Salvius the historian, obsessed with Tzeentch and developing newfound pysker-powers; the brain -- played by @Keepvogel
Gormog the Ogryn bodyguard, a Khorne-worshiping simpleton with a massive shotgun; the brawn -- played by @Hank
Gormog the Ogryn bodyguard, a Khorne-worshiping simpleton with a massive shotgun; the brawn -- played by @Hank
The corridor they were standing in was almost unbearably small. The ceiling hung so low that Gormog had to hunch over slightly, and even then the top of his bald head occassionally brushed against it. This was because the corridor had been designed for regular humans -- or human-sized beings, at any rate -- and Gormog was an Ogryn who reached well over nine feet at his tallest. Not only was he very tall, he was also very large; his bulk was comparable to that of a Space Marine's in Terminator armor. Gormog grunted in discomfort and rolled his round, ham-sized shoulders. "Much longer?" he asked his companion, squinting two beady eyes in the gloom.
"Almost there, old friend," said Salvius, fiddling with a servopad. After a moment a click announced the unlocking of the door in front of them. "The artefact should be close. Very close." Salvius' intense blue eyes, specked with gold, gleamed with an almost predatory hunger. His eyes had not always been this color. Nor where they this color all the time. But now he was so close, and he had waited such a very, very long time. "The artifact of this so called 'Lord of Change' should be here!" With chills of excitement icing through the spine of his smallish, lithe frame, Salvius stepped into the darkness of the next room.
Ah, yes, there was that word again. 'Artefact'. Over the course of the past few years, Gormog had almost managed to remember what it meant. He grunted appreciatively when the door sprung open. "Clever, little friend," he said and followed Salvius into the next chamber, ducking low to avoid the doorframe. This room was even darker than the corridor they had just left; it seemed that the ambient light of the ruined techno-library failed to penetrate here. Gormog reached a hand up and activated his shoulder-mounted glow-lamp, illuminating the way ahead. He gripped his ripper gun tightly and gently squeezed the trigger in anticipation. It was a solid, sturdy weapon, developed by the Imperial Guard specifically for Ogryns; an enormous semi-automatic shotgun that doubled as a club and a spear, by virtue of a footlong bayonet.
In the dim light, rows and rows of ancient data cogitators became visible. The space was not so much a room as an actual cathedral. A shrine to long lost knowledge and forbidden information on the workings of the universe. In the absolute silence one could hear the cracks and hums of ancient machinery and occasionally the fleeting silvery sounds of even older apparatusses, seemingly storing information on some kind of dark rotating spools. On regular intervals dark alcoves were hidden from the weak light. Salvius knew exactly where to go. Picking up a fast pace, Salvius started down the aisle, taking out his auspex scanner. "Remember that research station on Belmar? Don't wanna have a nasty radiation surprise again, right?"
Gormog's memory could usually be compared to a sieve without any fault, but it was hard for him to forget the Belmar station. Groaning, he shook his big head. The chemo had taken weeks. "No rads," he grunted, not even attempting a pronounciation of the entire word. He followed Salvius with slow, measured steps, easily keeping up with the smaller academicus. He swung his weapon slowly from left to right, scanning the vast chamber, but nothing jumped out at him. Yet. "How far?" he asked, feeling increasingly uneasy. Ogryns weren't famous for their intellect but growing up on a harsh, feral world had instilled Gormog with a deep, instinctual sense of danger. The hairs on his neck were starting to stand on end.
"Here we are." Salvius knelt down besides one of the small alcoves. Nothing marked this one from any other one among the hundreds hidden along the thick rockcrete walls. Wiping the dust away Slavius was faced with a vault of some kind. It was roughly rectangular in size with a turning knob in the center. It seemed that the knob could be turned on multiple levels, although it was as of yet unclear to Salvius how this constituted any kind of code or combination to open the vault. Rummaging in his backpack he quickly took out an old battered dataslate. It was heavily customized. Firstly, it was almost twice as thick as any other dataslate to allow for a bigger battery. Secondly, the screen could not only be adjusted in brightness but also had an automatically moving magnifier glass attached to it. Finally, and most importantly, its storage space was immense. Salvius doubted any other device in the sector had this much storage capacity. Not that that said much in this sector.
