The Rigged Fortune was utterly ignoring him. This was good, for the moment. Xepherial was relieved to see transport shuttles depart from the ship, rather than missiles. However, the shuttles bypassed his position without a second thought, all flying directly into a massive rent in the hulk as if their mission were of utmost priority. The former Dark Angel could only guess at what that mission was. At least for now, he was safe.
Several other ships suddenly began to appear in the surrounding space, each having no apparent relation to the other, and Xepherial realized that this spacehulk was a hotbed of attraction. His excuse was that he had come here on the words of a seer who had spoken of finding a lost brother, among other ambiguous things. Yet it was clear that something had drawn others as well. Xepherial found it peculiar that all of them appeared to be arriving at almost the exact same time. A quick statistical analysis revealed that it was too unlikely to be mere coincidence.
Xepherial had no idea if this mysterious lost relation of his was to be found on one of these ships or within the spacehulk itself... or perhaps not at all. A flicker of anxiety gripped him as he remembered the flare of infrared he had seen on -chip's main display. That little ship had suffered some kind of damage. His armor immediately responding to his will, his greeves' magnetic grip on the hulk released, and Xeph spacewalked over to the "landed" small ship.
It appeared to be intact, still radiating heat from its engines. After a brief inspection, it was clear no living beings were aboard. Using his tech-savy, Xepherial was able to open the hatch and board the craft. What he saw made him stop in his tracts and pray. There were burnt-to-ash bodies, human by the skulls, everything was burned. There were also signs of a battle, several battles, based on the claw marks and other damage inside. But what was most blasphemous of all was the merciless mutation and defamation the once ancient and treasured ship had endured. It had been modified in most unholy ways and was practically beyond repair. It begged to return to the Omnissiah, in final death. Xepherial blessed himself so that he would not come under the machine spirit's wrath. Whoever did this, and killed those people, deserved retribution.
Silently seething, Xepherial synced with the ships' cogitator and gathered information on the last few warp jumps, what direction they had come from, and what had brought them here. There was an unusual signal coming from deep inside the spackhulk. That was all he could gather. Then he noticed a live communications link still left on.
It was quiet, only broadcasting the sounds of static. Xepherial instinctively reached for the transmitter, but inexplicably stopped himself. ... Who would be on the receiving end? What had the seer said about "his own?" He hesitated, then pressed the button. ... He said nothing, and nothing was the reply. Saddened, and perplexed by the unresolved mystery of the last moments of this abused vessel, Xepherial exited back out to the hulk. The bodies, both living and machine, would have to be left behind while he continued his search. Hopefully, this brother of his hadn't been incinerated just yet. He had to explore and to prepare himself to encounter potential enemies.
Xepherial would return to the location of the large hull breach where he had started and follow the transport shuttles he had seen earlier. Of course, by the time he discovered the parked shuttles, their occupants would have moved on.
So many voices, all filling the world beyond with their seemingly chaotic babble. Each one spoke its own story, defiantly declaring its presence into the cacophony that is the warp. Some sung songs of magnitude, actually capable of affecting the ebb and flow of the maelstrom of warp energy. Others made barely a whisper, almost drown out completely by the booming voices surrounding them. Each voice, though, was being drawn towards a central call, something ancient and powerful, some siren that drew in those who heard it, even if they did not realize they were under its spell. So much was happening, and it all made Urgrugg shudder with anticipation for what was to come.
As he sat amid the barren halls of some small, abandoned barracks, he allowed the sounds to come into him, to fill him with their meaning. It was the place of a shaman to guide his people, to cast himself into the world around him and read the energies it emitted to foresee the future. On his home world, orc shamans believed the visions they received from divination spells they cast to be given directly from the great, green gods. While it was impossible to say whether any one vision came from the orc deities, Urgrugg knew that many were simply the natural result of such spells. Unlike his fellows, though, he knew well how to properly use said magics, and use them he did. Normally, use of his warp powers was dangerous, and even spells of divination generally tended to be. However, the ancient spells of his people held no chance of harm, as they did not call upon the powers of the warp, but instead opened the shaman's mind to them, allowing him to read them in ways no other race could.
The spells were ancient, not even taught but instead something the shamans of his world simply knew, a birth right of his people. It was told in legend that these spells had been written on the very elements with which the smart-boys had created ork kind. Though he could never be sure, Urgrugg suspected this legend to be true, as no being he had ever met could read the waves of warp energy as those spells allowed him to, now that his spirit was able to fully grasp the subtleties involved. For this reason, he was able to see far more than any ever believed he could.
What he read both excited and disturbed him. The most obvious presence almost made him giddy. He had interacted with the insectoid race that the humans called 'tyranid' only a few times before, but those encounters had left an impression. Their energy within the warp was as obvious as a neon sign, and he could almost feel the heat from that sign, they were so close. Beyond that, though, he felt more. There were many things aboard this mass of floating metal, and even more were arriving. The energy that emitted from those dedicated, and thus scarred, by the powers of the warp were unmistakable, and there were so many that had arrived so suddenly from out of the warp itself. Some other things, though, he did not recognize. Strange beings, daemons of a kind he had never encountered, some odd curiosity handling powers it did not fully understand, and even a faint whisper-so small he almost missed it entirely-of a scale he had never before encountered.
All these things were good omens, though. Each one represented a unique, and potentially beneficial opportunity for Urgrugg to take advantage of. It was those voices that sang from beyond the hulk's outermost hall that gave him pause. Humans, mostly-which he cared little for-including the sudden influx of energy he expected from the arrival of the army the woman on the vox had promised him. The voices which gave him unrest were those that reminded him of the strange, elf-like things which had rescued him so long ago. Though not entirely the same, and despite the fact they had ultimately helped him, Urgrugg had no pleasure with the thought of potentially facing such beings, in any capacity.
Ultimately, though, none of that mattered. What he had to do was still set before him, and the approach of the tyranid served his needs quite well. As he had sat, his mind open to the flow of energy around him, his staff had sat as well. It acted as the anchor which drew his mind back to his body, once it had finished exploring the world beyond. More than that, though, it acted as a beacon, a single, fixed point of unmoving, unchanging energy in a world where the only constant was change. Such a thing would not go unnoticed, and indeed, he could feel it had drawn the attention of the being he had intended it to.
Opening his book, he began the incantation. The spell was in a language long unheard by the ears of men. He filled the words with power, so that they could reach across the veil and into the world beyond. As he drew the circles of power into the metal hull of the ship with a piece of broken steel, he smiled as he heard the sounds of his enemies drawing near. At the center of the circle, amidst sigils and runes that radiated power, was his staff, held upright by some unseen force. Glowing at the top, the crystal hummed with the warp energy stored inside, illuminated Urgrugg from behind when he turned to face the incoming threat.
Three half-breed mutants rushed around the corner, each brandishing some crude piece of broken metal as a weapon. Their faces were disfigured, their mouths covered in blood that smelled of vermin. Even as the closest lunged forward to strike, Ugrugg's long arm shot out, gripping the thing's head in one massive hand that crushed it in an instant. Still chanting those ancient words, he tossed the corpse down to his side, where its blood began filling the circle and symbols Urgrugg had carved. Without hesitation, the other two split, coming at him from either side. Ducking back at the last minute, Urgrugg slammed his fingers talon-first into the soft flesh of the two creatures' chests, literally tearing their hearts out in the next moment. One he took and squeezed, using it almost as a sponge to smear blood like paint on the walls around him, making more strange and ancient markings. The other, he took a bite out of, before stabbing on the gem of his staff, letting the blood coat the large crystal.
As expected, he felt the presence of the daemon he had invited into this world as it left the warp. The creature was covered in pink, green, and blue feathers, with a long beak for a nose that ended in a spiral pattern that looked almost like a drill. It had three arms, wore a loin cloth split down the middle in such a way that revealed it had no genitals, and carried a gnarled staff that appeared to be some kind of orange metal shaped to look like bone. Urgrugg stared into the pure white eyes of the daemon of Mork, and smiled as he heard the approach of more tyranid mutants.
Just as they rounded the corner to see their brothers' dead and desicrated bodies, the second daemon made his presence known. One of the seals on the wall burst into a ring of flame, from which charged a red, spiked humanoid creature, wielding a blade made of black flame. It rode a massive beast, that appeared to be made of living metal. The beast slammed into the midst of the mutants, tearing one to shreds under its bulk, as the flaming blade of its rider sliced through the air, the last of the mutants bursting into black flames as they were struck down.
The daemon of Mork turned to him, from atop his steed. Glaring at each other, the creatures nodded to one another, the two knowing well by now the usual bargain. "Oi, gits," Urgrugg yelled, getting the two creatures' attention, "you know da deal. Oi calls yuh for da big scraps, and yuh brings yer boys ta da foight." The two creatures hated being treated like servants, and Urgrugg knew that. In fact, the only thing they hated more was each other, and the thought of letting the other have Urgrugg's soul when he finally perished. To that end, Urgrugg had managed to get them to work for him countless times, each one going to great lengths to ensure the ork owed the larger debt to them, so the other had a lesser claim to his soul when he died.
Each was an envoy of one of his gods, and had the power to call on an army to fight for him. The blue daemon could simply summon creatures, slowly building up his forces as he first summoned lesser creatures, they sacrificed some of them to summon yet more powerful beings. By contrast, the red daemon did not call on allies, but simply waded into battle, the fight itself acting as a call to others to join. Both represented different interpretations of traditional ork battle tactics, which Urgrugg knew would please his deities. With their blessing, he knew that their servants would provide him the army he needed.
________________
Outside the hulk, yet another ship arrived. Commanded by High Lord Inquisitor Marcus, and transporting a full preceptory of the Order of Our Martyred Lady, the Witches' Bane was an Imperial cruiser-class ship ready for war. Even as it was leaving the warp, Lord Inquisitor Marcus was calling for communications with any and all Imperial craft in the area. Though she would be loath to admit it to the filthy xeno, she was under strict orders from a senior inquisitor to take the ork psyker alive at any cost. While she normally would not have to worry about such things, the inquisitor in question held more sway in the Ordo Xenos than any other she had ever met, or even heard of. If she did not want to make an enemy of nearly a third of the entire Inquisition, then this was one order she had to follow. Why he wanted this one, specific ork so badly he would be willing to level such a threat at her, she had no idea, but was determined to find out if possible.
