of War, but what world could be seen outside of it? What beautiful sights lay hidden from his eyes, merely for the actions he took? These questions were what brought him to the mountain, and kept him from drawing his blade. For if he chose not to fight, a whole new world might be revealed to him.

No force emerged to meet him as he approached the structure, no army roared out to challenge him. And yet Khaine found himself faced with blank stone walls where he knew the entrance must be. Khaine looked over the fortress, reassuring himself once more that the main entrance would, in fact, be placed here. He knew that it was quite probably built within these walls, camouflaged by either ingenuity or magic in order to ward off invaders. But he knew not how, without tearing it down, he was to enter. Thus, he decided to wait, an almost painful decision to make, setting aside his violent urges to see how this situation would play out. How would the people of this makeshift mountain greet him, if they wished to meet with him at all?

[@supertinyking]