The slate contained everything that Salvius had ever encountered, everyone that Salvius ever met and everything Salvius had ever learned or read. Most of the time, Salvius didn't need it. Now, he merely looked up a book about ancient safekeeping to refresh his memory on this particular kind of safe. Placing his hands on the lowest dial of the knob, he started turning, listening for the ever so slight telltale auditory response indicating the dial locking in place. Entering a deep place of focus within himself, Salvius didn't even notice himself triggering about seven alarms.
Immediately, sirens started wailing somewhere deep inside the techno-library. "Uh oh," Gormog gawped, turning left and right, looking for the enemy. He did not have to wait long; several decrepit servitors detached themselves from hidden alcoves and shambled into view. They were old models, obviously abandoned here, but threats all the same; Gormog spotted a few sharp edges and shoulder-mounted ballistic weaponry among their ranks. Inhaling deeply, Gormog roared "BLOOD!", his abbreviated version of the infamous Khornate warcry, followed swiftly by "SKULLS!". He pulled the trigger of his ripper gun back entirely and let it.. well, rip, blasting multiple rounds of scattershot into the servitors. The size of the ripper gun allowed for casings with huge pellets, which easily tore through the flesh and metal bodies. Gormog had learned how to fight in the Imperial Guard and his training was embedded in his muscles, requiring no thought process whatsoever. Thankfully.
Bullets started coming his way, impacting harmlessly on his thick, matte black flack armor. Displaying a surpising amount of acrobatic finesse, Gormog performed a dodgeroll, seeking cover behind one of the cogitator racks. He unhooked one of the frak grenades from his belt, pulled the pin and flung it in the general direction of the servitors. A satisfying crump was followed by the sound of blood and metal pieces scattering across the floor. Gormog left his cover, strafing through the aisle, pumping more pellet hail into the remaining servitors. He sought cover behind another cogitator rack on the other side and reloaded.
Gormog had once served the Emperor of Mankind and loved him dearly, but he had been left for dead after an intense firefight between his regiment and the forces of Chaos. Waking up with almost total amnesia, Gormog found himself among a Chaos cult and learned to worship Khorne, whose sphere of influence -- carnage -- happened to align pretty well with Gormog's hobbies. Gormog himself remained completely unaware of the true nature of Chaos, too stupid to be corrupted. It was all the same to Khorne; blood was blood, skulls were skulls. Before Gormog had been transformed into an Ogryn Berseker and sent on some kind of suicide mission, which surely would have spelled his imminent death, his warband was defeated in combat by Imperial forces and Gormog once again found himself with the Imperium. This time, however, he was destined for a penal colony on account of not knowing who the Emperor was.
In the here and now, Gormog was unsure whether he had bellowed his warcry yet or not and decided to repeat it for good measure. "BLOOD!" The battlecry echoed away and was followed by silence for a few seconds. Alas, the battle was not yet won, and Gormog heard more shuffling, metallic sounds approaching.
The second dial clicked into place. It baffled Salvius that most people had found this task impossible, or only possible with specialised listening equipment. Three more dials to go. They surely hadn't skimped on their security back in the day. Working away at the third dial, Salvius let his concious thought flow outward, remembering bits and pieces of his past. His early days on a barely known agri-world, being fed useless drivel about the Emperor everyday both by his parents and the local preacher. Then his potential was finally noticed: his uncle came back from the latest campaign of his unit. "Quick wit and a practical mindset are appreciated in the guard," he said, throwing his commisar's cap onto the hat rack. From this Salvius learned how to recognize a lie. His career in the guard was short and painful, almost dying from a grazing bullet wound to the back of the head. It saved him from servitude and got him a small logic cogitator bionic implant, paid for by the guard. In the very back recesses of his mind, Salvius could almost hear gunfire. The third dial clicked into place.