For her own reasons, she had decided to make the hulk the rendezvous point with her war-band after learning it would be exiting the warp in this area from her diviners. The plan had been to take him into custody, and used the amassed force she had at hand to guard him. Various reports had suggested that the hulk was some kind of hide out for heretics, looking to sneak into the warp. Something had given her the feeling that there was more to these reports, and it had been a happy coincidence that her war-band could so readily meet her here with the ork.
That said, she could not risk anyone else storming the hulk and coming across her target first. She would have to take some degree of command over the situation, to ensure that her plan did not backfire on her. After what she heard over the comlink, she knew the ork was headed into the hulk, and had to hurry to catch him before he ended up so deep inside they'd never have any reasonable chance of actually finding him in the hulk's labyrinthine interior. Of course, she could not let on about her secret objective, or some fool looking for a promotion might find some way to steal her prize. It would be difficult, but she was going to have to take control without giving herself and her goals away. So long as she didn't give them a reason, no one should suspect her of foul play. After all, when all was said and done, she was just an inquisitor, come to eradicate a reported nest of heretics. 'Ah, and here comes Armond with the vox now. Perfect timing.'
A Space Hulk is labyrinthine in structure, and impossible in scale. Depending on which ships compose it, they can be anywhere from ten to a thousand kilometers long, similarly deep if they happen to build themselves correctly, and every meter composed of no less than a thousand twisting corridors that, depending on how twisted the Warp has made it, are nigh-impossible to map out. It was therefore no surprise that Lucius, wandering alone through the corridors of whatever ship he'd found himself in, was irrevocably lost - he maintained a keen memory, enough to guide him back to the wreck he'd stepped out of a while back, but why he'd ever want to return there escaped him. Food was not forthcoming, of course, though corpses were occasionally present, and if liquid water was available somewhere in the place, it would like as not be nearly undrinkable for any number of reasons.
Not that that stopped the frenzied cultists hollering from somewhere in the Hulk, still audible even from this distance. Or... had they gotten closer? Surely not. That'd be an insane coincidence... which it seemed was exactly the way the Gods liked to work, so it was in fact completely logical to assume they were following him. Somehow. Frankly, if they did, it'd be irrelevant at best, and actively harmful at worst, for the noise they were making would surely draw in threats from other portions of the ship...
Not that it mattered, naturally, since the very next corner he took put him almost face to face with a breed of mutant he'd never seen before. A great many instances of it, in fact: some with three or four arms, some with beady black eyes, most with claws on the ends of their hands and sharpened teeth and purple-blue skin, and all bald to a man, give or take some almost-exoskeletal forehead protrusions. One of them, apparently the leader of this group with a surprising lack of deformity, stepped forward, for the moment apparently signalling the others to hold back.
'Ahh... so one of your sort has arrived here,' it uttered in a smooth, near-serpentine voice, grinning ever so slightly. 'Our Father knew of you, and others as well, but I did not think I would live to see the Space Marines grace our Hulk so... how joyous.'
'...yyyyyyes,' Lucius began, not entirely sure how to proceed with this... thing. 'I am definitely on a Space Hulk. Pardon me, who or what are you?'
'You are... not informed? Well... do you know of the Great Devourer?'
'No.'
'Are you sure? It will consume all who deny it, and uplift its faithful to immortality?'
'Again, no.'
'Hrm. Let's see, what heathen terms do the Imperials use to describe us... have you heard of Genestealers, and their Patriarch Broodlord? The Primus, the Magus?'
'Try killing a planet, and I might learn some of that terminology. Otherwise, is there a point to your rambling?'
'What a shame,' the mutant... the alien? It uttered, shaking its head. 'I did wonder if you had yet learned of us... it seems not. Then our fight shall be all the easier.' With this, many of the freaks in the crowd began readying up for a fight, those armed with weapons hoisting them for a charge, those not simply crouching down as though to pounce, snarling incoherently. There was, he noted, a pattern to this, the less-deformed ones being more likely to wield weaponry than the more deformed, with the exception of one very bulky mutant with a great hammer. Not that that mattered, because against that many creatures, even the speed and strength of an Astartes was subject to testing, especially without power armour or most of their skillset.
Then again, minions to even the score always helps.
'There he isss! The Sssscccion!' somebody yelled from down the corridor perpendicular to that of this mutant cult. Not half a second after that, just enough time for him to lean back and look back the way he'd come, the horde was charging down toward him, alternately screaming for blood and hailing him as their leader, master, Champion of Chaos, and all sorts of praise. And if he had their blessing, their loyalty...
'I have found something for you to kill!' he yelled back at them, ordering them as he should be- as he'd rather not, that is to say. 'Just round the corner!' Naught else needed to be said, as the screams for blood doubled, tripled in veracity.
'...what? W-what is that? What have you summoned?' the xeno-mutant leader stuttered, his calm demeanour fraying to bits at the sound of the masses charging toward him. Allowing himself to smirk at the sight, Lucius stepped to one side of the corridor, the mutants now twitchy and looking between him and the encroaching roar of battle, seemingly distracted from attacking him as a result. Was a show necessary at this point? Not at all, but it suited Lucius to show that he was the one in control now.
'Ladies, gentlemen, and disgusting xeno freaks,' he stated, gesturing toward the nearing crowd, 'I present to you... a horde of Chaos cultists.' The bland ending was, at least, somewhat offset by the surge of bodies rounding the corner at that moment, the cultists themselves a mess of Chaos Undivided, unordered and maddened, and only becoming moreso on sight of the creatures, who they immediately charged at with all guns blazing.
'Have fun with that,' Lucius concluded, half-directed toward both sides as they collided with one another, his voice drowned in a sea of combat that flowed around and past him as if he were a rock. He had no intentions of maintaining this crowd for much longer, helpful as they'd been, and so began to wade back the way he'd come, the cultists who had yet to join the fight at least holding the presence of mind to brush against him and scream about how loyal they would be from now on, and how they hoped he'd bless them later if they had the time to say as much. Not that he cared. He'd rather be far away from them, as far as possible, the other end of the Hulk, the galaxy perhaps. The association annoyed him so very much, a reminder of his own ties to the Ruinous Powers.
The time it took to finally be free of the horde was surprisingly little. He was sure there were more of them on the ship than that, more than even the possible deaths on impact would counteract... so, a splinter group of the whole thing? Maybe. Either way, he allowed them to pass by, and ultimately found himself alone. That is, except for one rather annoying man, one who proclaimed how very much he loved the Chaos Gods, Tzeentch in particular, and how he loved Lucius for being their Champion, and how he was not blessed by Tzeentch with many gifts, but did have a third eye hidden under the clothing on his shoulder and could show it to him if he wanted, and also the knack for telepathy, and communicating with others over great distances, so he could allow the cult to hear of his incredible exploits even when he was not with them, and for the Emperor's sake would you shut up already you annoying ratty little fecal pellet?
But Lucius did not say that out loud. Instead, for some unfathomable reason even by his own standards, he said 'If you remain quiet, and do not anger me, I will allow you to travel by my side. Do not talk unless spoken to, and in particular do not try to convince me to take Tzeentch on as my only God. I will choose him if I feel he suits me, in time. Break those rules, and you will die on this ship alone, forgotten by the God you so love.'
'O-of course, my lord sire leader!' the peon lambasted in a most servile, sycophantic fashion. How weak of mind he was, and no wonder he'd received so few gifts from the patron of such things. 'I shall tell the others of your grand journey as you embark upon it, and be quiet as a mouse otherwise!' At least the Marine would not go mad from lack of contact with others, anyway. Not that he would have otherwise... but, shaking the toady off would not be worth the hassle, he felt. And judging by the sudden jolt of combat memory, a second or less added to the total from that final fight, it was the right move either way.
Ga'duk waited patiently in his seat, the rumbling engines and high alert in the rest of his squad going largely unnoticed. He had performed and confirmed his ready check twice, although the sergeant had fixed his mask so that it was actually sealed and would protect him from a hard vacuum if the hulk had vented its atmosphere. The pilots navigated around shining spotlights on several crash sites across the hulk's shell but were always less than satisfied by the possible landing zone. The sergeant moved to the front cabin and began arguing with the pilots so that he could depart and complete his mission, Ga'duk on the other hand rocked gently back and forth day dreaming of mopping a vast station rather than getting "'oonds" and having to spend days with the medi-guys.
Finally the sergeant and pilots hammered out a plan and pulled the rear of the transport to a section of hull that seemed sturdy enough to bear their weight. The transport locked itself to the hull with some mag-clamps and opened its door to bare hull. The guards understood immediately and broke out their breeching cutters, thin jets of hot plasma slowly burned through the hull leaving droplets of hot slag cooling on the floor. While the guardsmen were cutting the sergeant turned to Ga’duk. “Are you ready?” he said rhetorically, Ga’duk nodded but the sergeant continued “good, now when we get the hole cut you have to go out FIRST and KILL anything that is NOT us. Ok?”
Ga’duk nodded slowly, “y-..yeah, i got it sarge” he said laughing “i'll squish dem”
The sarge slapped his shoulder “yeah, thats good, its what He would want.”
Ga’duk’s eyes went wide “He? You mean da Empoor?”
“Yes, He wants you to squish the enemy”
Once the sarge stopped talking Ga’duk charged the half cut breech slamming with his full weight and strength, several of his squad had to dive out of the way to escape from being crushed between the ogryn’s shield and the hull. The first impact warps the hull and audibly strains the metal, each of the gaurdsmen stare at Ga’duk in surprise both his unexpected charge and his immense strength buckling the thick hull. He backs up and readies to charge again, “squish dem for da Empoor!” he shouts as he charges again crashing through the weakened hull into a large corridor. He raises his axe and searches for a target bellowing a barbaric warcry, but finds none. The guardsmen follow him out and form a semicircle barricade of las-guns around the breech. Ga’duk looks around again while lowering his axe before dropping his head, “I sorry Empoor, der was nuttin to squish..” he said, vox channel open. His entire squad chuckled but Ga’duk was visibly wounded that he could not fulfil the Emperor’s will.
