Lum, Chap 2

A few days of travel have passed. Revikh has angered me, he has no honor. Leaving us to fight, while he rests and watches and acts like a noble in a slum. Among the Tribes he would be taught a lesson, likely with a boot to his backside.

It is not long into another day before we hear yipping and barking from the woodline. There we see gnolls. They are not many, so we will kill them.

I call the beast to me, and charge to meet my dog-faced foe. I swing the ivory morning star, its magic fire ignites. I feel the crunch of a smashing skull, see the gnoll’s face distort and the life leave its eyes as it falls. Rel shoots his bow, but misses bad. He hits trees. I crush the rib cage of another gnoll, and see a purple light blast one to dust. It is Ivy, and her power.

The elf misses again, as I smash another skull. Drakha breathes the flame of the dragon at the last. We have no time to rest, as a large pack of gnolls comes to view, emerging from the woods. Maybe 40, maybe 50 gnolls stand ready. Fun!

I stand my ground, rage in my veins. I lay about me, killing with each strike that lands. Purple lines of power pick foes from my back, as Ivy adds her magicks to the fight. Arrows fly into Drakha’s foes, Relowen has remembered how to shoot as he begins to find targets among the horde. Drakha breathes flame again, and gnolls flee.

More fall to us, to my weapon. I roar in their faces, enjoying their fear. Lum crushes, smashes! I call out to my ancestors! The gnolls flee into the forest, and my rage carries me after them. I take two from behind, their heads lolling around on broken necks. Then arrows strike me, hurting me, clearing my head. My left arm hangs at my side, two arrows sticking from it.

I take cover, hearing my companions behind me. I hold my hand up to stop them, and we see many, many gnoll archers and warriors. We withdraw, and so do the gnolls. It is best for both of us, as I see an arrow sunk deep into my thigh. My rage had blinded me to the pain, and it rushes through my nerves now like a wave. We regroup, and Drakha works healing magics on the worst of our wounds. I take many wounds when the rage calls.

We take what little valuables the gnolls possess, and move on. It is late day when we come to a village. We ask about provisions.

These villagers have no honor! Farmer thinks Lum is a fool! A gold coin for five potatoes? Treachery! “Is potato THIS big”, I ask, holding hands out like carrying a baby. “No” the villager says. I glower at him, and flex my muscles.

“Then more potatoes” I say. He gives me eight potatoes.

We make camp, and I hunt. I enjoy the hunt, the stalk. It is not long before I return with a boar, and begin stripping it for meat. There will be bacon in the morning.

I am awakened from sleep in the night. Fire! Pain! I roll, making sure I am not still burning. I look up, seeing skeletons approaching. One is a mage, and throws fireballs. He is the one that awoke me, and I will make him pay. My rage comes without me seeking it, and I charge.

My first strikes find only air, in my rage I have misjudged my foes. The skeletons are more nimble than I thought. It takes only moments to find my stride, and I begin to smash. I take chunks of bone from my foe with each swing. I do not feel pain, but I know that I am being cut by their swords, that I am bleeding.

The magic of Relowen’s arrows takes the caster down, moments before I finally smash my foe. They are powerful skeletons, only six of them giving us a challenge worthy of the Silver One.

I step to assist Drakha, crushing, smashing. Ivy and Rel take down the archers, leaving just two foes. I strike with all my might, crushing a spine into powder. One remains, and Relowen kills it before I can smash it. I take a moment to catch my breath, releasing the rage.

There are no more skeletons, and so I return to sleep. The morning comes with bacon, and I eat heartily of it. We decide to travel on.

It is not long before we are met again by Revikh. I demand he answer for his treachery, abandoning us to fend for ourselves after demanding we follow him blindly. He does not, smug and sneering. I charge him, intent on kicking him in his nethers. He uses foul wizardry to halt me and lay me low. He then summons gryphons through some magic device to carry us further on our journey. He is a smug bastard.

I have not flown before. It is good fun, though I grip tightly. I also have not been teleported much, but only moments after landing, we teleport from the mage city to a great fortress floating in the desert. Revikh tells us we will finally have answers, and for this I am happy.

We meet Revikh’s master, Eldrin. He is a scholar, and tells us our crystal items, our riddles, are Divinite. He tells us we faced a demigod, a servant of evil. I demand to know more, but am cut off by cries of an attack on the fortress. The fortress is suddenly besieged by dragons and foot soldiers. Powerful magic to move an army.

We must flee, and the evil one, named Shayan, he leads this army. We leave the defenders of the fortress to their work, and move to escape. We are attacked by invisible foes, someone shouts that they are hellcats, and immune to fire. I pull my greataxe off my pack, and begin to chop about, seeking my foes. One of the defending mages casts some spell to reveal them, but pays for it with his life.

Surrounded, we fight hard. Ivy’s magic, my axe, Rel’s blades, Drakha’s morning star. The battle is hard, and we must fight quickly, there are dragons about. I tear one apart with my axe, see that 2 more have been felled by my companions. Rel falls to the ground on my left as Ivy drops another cat with her magics. Drakha and I step into the last hellcat, chopping hard, and Ivy finishes it. I help Rel up; we move to continue our flight.