After recuperation, Salvius joined the Adeptus Administratum. But here too his life would be aggravating in the worst way possible. How could they be so incredibly inefficient? How could it be that the Imperium was run by these imbeciles? Change would be needed. Applying his spectacular memory and ability to reason, he dug deep in ancient records, finding scraps and traces of an ancient power, an ancient being, also fighting for change. With the help of these ancient records Salvius developed new and better ways for the Administratum, and presented his findings to the Master Curator of the system. Being laughed at by this man, this decrepit, self-serving "adept" rotting away in his chair, was the final straw. Pulling his keepsake from the Guard, Salvius shot the man twice in the head from across his desk. The sound of gunfire defintiely seemed to keep popping up. Where was it coming from? The fourth dial clicked into place.
He needed to get out. Walking out of the mans office, Salvius explained to the servitor secretary that the highly esteemed master curator had requested to be left in peace for the foreseeable future and that nobody was allowed inside on pain of death. Picking up the nearest document awaiting storage and reading the first three sentences, Salvius decreed: "I have however been ordered to personally make sure that this matter is resolved with the utmost speed. I am to... chaperone this captured Ogryn off-world to a penal facility. Mark that down, will you?" And with that Salvius calmly walked out, boarded the nearest shuttle for orbit and went off to meet his new charge. He would later learn that the servitor secretary managed to kill three adepts before being overpowered. The last dial clicked into place and the vault sprang open. "Gormog! It's open! Come see what's in-- what in the name of change is going on?" said Salvius, pulling his old laspistol from a fold in his robe.
Lumbering into view, Gormog racked the slide of his ripper gun. "Fight," he explained, and turned his back to Salvius, ready to blast the first thing he saw back to the stone age. The metallic sounds kept coming closer and Gormog gently squeezed the trigger again.
Predictably, the first servitor to appear in sight received a fistful of pellets, splitting in half with the kinetic force of the impact. Gormog bellowed some more, incoherently this time, and charged into the fray, alternating between shooting servitors and impaling them on the ripper gun's bayonet. Salvius added a few carefully aimed las-shots to the carnage, making sure not to hit his Ogryn bodyguard.
The unlikely companionship between Gormog and Salvius was forged during the transfer to the penal colony. Salvius, looking for help, managed to convince Gormog to become his bodyguard by explaining in great detail what happened in a penal colony and that Salvius could arrange an avoidance of such a fate. Together, the two made a daring escape, and have been traversing the sector ever since.
When the last servitor hit the deck, Gormog looked around, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, but there was nothing left to kill. Hit with a pang of the now-familiar disappointment he always experienced at the end of a battle, Gormog reloaded his ripper gun one last time, stowing the empty magazines in one of his mesh-pouches. "All done," he said, turning back to Salvius, narrowing his eyes at the open vault. Inside was something small... for all the world to see, it looked like a blackened, avian skull the size of one of Gormog's knuckles, attached to a thin necklace.
Scratching his chin in confusion, Gormog managed to eloquently convey his thoughts: "What?"
With a slightly condecending look directed at Gormog, who completely failed to appreciate it, Salvius explained. "That, dear Gormog, is the item we have been looking for. The agents of change over roughly the last ten thousand years of documented history, and I am willing to bet for far longer, always seem to have a peculiar love for birds' skulls, much like your love for any skulls at all. This particular skull has been seen in the hands of prophets, saints, lord-generals, a high admiral, various tech priests and even a few inquisitors. All have made a great impact on history, though all seem to have ended rather badly in a very unpredictable manner. The skull must be extremely durable despite its fragile looks, and can be recognized by its intense black colour, the missing bonechip in the left eyesocket and the teeth: as you can see, each tooth is curved, but every one at a different angle. It makes the skull look rather ominous to some, leading to the reports of so called "nefarious auras". Complete bollocks of course." Salvius started to reach for the skull.
Gormog knew some of those words. "Skulls," he agreed.
Touching the tiny black skull, Salvius' world changed forever. The name of his lord was now known to him: Lord of Change, the Architect of Fate, Tzeentch. With the name, came the warp. A new world now stood open to Salvius, with new perceptions, perceived with new senses. A world of the insane, of the corrupt. Never would Salvius be a part of that world. After all, how can you be influenced when you know the insidious forces attempting to control you? No, his superior intellect and critical ability would save him from this fate.