The generators started to light up, slowly. But instead of the usual blue hue it gradually turned to purple in the same rate which it grew in luminosity. Until it was a raging inferno of warp light that intermixed with the plasma within.
During this, Zuriel felt an opening, a rift further to the fore of the hulk. It closed almost as soon as it had opened, but something came through. Was it a summoning? Or just a single effect? No matter what, it was no minor psychic power being unleashed and more importantly, there was another psyker on board. He smiled, he suspected there probably was other on board the hulk, probably even psykers. Definitively psykers if one counted deamons. Albeit weak ones. Now he knew, he cursed his wandering mind. He had let too much energy through, his ritual was disturbed. The generator hissed and spat, wailing faces emerged in the light and in the corners of vision and atop the machine, a fury and some disfigured dark fiend sat and licked their mouths when gazing at the dread magi busy with the ritual.
If it was more power the warp wanted, it would get it. Zuriel cast his hands towards the ceiling and began shouting his incantations instead of simple murmuring. He allowed energy to pass through the veil at an increased rate and more than that, he enforced his will upon it even further. The small deamons on top of the reactor wailed in terror, they had misjudged their planned meal and now fled. There was no time however as the dread magi violently gestured more energy into the star, energy began to visibly enter it and wind began to rush into the symbol. The deamons tried to clamber and flee, but was pulled in by the gale wind which violently yanked at the robes of the fallen tech priest. The pathetic deamons dematerialized and became energy to fuel the ritual.
As black tar like warp stuff dripped from his eyes, mouth and from under his robes he finished the incantation. The generator was now running at more capacity than it was supposed to bear, light shone out from rips and tears in the reactor and the ship got a massive influx of raw electricity. Lumo bars exploded, blue lightning arced here and there and warning sirens began to blare.
With a black smeared smile Zuriel exclaimed. -"Excellent..."
The generator was going to explode... in time. For the moment it was producing enough power to probably run a couple of ships, armed only with lances in high combat pressure. The only thing keeping them from rupturing instantly was the energies Zuriel put in place to sustain it. It would not last forever.
As he turned around and began to walk away with heavy steps, he couldn't help but fiddle with his fingers, holding his fingertips at the fingertips of his other hand and flexing. He was on his way to the sensorium.
The two shuttlecraft from the trader vessel were tightly sealed to a flat surface of metal that was 90 degrees to the surface where Xeraphiel was standing on. They were high above his head as if clinging to the side of a wall. He craned his neck to look up at them. It being space, the techmarine simply jumped onto the wall with his magnetic feet and began walking toward the shuttles. "Up" had a new direction.
The vessels were powered, but were also dark and vacant. It was obvious that the crew had gone straight through the underside into the hulk just moments ago. If he had intent to follow them, then he would have to traverse into the spacehulk from the same point. Fortunately, the traders had already cut an opening.
Xepherial raised his left, black gauntlet over the door mechanism, holding it only an inch away. A specialized dentrite snaked from his wrist and began signalling to the shuttle controls. Xepherial had no intent of damaging the shuttle, for all creatures and artifacts that embodied knowledge were sacred. Convincing the machine to override the safety protocols and open its door would be far more efficient and less blasphemous than plasma-cutting through ceramite. The two beings argued at the speed of electric impulses traveling through circuits and neurons until an agreement was reached. Xepherial had won. "Comprehension is the key to all things." He affirmed as the seal split, and pressure briefly escaped the cabin.
Passing into the hulk, there was air pressure. Sensors detected it was breathable, at least for a neigh-immortal space marine. What was more, there was sound, and a new direction for gravity. The techmarine landed loudly, armored feet against metal floor, as he responded to the readings his poweraromor supplied. Ancient generators were supplying artificial gravity somewhere in this place, maintaining a level akin to native Terra. It was a strange fact that sentient life didn't often develop on planets with gravitational extremes.
There was only one direction his targets could have gone, and so Xepherial began following. It wasn't long before a freshly cut opening in a metal wall revealed the path his quarry had taken. Cutting a door would have slowed them down, so they must have been close. Xepherial kept his senses on high alert. He wasn't exactly silent, but neither was the slowly flexing conglomeration of broken ships and asteroid. Deeper and deeper he traversed. Disturbances in the dust on the floor betrayed the tracks of Fio'Ui, Joran, Nykerio, and Naamah, helping Xepherial know which way to turn in the large open chambers. There wasn't much light, and the ship he was in appeared to be well devoid of any other life. As he walked, he brought up the display of the signal source he had recorded from the small, incinerated Imperial craft he had visited outside and was impressed to find the traders seemed to be heading directly for it. Cooincidence couldn't yet be ruled out, however.
The display vanished and Xepherial's bolter swung in the direction of a flash of movement in the corner. ... Trained on the location, Xepherial was fully ready to fire, but no enemy showed itself. Whatever that had been, it was gone, but it had revealed itself. After a quick 360 scan, Xepherial returned to his pursuit.
As the various boarders from the Rigged Fortune progressed through the ship, Joran's feeling of uneasiness grew progressively unsettling, with Joran at an almost constant ready stance, the remainder of the stimm he had taken earlier pushing his senses to a higher level. This made Joran aware of various noises in the immediate area, including faint skittering sounds, and the somewhat distant clanking of metal against metal.
Moving ever forward into the ruined Hulk, Joran eventually noticed that one of the sounds came from behind them. At that moment, Joran called for his group to stop, wanting the possible pursuer or source of the noise to catch up to them. As they stood at the ready, none of them were ready for the hulking figure that reached them. A Space Marine.
The sight was rather short-lived, however, as another unexpected guest arrived. A minor swarm of various Tyranids came rushing into the room, and the meeting quickly devolved into an all-out fight for survival. Joran quickly switched on the flamer pistol attached to his lasgun, shooting flames out across the area, catching many of the Xenos swarm on fire. The fuel canister was quickly exhausted, and Joran switched to firing his lasgun, aiming for the various joints and limbs of the aliens.
Urgrugg roamed the halls of the ancient ship, his two daemonic soldiers following behind. Having seen the Warrior riding upon a mount, it hadn't been long before the Sorcerer had summon a magical floating disk to ride upon. It was convenient, as it allowed him to cast his rituals even while they continued moving. They were looking for a good place to set up an ambush, somewhere that would give them an advantage over the Sisters. The ork knew little about them himself, but the daemons were able to explain to him that they were servants of the Imperium, devoted to the humans' church as its acting army. Neither was able to explain what a 'preceptory' was, nor how many boys would be necessary to kill one.
Urgrugg, as ever, was all for bringing to bare every gun that could be brought forward. The Warrior would generally be on his side about such matters, with the Sorcerer acting as the voice of reason. For once, though, the agreed that only a small party should be summoned. With the walls between the material world and the warp so thin in the area, both daemons were convinced calling on more allies than was needed was a bad idea. Especially with the presence of the tyranid forces acting as a deterrent to lesser daemons, the chance of something uncontrollable being released was too high. Especially when such a thing could be aligned with Slaanesh.
The daemons long ago had explained to Urgrugg the balance of power within the warp. The great Gork and Mork acted as the two major powers, with two other, lesser gods also living within the pantheon. Orks, the superior beings they were, did not recognize the lesser deities' divinity, and only gave worship to Gork and Mork. Humans, by contrast, were eager to grasp at power no matter where it came from, so cults of the lesser gods had been formed.
Nurgle was fine, though the Sorcerer did not care much for him. As with his elder brothers, Gork and Mork, he was created alongside the Orks. The Smart Boys, being neither Orks nor gods, were not perfect, and thus had made a single mistake in creating the spark in the warp that grew into Gork and Mork alongside the Ork race. They had forgotten to make either of the two green. To correct that error, they created Nurgle, the only Great Green god who actually is green in color. He was given domain over weirdboyz, so that he would have something to do. That was why he was so eager to accept all things as they are, so that he would not turn away from the strange orks he was tasked with overseeing. However, when humans came about, their disgusting habits and weakness to disease spread over into Nurgle, who foolishly thought they were just very weird weirdboyz, corrupting him with their worship. Ultimately, though, Nurgle was green and made for the orks, so he was okay.
Slaanesh, by contrast, was nothing but filth. It represented everything not-ork. Not even created by the smart boyz, the daemons had told Urgrugg how the miserable pretender had been created by the elf-like creatures by mistake, during a time of wanton recklessness by a people too powerful with warp magic for their own good. Worse, it was powered by all the aspects of humanity that even Nurgle refused to accept as ork nature. The vile creature and all its followers were dedicated to drugs, sex, weird music, and all manner of other things that weren't orky at all. After being told about them, Urgrugg had refused to ever work with the terrible things, and every encounter he had ever had with its daemons and its human followers had only reinforced that decision.
Its daemons were still able to use the rifts he made in the warp to summon allies as their own entrance, though. Worse, too many daemons would make the border between the two worlds even thinner, and whatever was going on in the space hulk had very clear ties to the warp already. If they were to keep the hated Slaanesh and its filthy daemons from corrupting their glorious battle, they had to be smart. They would have to follow the teachings of Gork, and be brutally cunning with their battle tactics.
Finally, the group found a place to set up their ambush. It was an old Imperial tank, one used for moving huge numbers of troops. The Sorcerer had called it a stormlord. It was surrounded on either side by yards of crushed metal, collapsed version of itself that had been destroyed, first on the crafts original impact with the hulk, and then again when a second craft impacted with it. That left only two points of entry; the primary assault doors in the front, and the hatch at the top. The hatch was easy enough to handle, as the Warrior's flaming sword was more than capable of welding it shut. Then, there was the front door. It opened out into a relatively small area that had once been a loading bay, with plenty of wide, open space for the Warrior's swift forces to charge down their foes, then withdraw back into the vehicle. Inside, the Sorcerer's forces would be waiting, striking with magical flames that would burn their foes alive. First, though, they had to claim it for themselves.