Focussing his entire force of will, his entire being into a discarded bullet casing a few metres away, Salvius willed it to move. Was that a tremor? A breath of wind or breath of the warp? No matter. Soon, power would be his to change the world for the better. To spread the benevolent rule of Tzeen... The Emperor. And from the Warp came a place. A hint to this greater power. A place to nurture and feed this new potential of his. "Gormog. Ephron V is our destination. We will become gods there. Powerful gods!" Walking over some battle debris and across the threshold of the room back to civilization, a final whisper came to him from the warp: "As you stare into the warp, the warp stares back into you..."
"Almost there, old friend," said Salvius, fiddling with a servopad. After a moment a click announced the unlocking of the door in front of them. "The artefact should be close. Very close." Salvius' intense blue eyes, specked with gold, gleamed with an almost predatory hunger. His eyes had not always been this color. Nor where they this color all the time. But now he was so close, and he had waited such a very, very long time. "The artifact of this so called 'Lord of Change' should be here!" With chills of excitement icing through the spine of his smallish, lithe frame, Salvius stepped into the darkness of the next room.
Ah, yes, there was that word again. 'Artefact'. Over the course of the past few years, Gormog had almost managed to remember what it meant. He grunted appreciatively when the door sprung open. "Clever, little friend," he said and followed Salvius into the next chamber, ducking low to avoid the doorframe. This room was even darker than the corridor they had just left; it seemed that the ambient light of the ruined techno-library failed to penetrate here. Gormog reached a hand up and activated his shoulder-mounted glow-lamp, illuminating the way ahead. He gripped his ripper gun tightly and gently squeezed the trigger in anticipation. It was a solid, sturdy weapon, developed by the Imperial Guard specifically for Ogryns; an enormous semi-automatic shotgun that doubled as a club and a spear, by virtue of a footlong bayonet.
In the dim light, rows and rows of ancient data cogitators became visible. The space was not so much a room as an actual cathedral. A shrine to long lost knowledge and forbidden information on the workings of the universe. In the absolute silence one could hear the cracks and hums of ancient machinery and occasionally the fleeting silvery sounds of even older apparatusses, seemingly storing information on some kind of dark rotating spools. On regular intervals dark alcoves were hidden from the weak light. Salvius knew exactly where to go. Picking up a fast pace, Salvius started down the aisle, taking out his auspex scanner. "Remember that research station on Belmar? Don't wanna have a nasty radiation surprise again, right?"
Gormog's memory could usually be compared to a sieve without any fault, but it was hard for him to forget the Belmar station. Groaning, he shook his big head. The chemo had taken weeks. "No rads," he grunted, not even attempting a pronounciation of the entire word. He followed Salvius with slow, measured steps, easily keeping up with the smaller academicus. He swung his weapon slowly from left to right, scanning the vast chamber, but nothing jumped out at him. Yet. "How far?" he asked, feeling increasingly uneasy. Ogryns weren't famous for their intellect but growing up on a harsh, feral world had instilled Gormog with a deep, instinctual sense of danger. The hairs on his neck were starting to stand on end.
"Here we are." Salvius knelt down besides one of the small alcoves. Nothing marked this one from any other one among the hundreds hidden along the thick rockcrete walls. Wiping the dust away Slavius was faced with a vault of some kind. It was roughly rectangular in size with a turning knob in the center. It seemed that the knob could be turned on multiple levels, although it was as of yet unclear to Salvius how this constituted any kind of code or combination to open the vault. Rummaging in his backpack he quickly took out an old battered dataslate. It was heavily customized. Firstly, it was almost twice as thick as any other dataslate to allow for a bigger battery. Secondly, the screen could not only be adjusted in brightness but also had an automatically moving magnifier glass attached to it. Finally, and most importantly, its storage space was immense. Salvius doubted any other device in the sector had this much storage capacity. Not that that said much in this sector.
The slate contained everything that Salvius had ever encountered, everyone that Salvius ever met and everything Salvius had ever learned or read. Most of the time, Salvius didn't need it. Now, he merely looked up a book about ancient safekeeping to refresh his memory on this particular kind of safe. Placing his hands on the lowest dial of the knob, he started turning, listening for the ever so slight telltale auditory response indicating the dial locking in place. Entering a deep place of focus within himself, Salvius didn't even notice himself triggering about seven alarms.
Immediately, sirens started wailing somewhere deep inside the techno-library. "Uh oh," Gormog gawped, turning left and right, looking for the enemy. He did not have to wait long; several decrepit servitors detached themselves from hidden alcoves and shambled into view. They were old models, obviously abandoned here, but threats all the same; Gormog spotted a few sharp edges and shoulder-mounted ballistic weaponry among their ranks. Inhaling deeply, Gormog roared "BLOOD!", his abbreviated version of the infamous Khornate warcry, followed swiftly by "SKULLS!". He pulled the trigger of his ripper gun back entirely and let it.. well, rip, blasting multiple rounds of scattershot into the servitors. The size of the ripper gun allowed for casings with huge pellets, which easily tore through the flesh and metal bodies. Gormog had learned how to fight in the Imperial Guard and his training was embedded in his muscles, requiring no thought process whatsoever. Thankfully.
Bullets started coming his way, impacting harmlessly on his thick, matte black flack armor. Displaying a surpising amount of acrobatic finesse, Gormog performed a dodgeroll, seeking cover behind one of the cogitator racks. He unhooked one of the frak grenades from his belt, pulled the pin and flung it in the general direction of the servitors. A satisfying crump was followed by the sound of blood and metal pieces scattering across the floor. Gormog left his cover, strafing through the aisle, pumping more pellet hail into the remaining servitors. He sought cover behind another cogitator rack on the other side and reloaded.
Gormog had once served the Emperor of Mankind and loved him dearly, but he had been left for dead after an intense firefight between his regiment and the forces of Chaos. Waking up with almost total amnesia, Gormog found himself among a Chaos cult and learned to worship Khorne, whose sphere of influence -- carnage -- happened to align pretty well with Gormog's hobbies. Gormog himself remained completely unaware of the true nature of Chaos, too stupid to be corrupted. It was all the same to Khorne; blood was blood, skulls were skulls. Before Gormog had been transformed into an Ogryn Berseker and sent on some kind of suicide mission, which surely would have spelled his imminent death, his warband was defeated in combat by Imperial forces and Gormog once again found himself with the Imperium. This time, however, he was destined for a penal colony on account of not knowing who the Emperor was.
In the here and now, Gormog was unsure whether he had bellowed his warcry yet or not and decided to repeat it for good measure. "BLOOD!" The battlecry echoed away and was followed by silence for a few seconds. Alas, the battle was not yet won, and Gormog heard more shuffling, metallic sounds approaching.
The second dial clicked into place. It baffled Salvius that most people had found this task impossible, or only possible with specialised listening equipment. Three more dials to go. They surely hadn't skimped on their security back in the day. Working away at the third dial, Salvius let his concious thought flow outward, remembering bits and pieces of his past. His early days on a barely known agri-world, being fed useless drivel about the Emperor everyday both by his parents and the local preacher. Then his potential was finally noticed: his uncle came back from the latest campaign of his unit. "Quick wit and a practical mindset are appreciated in the guard," he said, throwing his commisar's cap onto the hat rack. From this Salvius learned how to recognize a lie. His career in the guard was short and painful, almost dying from a grazing bullet wound to the back of the head. It saved him from servitude and got him a small logic cogitator bionic implant, paid for by the guard. In the very back recesses of his mind, Salvius could almost hear gunfire. The third dial clicked into place.
After recuperation, Salvius joined the Adeptus Administratum. But here too his life would be aggravating in the worst way possible. How could they be so incredibly inefficient? How could it be that the Imperium was run by these imbeciles? Change would be needed. Applying his spectacular memory and ability to reason, he dug deep in ancient records, finding scraps and traces of an ancient power, an ancient being, also fighting for change. With the help of these ancient records Salvius developed new and better ways for the Administratum, and presented his findings to the Master Curator of the system. Being laughed at by this man, this decrepit, self-serving "adept" rotting away in his chair, was the final straw. Pulling his keepsake from the Guard, Salvius shot the man twice in the head from across his desk. The sound of gunfire defintiely seemed to keep popping up. Where was it coming from? The fourth dial clicked into place.