Inside, they found a number of the mutant humans Urgrugg had faced before. Charging into their midsts inside the tank, the Warrior hacked away at them as his powerful steed's massive, metal body crushed others below its ample bulk. As Urgrugg and the Sorcerer stood waiting outside, they heard something come running in behind them. No less than twenty of the creatures had emerged, hidden amongst the wreckage strewn across the large room. Urgrugg only grinned, as he heard the Warrior give a shrill whistle from inside the tank.
From one side of the large mob, a gout of flame shot from the floor, as a pack of massive, scale-covered, red hounds came bounding into the material world. Behind them, spurring them on, rode three bloodcrushers, the Warrior's trusted elite. Each brandished a sword as it charged forward, hacking and slicing through the foolish mutants that had turned to face them, their enchanted blades cutting through flesh and bone like it was paper.
The hounds, half a dozen strong, scattered across the room. Each caught the scent of one of the mutants smart enough to flee, and bounded after it. Each one caught their prey within moments, falling on them like the demonic beasts they were. Very little was left of them after the hounds finished.
Once all the mutants had been slain, Urgrugg and the Sorcerer began their part. Urgrugg channeled what power he could muster into his staff, calling attention to the very slight hole that the Sorcerer was crafting into the warp. It wasn't long before his own followers emerged, a trio of creatures that appeared made of living flame. Following behind was yet another triplet, of what appeared to be some manner of mutated sea creatures that flew through the air instead of the water. Finally, the last to step out were five creatures that looked alike only in so far as they all looked to have mutated from the same base creature. They were all pink, none had even a single hair, and they were all generally humanoid in shape. Beyond that, they were a mishmash of random limbs and extra joints, teeth and claws in strange places, and a plethora of other, less obvious deformities.
It wasn't much, but he had assembled his forces. The flamers and horrors would act as a firing line from within the tank, which would serve as a fall-back point if need be. The Warrior would lead his cavalry on charges, while the hounds flanked their enemy from the other side. The screamers and the Sorcerer would use their great speed and evasive abilities to curtail any attempts to fall back once a reasonable force was allowed in the loading area, then harass the enemy to prevent more from coming in. Their base was ready, and good thing, too. Urgrugg could feel the approach of an enemy, and quickly.
The clomping of each large armored boot against metal rang down the dark corridor with a regular rhythm that was eerily human. Closer and closer it came, eventually becoming impossible to ignore and causing Joran to halt his party in an effort not to have to face the source of the following sounds alone. But as he stopped, the clomping... suddenly stopped. The coincidence was eerie as well, yet just as the animalistic anxiety that it had incurred began to wane, even before they began to move, the clomping started up again. It was coming.
The urge to run was burning at the pit of their stomachs, yet the group huddled together, immobilized until the oncoming threat could be identified and dealt with. Finally, as if to pierce their hearts with a blade of adrenaline, two specs of red light confirmed the existance of eyes in the darkness an instant before the rest of the astartes was revealed.
The space marine again stopped, this time in view, allowing their hearts to settle momentarily while they assessed him. The mechanical arms folded behind his back were the last to be noticed after his bolter, his black and red plate, and his size. A machina opus was easily visible on his waist as was a huge Omnissian power axe mounted behind him.
Xepherial was assessing the strange group before him just as they were inspecting him. He had never before seen nor heard of a Tau or an Eldar, yet it was clear that the strange aliens were calmly in the company of regular humans. Their meeting would be interrupted however, as the rush of yet another alien race that was unknown to Xepherial rushed in from the shadows to attack. The Tyranid were clearly adversarial, and without too much time to think about it, Xepherial had already reacted instinctively to protect the humans before him. He opened fire on the insect-like creatures, each well-placed shot equating to a kill. The not so well-placed shots, and there were a number of them, still splattered enough tyranid blood to make them think twice about continuing forward. The sound of bolter fire was brutal and solid and jolted the nerves with every round spent. The resistance was wholly unexpected and soon the enemy eventually retreated as abruptly as they had appeared.
Xepherial searched his data logs for anything resembling the enemies he had just seen, yet found nothing. He had no time to dwell on it however. His initial target had been acquired, and he turned to face them, lowering his weapon. None of them looked like a brother of his, unfortunately.
Normally, he would have identified himself. Yet things had been strange since Caliban. He decided to remain silent and gauge these mercenaries by their reactions.
Emphasis on Lucius' prior musings about the labrinthine nature of Space Hulks was added as he and his... "ally"... continued to wander through its hallways. Really, the additional pair of footsteps hardly improved the isolation - by now, he'd realised that the man actually lacked any form of dedication to Chaos on his person, even the eight-pointed star that was common to most, though Lucius supposed that made sense if he was only an occasional visitor to the Boutique before its liftoff - and the inherent tension involved in wandering through a place that realistically might kill you at any time didn't help either. He imagined after his initial encounter with those freakish xeno-mutants that they'd rather ambush him than give him another chance to bring forth cultists from nowhere.
And speaking of both those things, it seemed to Lucius that he could hear noise coming from somewhere up ahead. Footsteps and voices both, if he wasn't mistaken. That said, he paused his walking, and set a hand upon whatever-his-face-was' head to stop his movement too.
'Now look,' he said gruffly, 'whoever we come across up ahead, I don't want you saying a word. Not a word, not unless I give you permission, and then not a word beyond what I tell you to say, got that?'
The peon nodded, rapidly at first, and then more slowly as he glanced to one side, halting as he espied a nearby doorway. 'Uh... a-actually, maybe, my lord master sire,' he started rather pathetically, 'perhaps we should make sure they are allies, you know, b-before I, being somewhat less trustworthy than your almighty self, am revealed to these...'
'That is a good way to get separated from me, a good way to get yourself killed, and a good way to show off your cowardice,' Lucius muttered. Nonetheless, the peon continued to glance toward said doorway, and ultimately, it wasn't as though Lucius cared overly much about his life. 'Fine, be a fool on your lonesome for the time being,' he eventually said with a roll of his eyes, removing his hand from the idiot's head and walking away as, with a sigh of what he assumed was relief, the man slipped through the doorway, moving it closed so that just a sliver of a gap was left between door and doorway. He'd handle whatever was being thrown at him alone, then. It wasn't like the mutant telepath could help with such a thing, at any rate.
Gaduk stands with his squad while they hash out what their plans are. The sergeant discussing their path with the trooper with the auspex scanner. Ga'duk grinds his boot on the floor brushing the dust away revealing the bare steel, he grumbles to himself so low that nobody notices that he was actually speaking, "Needs a gud mop" but he pushes the thought from his mind, he is supposed to be ready to fight. While the sergeant continues arguing with the auspex scanner results Ga'duk hangs his axe on his belt and puts his fist into the grenade launcher gauntlet and readies to blast the enemy if they find any.
The trooper with the scanner shouts "contact left!" and each of the troopers swivel and a half dozen hell-guns point down the corridor towards the blip. Ga'duk on the other hand turns and points his gauntlet down the opposite hallway which happened to be at the rest of his squad, "Oh, uh.. lef'" he mumbles and turns around facing the correct way. the nervous troopers stare down the corridor waiting for some slavering monstrosity to turn the corner and try to eat them. The sergeant looks down at the auspex, "it seems to have stopped... Ga'duk!" he shouts
"Yeh?" Ga'duk replies
"go see what it is"
"Mmm-ok sarg" and Ga'duk stomps off down the corridor switching to his axe as it feels much more comfortable in his hand than the grenade launcher. He rounds the corner and takes a few steps before noticing Lucius. Ga'duk freezes analyzing the marine, however he does not connect the bulky man to his idealized perception of a space marine.
And it turned out what was being thrown at him was a great brute of a creature. An Ogryn, if he recalled correctly. Dense creatures, inordinately strong beyond even most Astartes, but too stupid to put that great strength to any strategic use. And, well, they rarely came without back-up. That said, if he could convince this thing to... well, if he could get on its good side, rather, he was sure it might be somewhat useful in convincing its allies not to slay him on sight.
'Greetings,' he began, slowly so the Ogryn understood him, but quietly enough that his nearby allies didn't overhear what he was saying. Not as slowly as he might talk to a complete idiot, but since Ogryns were generally complete idiots, he wouldn't want to overwhelm it in its first chat with him. Speaking of which, he'd just give him the simplest alias he had. 'My name is Thorn. I'm a Space Marine. Do you know what those are?'
Ga'duk continued staring at the Marine even after he spoke, gears grinding in his mind. This 'Thorn' didn't look like a marine, he didn't even have the armor. He was big, and had some of the metal bits sticking out of his skin but so did Ga'duk and that didn't make him a marine either. The other problem was that he was simply told to go see what it was, talking wasn't part of his orders. He looked around anxiously in hopes that one of the guardsmen or the sergeant would come and rescue him from this intellectual dilemma. Part of him was quite excited however, if Thorn was indeed a space marine it means he would be talking to one which is about as close to the Emperor as he would ever get.
"Uh, I know 'em" he said simply, turned on his heel and taking a step before pausing conflicted with the seriousness of his dilemma "Th'rn yous should come talk to da sarge" he said slowly mimicking Thorn's slower speech "he da boss, an' would know what to do" but this was more of an admission that he had no idea what to do.
Lucius pursed his lips at the comment. Obviously, if he went out there first, he'd be shot almost immediately, whether or not the projectiles harmed him - the Black Carapace was marginally defensive in nature, but it was certainly no Power Armour. And on the other hand, this brute coming out before he did, telling his team that the person he'd discovered was no threat... well, it'd give him more time to sway them to his good side, anyway, even if they got the wrong impression about him. Overall, then, the grunt should go round the corner first.
'Of course,' Lucius offered, not smiling but giving the impression of a smile in his voice, at least as best he could. 'Please, lead the way to your sergeant. Being attacked immediately would be bad for me, after all.' Once the Ogryn started moving, he'd follow on after it a meter or so back, holding off just long enough for the team to understand that they weren't threatened by him. Which is to say, he'd rather not need to be a threat to them, since that'd be fewer allies either way.