He needed to get out. Walking out of the mans office, Salvius explained to the servitor secretary that the highly esteemed master curator had requested to be left in peace for the foreseeable future and that nobody was allowed inside on pain of death. Picking up the nearest document awaiting storage and reading the first three sentences, Salvius decreed: "I have however been ordered to personally make sure that this matter is resolved with the utmost speed. I am to... chaperone this captured Ogryn off-world to a penal facility. Mark that down, will you?" And with that Salvius calmly walked out, boarded the nearest shuttle for orbit and went off to meet his new charge. He would later learn that the servitor secretary managed to kill three adepts before being overpowered. The last dial clicked into place and the vault sprang open. "Gormog! It's open! Come see what's in-- what in the name of change is going on?" said Salvius, pulling his old laspistol from a fold in his robe.
Lumbering into view, Gormog racked the slide of his ripper gun. "Fight," he explained, and turned his back to Salvius, ready to blast the first thing he saw back to the stone age. The metallic sounds kept coming closer and Gormog gently squeezed the trigger again.
Predictably, the first servitor to appear in sight received a fistful of pellets, splitting in half with the kinetic force of the impact. Gormog bellowed some more, incoherently this time, and charged into the fray, alternating between shooting servitors and impaling them on the ripper gun's bayonet. Salvius added a few carefully aimed las-shots to the carnage, making sure not to hit his Ogryn bodyguard.
The unlikely companionship between Gormog and Salvius was forged during the transfer to the penal colony. Salvius, looking for help, managed to convince Gormog to become his bodyguard by explaining in great detail what happened in a penal colony and that Salvius could arrange an avoidance of such a fate. Together, the two made a daring escape, and have been traversing the sector ever since.
When the last servitor hit the deck, Gormog looked around, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, but there was nothing left to kill. Hit with a pang of the now-familiar disappointment he always experienced at the end of a battle, Gormog reloaded his ripper gun one last time, stowing the empty magazines in one of his mesh-pouches. "All done," he said, turning back to Salvius, narrowing his eyes at the open vault. Inside was something small... for all the world to see, it looked like a blackened, avian skull the size of one of Gormog's knuckles, attached to a thin necklace.
Scratching his chin in confusion, Gormog managed to eloquently convey his thoughts: "What?"
With a slightly condecending look directed at Gormog, who completely failed to appreciate it, Salvius explained. "That, dear Gormog, is the item we have been looking for. The agents of change over roughly the last ten thousand years of documented history, and I am willing to bet for far longer, always seem to have a peculiar love for birds' skulls, much like your love for any skulls at all. This particular skull has been seen in the hands of prophets, saints, lord-generals, a high admiral, various tech priests and even a few inquisitors. All have made a great impact on history, though all seem to have ended rather badly in a very unpredictable manner. The skull must be extremely durable despite its fragile looks, and can be recognized by its intense black colour, the missing bonechip in the left eyesocket and the teeth: as you can see, each tooth is curved, but every one at a different angle. It makes the skull look rather ominous to some, leading to the reports of so called "nefarious auras". Complete bollocks of course." Salvius started to reach for the skull.
Gormog knew some of those words. "Skulls," he agreed.
Touching the tiny black skull, Salvius' world changed forever. The name of his lord was now known to him: Lord of Change, the Architect of Fate, Tzeentch. With the name, came the warp. A new world now stood open to Salvius, with new perceptions, perceived with new senses. A world of the insane, of the corrupt. Never would Salvius be a part of that world. After all, how can you be influenced when you know the insidious forces attempting to control you? No, his superior intellect and critical ability would save him from this fate.
Focussing his entire force of will, his entire being into a discarded bullet casing a few metres away, Salvius willed it to move. Was that a tremor? A breath of wind or breath of the warp? No matter. Soon, power would be his to change the world for the better. To spread the benevolent rule of Tzeen... The Emperor. And from the Warp came a place. A hint to this greater power. A place to nurture and feed this new potential of his. "Gormog. Ephron V is our destination. We will become gods there. Powerful gods!" Walking over some battle debris and across the threshold of the room back to civilization, a final whisper came to him from the warp: "As you stare into the warp, the warp stares back into you..."
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