Ga'duk nodded, seemed like things where going well. Sarge could figure out what to do with Thorn. "doh-kay" he said, almost cheerfully, and turned stomping off almost exactly the same way as he came. He wasnt paying attention to Thorn at all simply assuming that he was following. When he rounded the corner a lance of red light shot down the hallway and grazed Ga'duk's arm scorching the exposed flesh. He stopped sharply supprised at the damage, he glanced down at the coil of smoke and steam rolling from his arm as the sergeant shouts to hold fire, and one of the troopers shouts down the hallway "sorry big guy".
"Ow.." mumbles Ga'duk, and he pauses while he tries to remember what he was coming back for. "oh! Sarge, dis is uh... Th-" he twists his face trying to remember the marine's name, and now entirely forgetting the las-gun burn to his arm. "Th'rn!" he shouts remembering. "He say he a Marine"
The tell-tale crack of a lasgun accompanied the grazing of the Ogryn's flesh by a brief beam of red light, giving Lucius pause to not keep following after the injured brute for a moment. It took a few moments for the Ogryn's squad to apologise, and for the "big guy" to recall why he'd been shot in the first place, but he eventually got it out. Now, considering that they were clearly on edge, it was perhaps not a good idea to simply stroll out from behind cover... though meekly edging into sight would also do the Astartes no good. He was trying to make a positive impression. So, perhaps a power walk, then. He was unarmoured, he was without ranged weapon, and they all knew he was there now, but he was nonetheless in control of the situation.
So, just quickly enough that his reveal would be reasonably paced, but not rapid enough to startle, he trodded toward, and then past the corner, at last turning to reveal his full figure to the squadron of guardsmen that this beast hailed from. And that was certainly a lot of guns.
'Greetings, Armsmen,' he once again stated, more directly than he had with the Ogryn. He wondered how many people he'd need to please before the day was out. But how much information to give them? Perhaps let them know which Legion he hailed from, to show off his generally taciturn nature to begin with, and give incentive for them to not ask much more than that? Yes, that seemed reasonable. Justify his lack of equipment, too, now that it came to mind. Half-truths, of course.
'I am Thorn, a Space Marine of the Dark Angels. I have been stranded upon this Hulk for some time, and though I have fought valiantly, the forces here have not been kindly. Most of my equipment is lost to me, and my armour is damaged beyond usability or repair, thus the need for the makeshift clothing you see. Shamed as I am for these losses, I am no less capable than I was before, and rest assured that nothing... malign, let us say... has tainted me, mind body or soul.'
Well, that last part was a straight untruth. His body was at least unaltered, but whilst he'd like to say his mind was intact, this was hardly true when his memories were literally in the hands of who knew what Chaos daemons. And as for his soul, well... Chaos corrupts. How much, he knew not, but he was not yet absolutely corrupted, so he had that going for him, at least. And it wasn't like they'd be able to tell at a glance, anyway.
Ga'duk watched the exchange between his sergeant and the marine with interest. Namely because he was eager to know if Thorn was indeed a marine. The sergeant seemed skeptical which made Ga'duk uneasy. He was now sizing the marine up in case his sergeant decided Thorn was not to be trusted. Thorn was smaller than Ga'duk, but so was basically everyone, compared to his sergeant or the other guard Thorn was very broad and probably much stronger than he appeared. However, he seemed to have no weapons or armor so it would be a very one sided fight which made Ga'duk relax again, Thorn probably wasnt that much of a threat.
His sergeant asked a few questions, "Name, rank, serial number?" he asked because if Thorn was telling the truth such information would be easily called to mind and be rattled off without thought. Even Ga'duk got it right most of the time, and such data could be sent back and checked through imperial records though, it would take time.
Ga'duk vaguely heard more of the discussion but a faint scratching sound pulled his attention away, he glanced around trying to determine its source but it seemed to be happening all around them. Even a couple of the other guardsmen started looking around noticing the sound. After only a few moments the sound was making him uneasy, like rats in the walls or something, "Uh.. Sarge? i t'ink der is a probl'm" He says interrupting whatever conversation was happening with Thorn.
Ah. Name and rank could be bluffed simply enough, but serial number might be problematic, unless he was suddenly gifted new memories from out of nowhere... or, unless he could trick the sergeant, perhaps?
'First of all, you lack the authority to request that information about me,' Lucius began, arms folded and voice clear as if to imply he knew what he was talking about. 'There are few outside the ranks of the Astartes who do, frankly speaking, and you are certainly not one of them. Secondly, you're asking the wrong individual. Processing of Space Marines is handled by our serfs, serial numbers included, and for reasons that I hope are obvious, they do not head out on missions alongside us.'
By now, of course, he'd noticed the scratching of what could only be alien claws against the ship's metal surfaces, and had entered a state of high alert. By the time he'd finished talking, he was already engrossed with looking around the corridor, and had both hands on the hilts of his weapons, ready to draw them at a moment's notice. 'As the Ogryn says,' he continued blandly after he'd said his bit, 'we have company. I suggest you ready your wea-'
The clatter of claws cascading off the ceiling above him was all the warning Lucius got of the Genestealer leaping down to bite into his skull, and yet it was all the warning he needed to, almost instinctively, draw and swing his sword one-handed, swiping it over his head whilst stepping backward in the same half-second. The xeno body landed before him, its head and thorax cleaved in twain, a bizarre four-armed creature of pale skin tone and solid black, semi-insectile eyes, though by now they had glazed over with the fog of death.
The sort of battle that warranted both weapons, then. Swiftly, he drew his combat knife as well, readying it for the inevitable horde of alien scum that would shortly surge over them all.
All along his journey, the lumo lights were running at far above their intended power setting, shining brightly and screeching with an electrical clicking forming a continuous sound until they couldn't handle the power no more and exploded. Lighting bolts arcing from the now exposed light fixtures. The bolts were not always blue like normal though, reds, purples and even black. As parts grew dark the the shadows seemed to move, stir with beings within.
As Zuriel moves through the corridor, it was the final straw for the few lumo lights that still remained, the presence of such heresy calling upon the power within its circuits and therefore overloading them in the same speed as he passed them. Making an eerie visual as the dread magos moved through the corridor, every light he passed exploded, his face never visible, but his hands ever fiddling... slowly. His head moved in ways that wasn't normal for a human, more like some sort of bird.
As he walked up to the sensorium entry, the door opened, it still recognized him as one of the mech-wrights, dutifully opening so that the priest could enter and repair the systems in agony. How pitiful, such willingness to give to others.
He walked up to the sensorium controls and then began to input commands. Overrides and eventually coupling his own mind jack into the device to physically override some parts of the systems. With an initial klaxon blare, it ceased to resist. The sensors of the Justifiable turned on, and in a quick rate raised in power and intensity until it was working far above its designed specifications. Zuriel leaned on his hands upon the control board, staring at the data that streamed into the visual representations constructed by the cogitator arrays.
Initially, just some debris was visible, then the different sections of the hulk, followed by the Rigged fortune along with some of the other craft. The systems planetoids and satellites came into view, then the asteroid belt towards the edges of the system. During this time, the machines were audibly working at a massively high capacity, never meant for such abuse cogitator units were beginning to explode, then an entire array gave way. A part of the screen died, Zuriel did not move. Another explosion jarred the entire sensor chamber, another array short circuited and began to throw out lightning arcing to other consoles and into the floor. It fried another array. This was the final straw for the sensor chamber, the screen showed a red warning icon with the sections of the screen that was still whole until the whole room was filled with warning klaxons.
Zuriel had spotted something though, a disturbance at the edge of the system. It could be vessels, cloaked from vision. The different kinds of the pitiful eldar was known to use such tactics, perhaps it was the soulless machines? Probably not, it didn't fit their ways. It didn't matter if it was eldar, imperials or some unknown force. Zuriel did not care. As the screen turned red he left the console and moved to the door, the sensor arrays were now sending out so much energy that most sensor systems of the vessels close to the hulk were only showing static, even things aboard the hulk was beginning to suffer faults and static, comm beads were hard to use the closer they were to the carcass of the Justifiable.
As he was leaving the hallways of the ship for the last time ever to tread upon the hulk itself, he spoke to himself, the ship and anyone who would be able to hear. -"Farewell tortured girl, you will not be missed." Finished with a gleaming insane smile before his form turned into mist.
It was there the reactors couldn't hold any longer, they went critical. The ensuing explosion was enough to rock the entire hulk, the hulk-quake kept going as secondary systems aboard the Justifiable exploded. Energy was being thrown out into space and into the hulk in visible arcs of warp lightning and electricity. The warship that had been wrapped around the outer port side of the hulk was now more reminiscent of the skeleton of an animal which ribs pointed towards the desert sun. Now the Justifiable was forever part of the hulk, there was nothing of value left to plunder, it was just lucky that the warp reactors safety features had held under such stress and prevented a warp rift from appearing.
As he went to the void as a cloud of warp mist, he heard the echoes of the warp. He felt them stronger now, the psyker which made summons, the dark patches which most reminded him of the minions of the devourer. The small life candles scattered all over the hulk. Some smaller some bigger. Even though he'd never seen them, he knew of them, the knowledge coming to him as he needed it. He made a mental smirk, this was going to be interesting.
Fio'Ui was having a bad... time? Day and Night having long stopped having much in the way of meaning to him after he had been 'invited' to join the Rigged Fortune.
He was traveling through a vessel that had been smashed against several other vessels, abandoned to rust, rot and decay (and considering what he had learned of Gue'la maintenance, there was a real chance many of the ships were well on the way to falling apart even before they had smashed into this hunk of wreckage), surrounded by armed people he didn't like who most likely didn't like him in return and now everything was in chaos because giant freaking monster bugs were coming out of every entrance way that could find and people were dying and he didn't know what to do!
Breathing deeply as he tried to stop himself from panicking (Well, panicking hard enough to be completely useless), Fio'Ui did the only logical thing that he could do in this situation; He grabbed one of the fallen laser weapons that one of the Gue'la had dropped after having their arm removed by one of the alien bugs. Prying the fingers away to remove the limb, Fio'Ui found himself... wielding a weapon he wasn't familiar with on a ship where he was fairly certain there would be no escape from.
Thankfully, the current group that he was with had proven able enough to deal with the threat... but Fio'Ui still kept his shaky grip on his stolen weapon; It's presence made him feel... more in control of the situation.
Ga'duk stood surprised at the marine's speed, confirming what Thorn had said at least in Ga'duks mind. The soldier with the auspex scanner looked down to see the horde of blips converging on them "by the Emperor" he muttered. The sergeant shouted orders knowing full well that each and every one of them would die, even with the strength of a Space Marine and an Ogryn. Genestealers charged from bothsides of the hallway and a few managed to slip through the vents. "Kill them! Kill them all! For the Imperium!" shouted the sergeant drawing a Chainsword. Although the acute listener could hear the primal fear defiance of circumstance in his voice. Ga'duk however only heard the order to 'Kill them all' which was nice and simple. Las bolts flared around him and the groan of a chainsword biting flesh echoed down the halls, drouned out by the skittering of hundreds of taloned grotesqueries. Ga'duk bellowed a warcray "Fer da Empoor!" utterly without fear, because he knows the Emperor protects just as surely as he knew the Emperor got his illegible letters.
Ga'duk Charged down the hallway firing a shell from his grenade launcher blasting a score of the monstrosities into little more than grease stains before letting the gauntlet fall and hefting his axe. Once he closed with the horde he was all they could focus on, between his size and the reach of his axe none could get around him from that side. His axe took several at a time with long sweeping strikes that left deep gouges in the walls and floor. He heard shouts of fear and screams of pain behind him, but he dared not look back as it would take only a moment for him to be bowled over by the shrieking beasts.
He held his side of the hall for what seemed like hours but was likely only a few moments, the monsters slowed their advance giving Ga'duk a momentary respite. He had killed easily a hundred of the beasts leaving a mound of broken bodies before him. he stared down the hallway and could still see dozens or hundreds of the creatures beyond, but they had stopped throwing themselves at him. It took him a moment to realize that he was otherwise alone in the hallway, no sounds of fighting behind him, no shouts of pain or victory just the scratching at the walls. He dared a brief glance behind him, most of the soldiers were corpses torn to shreds, however he was somewhat sure a few were missing. There were many gene-stealers carved to pieces or gunned down. While he was, slowly, processing this one of the more adventurous genestealers had crawled over the mound of its fallen and lept to claw at the Ogryn. It was however caught on his shield trying to clamber over the tower of pas-steel and eat a significant portion of Ga'duks face. In reply, he headbutted the creature and crushed it between is inhumanly though skull and his shield granting him savage warpaint of green slime.
"Uhh, Sarge?" Ga'duk asked somewhat loudly triggering his vox, which broadcasts widely to ensure his transmissions are picked up by someone. he continued backing away trying to keep his eyes on the mound of genestealer corpses, the vents and trying to pay attention if his sergeant or Thorn was alive or anyone else. While he backed up another few steps dozens of the genestealers started following him. "Uh-oh" he mumbled trying to think of a way out. He instinctively knew that his inhuman endurace and strength would not win againt the hordes of creatures, even with the emperor on his side. Glancing back every couple steps he noticed a bulkhead that was missing a door. He knew there was an answer around him somewhere. The gears were grinding in his head just as the creatures charges. Ga'duk ran through the door way ducking to allow his bulk through, his shield on the other hand didn't fit at wedged in the door way. The genestealers crashed against it, dozens of them desperately trying to claw through the thick slab of armor. Ga'duk yanked at the shield a couple times entirely blocking off the passage and permenantly wedging the way closed. He yanked at the shield again, but half way through his pull he realized that he was safe, or the monsters couldnt get to him from this direction at least which was his most pressing concern. He turned and looked down the hallway, no monsters from that direction but he was alone. Which presented a very serious problem, He doesn't work alone someone needed to give him direction. He put the grenade launcher on his left hand and held the axe in his right and started walking. He wasnt sure where to or who he would find but he was alone, except for the Emperor obviously.
At first, things had been dull. After the initial assault by the first large group of mutants, everything seemed to just stop. He had marshalled his forces, found a base to work out of, and even worked with his generals to devise a plan of attack. The more time passed, though, the longer they were without an enemy to battle. When there was no battle, the daemons got anxious, and anxious daemons made terrible company.
The Warrior and his forces were not content unless their blades and fangs were sinking into mortal flesh. By contrast, the Sorcerer and his minions were perfectly fine just sitting and waiting for their plans to unfold. That is, until the stillness eroded their calm in favor of a craving for change. It wasn't long before the two groups started bickering and fighting with each other.
Luckily, the infighting didn't last long enough to come to more than a few light blows. Unfortunately, what interrupted it was a far greater concern. As the Sorcerer had predicted, the walls between the materium and the warp had been weakened too much by the entrance of the other daemons. The calm of the area was suddenly, and violently, interrupted.
Out of a tear in reality emerged an insurgence of shrieking daemonettes. Brandishing their large claws, they charged forward, eager to engage any possible enemy. Urgrugg's own daemonic forces, as starved for battle as they had been, were only too ready to meet the Slannesian forces halfway. The Warrior and his riders smashed into the wall of screeching daemonettes, while the hounds came at them from the flank. True to plan, the shriekers flew over the enemy, turning to harass them from the rear. The flamers followed behind, throwing dancing, blue flames into the rift to prevent more forces from immediately engaging.
By this point, Urgrugg had lost all control of anything happening in the battle. Even the Sorcerer, usually willing to at least accept the ork's aid, had begun working towards his own goal. Ordering his horrors to channel their power into him, he had begun a complex and powerful ritual. It would take time to complete, but its effects were immediately apparent. The hole into the warp was already beginning to close, though slowly.
Then, just as the battle seemed to be turning in their favor, Urgrugg turned, hearing something coming from above. It sounded like something tapping on metal, then several somethings. Suddenly, more of the mutants came jumping out of the huge piles of scrap. Apparently, the had hidden some entrances into the large room inside of the wreckage. Whether it was natural, or created for this purpose, he would never know, and did not care to find out. As the mutants fell onto his daemon allies from the rear, the ork knew it was only a matter of time before the three forces destroyed each other.
With little choice left, enemies surrounding him to all sides, Urgrugg once more reached for his power. Deep inside himself, he took from hidden reserves, stores of energy he called upon only during the most desperate times. Tapping this power, he grabbed for a spell he had not used in a long time, a means of escape not taught to him, but instead that he had inherited by birth as an ork shaman. Letting out a fierce battle cry, he began running towards the horde of battle before him. At the last moment, he leapt into the air, and unleashed the spell.
Suddenly, he was passing through the warp. Unsure of where he would end up, he could only hope his arrival back to the materium was a safe one. Finishing the spell, he forced himself back into the real world. His entrance was not as bad as it could have been, but it was far from perfect. Most notably, his entrance had caused some kind of disruption in the warp, some part of the process forcing the warp and the materium to try and align in a way they were not meant to.
The forced alignment had a powerful result. It sent the power of the warp bursting from the area, the original blast wave leaving dents in the metal walls around him. Worse, though, all the warp energy present within nearly ten yards of him had been shunted away, leaving the ork in the equivalent of a null-field, at least for a few minutes. It left him vulnerable, though, if only for a short time.
Though it took him about ten seconds to register it, something else had gone wrong. Letting out a loud, bellowing roar of a scream, Urgrugg realized what the forced alignment had allowed. His wrist had entered the warp in the same space as a sheet of inch-thick adamantium. The process had effectively welded the two together, leaving the ork basically attached to the chunk of scrap metal by his arm.
Finally, there was one other, very unexpected, result. He had entered near something, some sort of creature. Whatever it was, he could tell it was a psyker. Mostly because it had been using some kind of spell to move around, and the sudden presence of what was basically a null-field had snuffed said spell. Whatever it was, Urgrugg had never seen one before, and being an ork, that gave him a powerful urge to attack.
Even as he turned to swing his weapon, though, he realized it had been in the wrong hand. His staff was on the other side of the large sheet of metal, tightly grasped in his off hand. That was not ideal, but in any event, one thing needed to be done. With another loud roar, this time in anger, he summoned his orkish strength and slammed his taloned finger tips down on his wrist. Tearing through the flesh and smashing the bone, he freed himself, though with a bloody stump for a hand to show for it. Turning to face the strange being, he held his forearm tightly, doing his best to stop the flow of blood as he waited for whatever it was to act.
During his travel through the corridors of the ravaged hulk, Zuriel felt a presence... no, several.
It was deamons, summonings, he knew since the already thin veil was in parts ripped asunder as warp beings tore their way into realspace. Their presence was mesmerizing, so much power. To be honest Zuriel was glad he had several feet of bulkheads between him and the battle that was probably going on. He didn't know, but when some sort of psyker keeps throwing powers, as loads of deamons were casting warp fire, he just assumed there was a battle.
He was just deciding if he would go to watch the battle itself or let it be when a strange alien warp ripple threw itself upon his mind. He barely had time to react when a massive ork materialized next to him surrounded by green lightning bolts which exploded outwards into a cascade of sparks. What was worse was the null zone that emerged, which cast Zuriel out of his mistform. With a simple swirl his robed form emerged from the mayhem, holding a pistol. Not aimed at anything in particular, but still drawn.
Luckily the large ork didn't rip his throat out instantly, Zuriel had no doubt in his mind it would have had it not gotten its arm stuck with that warp hijinks it just performed. Zuriel found himself happily just outside arms length from the large angry ork.
-"My my, what do we have here. An ork that thinks itself a sorcerer? Fascinating!" Zuriels words were not mocking words, but rather pleasantly surprised ones. He followed up by pointing the pistol, fizzling with purple energy, towards the orks face before going on. -"Give me one reason why i shouldn't blow your face off?" The dread magos filthy broad smile more of a psychotic grin than a happy one.
The group of mercenaries before him seemed to suffer some form of battleshock after the meager wave of xeno creatures had died out. Assuredly, there would be more, and bigger, aliens coming, now that they had a taste of their prey's resistance. But the survivors didn't speak. The friendly xeno amid the humans picked up a lasgun from the clutches of a dead human hand on the floor. His grip on the weapon shook, and he looked pitiful. Neither he, nor any of the humans, seemed able to form words. They all seemed to be staring at Xepherial ... in terror.
And then Xepherial understood why. A warning light flashed on his UI indicating an enemy behind him, and he spun to deal with it. A large broodlord, with scythes coming out of two extra limbs on its thorax was already upon him. Bolter still in hand, he fired, hitting squarely its chest at such close range, even though the creature dashed aside in an effort to avoid the damage. It was only barely slowed down and split seconds away from colliding with him as it re-launched its assault. Suddenly, the entire spacehulk itself seemed to get involved in the fight with a violent lurch. The sound of a huge explosion occurring somewhere all too close by heralded a shockwave that rocked the walkway like an earthquake. The creature leapt nonetheless, landing on Xepherial who staggered off balance at the critical moment. Their combined weight was too much, and the floorpanel below them ripped off its supports, dropping them both instantly into a hallow abyss.
A surge of adrenaline rushed into Xepherial's blood stream, an expected reaction of his biological systems to give him a boost to speed and strength when he needed it most. Pumped, his perceptions accelerated and time seemed to slow around him. He was falling, and he knew not into what, but the maw of the monstrous enemy was in his face, acid saliva streaming back over its cheeks as the air whipped by in their descent. It clawed at him, still intent to rip him open like a can of sardines and eat the fleshy insides. The slanted red eyeslits of the Dark Angel's faceplate glared defiantly at the creature as Xeph brought his bolter back in line. The the two rotated mid-fall with the creature rising to the upper position as Xepherial fired multiple rounds into it. Bam.. bam... bam... Time was passing so slowly. The broodlord's face exploded in chunks of meat and blood with blast afer blast. Its grip on him fell slack and it fell away. Xepherial flailed helplessly, instinctively, knowing that by now he had fallen too far not to sustain serious damage when he hit bottom. Only 3 seconds had passed.
Deeper in the hulk, another group of humans, an ogryn, and a armorless space marine were fighting against more of the xeno filth that infested this shamefully massive junkyard. Just beside the sergeant and "Thorn," off a dubiously stable ledge, was a vast open chamber. The darkness was thick enough to cut with a knife, and because literally nothing appeared to be out there, the area had gone largely ignored. Just after the same quake shook the area, a sizable figure came raining through this void of wasted space in plain view. His bolterfire sparked flashes of light as he fell, illuminating a stark white emblem on his shoulder, a sword flanked by wings. The image was gone over the brink in the span of a heartbeat.
--------------------
Xepherial returned to consciousness. Initially, he had no idea where he was, but the creaking of distant hulls and scent of stale oil jogged his memory. It was black down here. His powerarmor cogitator displayed a full assessment of his vital signs and reported sustained damage onto his visual screen. Oh, he had indeed sustained damage. Xepherial lifted his head slowly to find a pike sticking up through his midsection. Well, it was down and to the left, but he was impaled, and alone. "How long.. have I been down here?" He spoke only to himself as he considered how much time he had before those alien creatures discovered him. His astartes blood had quickly congealed around his wound and protected his life, but he had to free himself and... And what? Escape? A quick calculation of the odds was not a pretty number.
Finding his servo arm functional, Xepherial ignited his plasmacutter in a brilliant flash of blue-white light.
As it happened, the creatures came from just about every possible direction. Both ends of the hallway, for starters; many emerged from the nearby vents, too; and a great number came crawling toward the group on the walls and ceiling, clearly intending to leap down on the soldiers from above the way the first had attempted to attack Lucius. Some even crawled out from a nearby pit that the Marine had previously not noticed.
That, however, was about as much info as he was able to glean before throwing himself into the fray, combat blades flashing as he cut down monster after monster. The first scratch to his stomach, barely evaded to prevent it becoming a lethal strike that spilled his guts, told Lucius enough about them: the claws of these things were sharp enough to claw open power armour with ease, never mind unarmoured flesh, and the xeno-things wielding them were as fast as lightning, as the next several injuries would further prove. About the time that one got a lucky strike off, tearing a trio of gashes down his left arm that quickly filled with coagulated blood, Lucius decided further fighting would be a worthless endeavour, one which would surely end his life for no good reason. As it happened, the combat let up for a short while just after that, giving Lucius a moment to assess the situation. The Ogryn was surprisingly competent, it seemedl the rest of his squadron, clearly, was not.
And passing through a nearby bulkhead doorway, some tiny thing was skittering, like one of the larger xenoforms in miniature. With an almost instinctive jolt, Lucius practically leapt toward the thing, passing through the open bulkhead door at nearly the same moment as the creature and tackling it to the ground, and then skewering it with his knife until it ceased to move, heedless of its pathetic attempts to defend itself... at least by comparison, for the scrapes on his chest hardly compared to the wounds on the rest of his body. The point of that, then, would be to stop whatever activities it had been engaging in, since such a small entity was surely not intended to be a combat form of the creatures... then again, he knew Orks sometimes used their Grots and Snotlings as cannon fodder, the latter mostly as ammunition, but were the two situations comparable? Not likely.
And that put Lucius in another hallway, with a cross junction not ten meters away and nothing living in sight. Perhaps it was better like that, and if the tiny fragment of battle memory that crossed his mind anew had anything to say... wait. Correction: somebody was screaming for their life. And if Lucius wandered up to the crossroads...
He found his minion, falling at the feet of another xeno lifeform and promptly being flipped on to his back, this one with tentacles in place of its mouth. The significance was irrelevant to Lucius, because how dare it threaten his peon? Only he was allowed to do that! The calculations for how to throw his shorter weapon took perhaps half a second, and the throw itself reached the alien just as it began to lean down toward the cultist - perhaps in preparation to suck his brain from his skull, or perhaps for another purpose, but now only to have half its face severed along with its neck, blood spewing from the stump as the body slumped to the ground. Lucius ignored the cultist's subsequent struggles to free himself from beneath the creature's corpse, passing by the man to retrieve the blade, lodged in the metal flooring just a short distance from the body proper. A sudden shock rumbling throughout the Hulk helped free the weapon, and whilst it was oddly massive in scale, it hardly affected Lucius' balance. Maybe something had exploded nearby. An engine, or what have you.
And then, with nothing else in sight - especially not above him, he made sure to check - he sheathed both weapons, and at last turned to his minion, the both of them now splattered with alien gore in various colours. Khorne would probably appreciate that sight more than any other Chaos God, but what did Lucius care? Not much, that was what. However, he wiped his face clean with one hand anyway, listening quietly to the psyker's offerings of 'thank you my lord high master' and 'it is so good to see you again, o Scion my Scion' and 'I'm sorry for the bother, sir, I couldn't defend myself'.
'It's okay, it's no bother, it wasn't your fault,' Lucius offered, a smidgen of praise just to shut the man up... of course it wasn't his fault, though. There were so many of those things on board the Hulk, and they'd surely have found Ga'duk and his Imperial allies anyway. It wasn't like anyone had a beacon drawing them to-
An abrupt realisation hit the Fallen Angel like a hammer, and he promptly gripped the minion's clothing in one fist, raising the squirming maggot up to eye level, slamming him against the wall just enough to rattle him.
'How often have you been using your telepathy?' Lucius asked, quiet as death.
'Uh- w-well, I mean, that is to say, oh high mighty lord-'
Which shoulder was it that his third eye was located on? Lucius asked himself. Did the worm ever say? He tried the right one, just lightly poking it, and was rewarded with a yell of pain at the pressure.
'I ask again: how often?'
'Wuh-once every two or three minutes, master.'
'You blithering fool,' Lucius uttered, eyes narrowed with contempt. 'Let's ignore the general risks of constantly using psychic powers, and go to the more immediate problem: there are probably thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not hundreds of millions of those... "Genestealers" on board this Space Hulk. If even one of them is psychic, and I'm almost positive they have psykers, then your constant broadcasts are like a massive sign yelling "Come here, there's good eating to be had!"'
'...I, ah, I admit, sir, I was preoccupied with, ah... with, um, informing-'
'Stop. Using. It. Unless you want to join the Chaos Gods that much sooner.'
'Yes m'lord sir, sorry master lord scion.'
And then he let the minion drop down again, the man's knees collapsing beneath him briefly before he got his footing. That said, it seemed Lucius would be alone once more, unless the Ogryn had found his way into this very same hallway without being followed.
...and speak of the daemon. Sans shield and caked in blood, but otherwise intact, the creature walked into view of Lucius and the telepath with almost comic timing. And if he was the only one of his squadron who'd survived...
'If anybody asks, you worship the Emperor of Mankind,' Lucius muttered to the peon under his breath, before standing up straight and strolling toward the brutish creature, clearing his throat to try and make sure it noticed him. Its inherent stupidity would surely work in his favour, hopefully letting him fool it into believing he had good intentions all around, and perhaps even allowing him to instill a degree of permanent loyalty to him, if he played his cards right. So long as his present follower didn't screw anything up, of course.
When the Power Armored Marine stepped up to Joran's group, he was left somewhat speechless. The massive figure unlike anything he, and much of the others, had ever seen before. Gripping his lasgun tightly, Joran simply watched as the massive figure was suddenly assaulted by a Tyranid Broodlord, falling downward into the bowels of the Hulk, the flash of his bolter still shooting up from the void. Joran took the opportunity to take charge in the situation, turning to face his group.
"Well, fishboy, I hope ya know how ta use that gun, 'cause we're movin' on. Let's find a safer way downward, 'cause I'd rather not hafta take the Giant Bug Express down..." With that, he moved onward, guiding the group deeper down the hall, searching for some kind of stairwell or lift.
Eventually, they would find a structurally sound set of stairs, which Joran would carefully guide them down. Descending for what seemed like a great time, Joran and the others would reach a deeper section of the ship, and would behold yet another strange sight: A massive man, possibly another Space Marine, with a more normal-sized man next to him, and what looked like a brutish Ogryn. They were in the midst of conversation, so Joran decided to halt a bit behind them, waiting to see what they would do.
Ga'duk takes a few steps away from his shield, the genestealers still clawing at the armored slab trying to get at him. He was afraid, it wasnt the first time he was seperated from his unit but this was different. He wasnt sure exactly why it was different but it certainly felt different. He looked around scanning his surroundings and seeing nothing but darkness and smooth metal walls. He fiddled with his headgear for a moment turning on the light, a wide angle beam illuminating the hallway. Just as his lamp turned on he heard a noise down a connecting hallway, startled he turned rapidly towards the sound, axe at the ready and pointing his grenade launcher at the threat.
It took a moment for Ga'duk to realize the figure was Thorn, but as soon as he did he relaxed noticably. "Tharn!" he shouted and stomped towards him which, for those who didnt know Ogryns, must have looked like a hostile charge. The Ogryn had covered half the distance between the two before he noticed the cultist with Thorn. His presence perplexed Ga'duk, this newcommer was not anyone from his squad nor did he look imerial at all. He was sure it was a problem, but couldnt quite place why. With maybe a dozen yards between the two Ga'duk stopped, "Who dat?" said Ga'duk "I don' like him." He was noticeably tense, between the intense fight he had before and the new comer he was starting to get a little overwhelmed without the direction of his commanding officer. Having to think for ones self was starting to become uncomfortably common. He wasnt entirely sold on Thorn yet either, he might be a marine but there was something off about him too.. Ga'duk kept his distance and was obviously in a defensive posture, not directly threatening but he was prepared for further confrontation.
Ga'duk scanned his surroundings again, the beam of his light passing silently over Joran and their group but not pausing, the Ogryn didnt seem to have noticed them as he was searching for more genestealers. "Tharn, I dun like 'dis place I... I need git back to da.. uh.. ship" he said in hopes that the marine would put him at ease regardless of his mistrust of the marine and his new follower.
Whatever the thing standing before him was, it spoke with the tongue of humans. It also brandished one of the energy-based weapons that were so coveted among those Urgrugg usually worked with. Though, its words gave the ork pause. They also made it necessary for him to stifle a laugh.
Standing this close, Urgrugg could feel the taint of the warp on the being that stood before him. Its own power was mild, though. They were not native to the creature, but granted by an outside source. Though, without closer inspection, that was just guess work on the ork's part. He made the assumption based off his few interactions with those who made offerings to Mork in exchange for his favor and a touch of power.
Without speaking, Urgrugg simply reached up to the collar of his robe and pulled it down. Underneath was revealed the dented, scuffed, and even somewhat rusty sheet of metal he had folded into armor around his torso. However, with a single talon, the ork pulled a bit at the metal, while pointing at something undeath. It was a sigil, branded into his flesh by the look of things.
If the ork's guess was correct, and this thing practiced ritual magic, then it would recognize the rune. It was a fairly common mark, one which designated the beginning of a contract with a daemon. As one would expect, its actual purpose in the ritual was to designate what the daemon would receive in exchange for service, a way to entice the entity into taking notice of the offer in the first place. In his case, it was a rare configuration of the rune, in that it was uncommon for a daemon to accept it as an offer. The symbol meant that, upon his death, his physical body would become the daemon's property. As the ritual sealed the contract with the power needed to create a passage for the daemon to the summoner, upon death, it also meant killing him would be nothing short of inviting a daemon to your door. With the walls of the materium as thin as they were on the hulk, there was no telling what all could walk through the portal alongside the intended daemon.
As the ork before him showed the strange rune, Zuriel did not recognize it. However, as the seconds blew by rapidly like tree sap he understood its meaning. The knowledge being granted to him, which simply put a massive grin on his face.
-"Clever brute, i'd never expect one of your kind to pull off a trick like that." Zuriel laughed a sinister laugh which would unnerve even some of the imperium's hardened veterans. -"But what can one expect, from the species which makes a living of ruining expectations." He lowered his hellpistol which sizzled with hatred.
-"I think this could become a fascinating experience, provided you don't kill me of course." The dread magi's words were some sort of mix between sarcasm and utter seriousness, as he spoke he twisted his neck once like a bug and without knowing began fiddling with his right glove.
It was hard to tell what was going through the strange creature's mind. In any event, it had lowered its weapon. When it did not move to attack, Urgrugg took the chance to move around, behind the sheet of metal. With another sicken crack of bone and flesh, he broke his hand off of the metal. Stepping back around, he took a moment to look at his wrist, both broken edges of it. Making sure to attach it the right way, he held the two ends together.
Tempting fate, the ork called on just the slightest amount of warp energy he was able to. Normally, such minute tasks would be beyond him. However, the null field had not fully dissipated. He used that to his advantage, letting the natural restriction of warp energy flow into the area be his self-control for him. With a flash of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh, he took his hand away from his wrist. Though nearly an inch shorter than before, his hand was reattached by the burnt flesh. After a few long seconds, he tried moving his fingers. Unsurprised they were working, he was disappointed to find he could no longer move his last two fingers of that hand independent of one another.
Turning his attention back to the strange creature, he took up his staff while glaring at it. In a voice rough enough to sound like gravel being ground to dust by concrete he spoke, using low gothic. "You strange thing. Never seen kind before. You tyranid? Imperium? Don't think so. You touched by Mork. Feel power." With that, the ork took a step closer. Other than his staff, he had no weapons. Judging by the brief moment it took the creature to recognize the sigil on his chest, it would have no hope of grasping the meaning of the hundreds of runes that marked the wood and gem of Urgrugg's staff. Once the nullfield fully dissipated, though, Urgrugg's power would return in full, and his staff would be as good as an Imperial power maul.
-"You ask what i am? I was once human, then one of the machine blessed.... and now i am free." At free Zuriel held his arms aloft and seemed to praise some who knew what. He looked at the orks slightly damaged hand. -"I always thought an ork wouldn't need the powers of beyond the veil to heal their broken bodies. But then again, you'd probably be more of an expert on the subject then i." With that Zuriel began to study the creatures strange staff, its runes of binding, unleashing, control, chaos, with such a gem on top.
-"Fascinating..." Zuriel expressed silently, barely audible at the distance the two were standing at. Which wasn't far.
'Well,' the ork thought to himself, considering the creature's words. 'Guess I know wat 'e iz-a huge git!'
Urgrugg had heard that kind of talk before. Generally, humans tended to fear the warp and the power of those who dwelled within. However, a few he had come across embraced its power, and worshiped those who commanded it. Of the various rewards-their word, not his-that they could receive when one of the deities took notice of them was knowledge. The shaman had, himself, received these visions a number of times. They had never had any real negative impact on him, so far as he knew. Others though, and especially humans, seemed prone to madness after discovering the secrets of the warp and its workings. He had always wondered why that knowledge had no such effect on him.
"Orks strong, not invincible. Get broken, need fixing." Though unsure why, he felt a strange need around other sentient beings. He was never sure when, but at some point, Urgrugg had gotten into the habit of striking up conversations with those that could reply. Something about talking to others appealed to him, in a way that battle never could. That said, he had found that what he liked most about speaking to others, was learning what they knew that could help him.
"You alone." He said in his rough voice, beginning to probe for information. "Have weapon. Moving when find you. Where you going? How know go there?" Whatever this thing was, it seemed comfortable with its surroundings. That it did not call for aid, or use something to inform others of what happened, implied it was alone. Add in the fact most humans prefered not to work with the insane or warp-marked, and everything pointed, at least to the ork's mind, that this thing had not gotten here recently. Given that, and everything else, it seemed much more likely it had been here for a very long time.
-"I tread these halls alone, for only i survived the fate of my old ship. As to where i am going...." Zuriel paused, he stroked his chin slightly and then answered. -"I guess i was looking for you, whom else could be responsible for these fascinating ripples through the veil, the delicious torture of the real world being forced to adhere to the warp. Or perhaps i'm thinking of your... subjects, who are still working beyond these walls." As he finished, he pointed towards where the deamonic battle was raging and from where Urgrugg had escaped.
-"I can feel them, such power, enforcing their will through the veil, clad in protective forces from the psychic might of others. Not the same ones of course." Zuriel realized he made no sense, he didn't care. He also realized he'd not introduced himself.
-"I am Zuriel Ganymede Quillos, and you are?" He held out his arms to his sides followed with gesturing towards the ork with his right hand. His palm upwards with the fingers slightly bent.
The creature, Zuriel, was proving to be a source of very interesting information, if not a cryptic one. Of course, having dealt with daemons, cryptic was something the ork was more than used to. It occurred to the ork, keeping this Zuriel around may very well be worth while. If nothing else, a map would be extremely helpful to have on hand.
"Urgrugg Darkcrackah," the ork said, using his thumb to point to himself. If he was going to make an ally of Zuriel, then he would have to share some information of his own. The most important thing being making sure that information favored the ork if relied upon. "You not look for me. I not use call. Call come from ship; from something inside ship. Something inside already, when I come to ship. It call me, so I come. It call others. They come, too. Others not know why come, just do."
Turning his head, he motions with it towards the corridor behind Zuriel. Taking a few steps in that direction, he continues speaking, "Come. I show others. We find. We use. Then, find what makes call. Use that, too." With a wicked, fanged smirk that orks alone are capable of making, he started off down the hall. When he passed from the null field, his staff let off a low, purple glow. The light it cast seemed barely enough to illuminate even the crystal itself. To the eyes of a psyker, though, it would be as an inferno, lighting their way as though the path were an open field under the noon day sun.
So the ork had also sensed the mysterious presence, as well as others, this was delightful information.
-"What a suitably brutish name." Zuriel commented. -"Ah, the presence, i had almost forgotten. So many other events made me forget its silent call." Zuriel spoke as he joined in behind the ork, although what that nonsense of a map was he didn't know, perhaps there was one. If the ork thought he knew the proper way around the brute would be sorely mistaken.
While the warp had given him knowledge of many things, the layout of the hulk was not one of them. Probably a test of his intellect, no matter, getting lost was something Zuriel was actually bad at, so he played along for the moment.
-"Let's find these... others. I do like your idea of... using them. My friend." Zuriels words ever so creepy, a regular human would never trust him a second, but this was no human. It was an ork, they probably didn't get the human gesticulations and hidden messages and if it did, it did not care. The two began to move out down the corridor, going with their psyniscience to try and navigate to the other being aboard the hulk. The heavy saggy footsteps of the ork and the clangy metallic footsteps of the dread priest making their approach somewhat easy to predict.