A great blast of sound calls my attention, and my jaw drops as Eldrin banishes Shayan somehow. We deal in great power, pawns on the board are we. The kings are mighty. We are given some supplies by Eldrin, and sent on our way to the capital. Among the items he has given us are curious bracelets of magic, if we speak his name into them, he will hear what we say to him. He tells us to summon him if Shayan finds us.

I think about my path. It is no small task to solve this riddle, no small fight we wage.

Lum, Chap 1

It is morning. The dawn light gathers before the rise of the sun to shine on us. I rise, and look about the camp. There are four of us. The fifth is nowhere to be found, that honorless goatlover Revikh.

My eyes meet Relowan’s. He is an elf, small but nimble. Two swords hang on his hips, one long and one short; his bow is in hand. He loves the bow, but it does not love him as much yet. It is a fickle lover, sometimes it does not sing his song. But I can see he will be its master yet. They call him a ranger, and he is good on the hunt. We nod to each other, no words exchanged. I raise an eyebrow, he shakes his head. He has not seen Revikh either.

I turn my head to the left as I begin my morning stretch, and my eyes rest on Drakha’s sleeping form. She is a dragon priest, and I respect her. A half elf, her skin and hair are gold. She wears the hide of a dragon as her breastplate, but it is not silver, so I am pleased by this.

I look to the right, letting sleep fall away from those muscles in turn. I look at Ivy, bundled up like a child. She is a child. Only 16, and only a few inches over 5 feet. She is a warlock, and will have great power…but she needs wisdom; she is so young. I do not know if I like her. She is feisty, but thinks of Ivy first. But then, we have not traveled together long. These two are not bothersome to me for their magic, ours is a tribe that has known magic long.

It is the riddle that binds us, and it is the riddle that brought us together. We were in Fairhaven only days ago. Seeking, each of us, though seeking different things. Ivy her parents, me a riddle…but all of us have something of crystal upon us.

Then the sky crashed down. A great stone fell from the air, smashing the palace into so much dust. The ground shook, and even my strength could not hold against the heaving. I fell, but was not hurt. To the palace I ran, though I could not tell you why. I simply felt the need, much like when the rage takes me.

I wonder if I should have resisted, as I found myself facing death, five times over. Dragons, black and red and blue, surrounded me and others. There was a great, dark winged man. Another man appeared in magic, and bid us defend ourselves. The dragon attacked, and this magic man fought with us…the dark man disappeared.

It was a difficult fight at best. I saw Drakha spit fire, and felt her magical energy softening the blows I received. I saw Ivy shoot lines of dark magic at the dragons. I saw Relowen shoot arrows into the dragons. But mostly, I saw the maw of the black dragon attempting to devour me.

I raged, and the Beast came to my call. I struck with my morningstar, carved from a tusk. It is also magicked with flame. It is my mightiest weapon, and against the face of the dragon I did strike, with all my strength. I endured its claws, I felt its acid breath take flesh from my arm. Drakha, though I did not yet know her name, healed me, her magics making my arm new. Still, I fought not just a dragon, but the pain of the wounds it gave me. I made it feel my pain, too.

When the dragon was dead, I ripped a tooth from its head for my necklace. I will carry its strength and cunning with me, a foe I have felled. I yelled out to my ancestors, screaming my victory and letting my rage go.

Revikh, the man of magic, bid us to follow. We talked but little, and followed him away from the city into the wilds. That was days ago.

Last night, we were attacked by trolls. We beat the trolls down, burning them with our fire to stop them from regrowing parts. They wore crystal collars, and so they are a new part of the riddle. Something sent them after us.

Revikh was nowhere to be found. The coward left us. I will have words with him, and those words will be short. My fists may speak, or perhaps the Beast.

But for now, that must be put aside. It is time to eat, and to move on.

Picture created by Heromachine

Lum, prologue

I stride to the top of the hill. It is a big hill, high in the daylight. It looks over the tree tops, and I stand at the crest to look over them too. I see for leagues. An ocean of green, like my eyes are green. Not my grey ocean at all.

I miss my ocean, the salt air. The birds of the north. The hunting and fishing I also miss. I think on my brothers, even now at war with the Bringers of Fire. We are Warders of Silver, and we have no love for their evil ways.

A bird flies from a maple before me, and I watch it rise. It leaves its roost, just as I left mine. I left my love, who I will marry at Wintersun. She will bear fine sons for the Tribe.

I am not smart, but I like to watch and to think. I am strong of arm and heart. To me, the heavy morningstar, carved from a tusk, on my hip is no harder to lift and swing than a twig is to a child. I once upended a horse to strike its rider. The horse lived. The rider did not.

The wind moves my kilt, and my dark hair. I lift a mug of ale to my lips, and drink deep. It is my favorite mug, reinforced with iron bands for smashing goblin faces. Sometimes I use it, sometimes the tusk morningstar. The ivory is magicked with fire. Sometimes in battle, I use the great axe on my pack. I know each of these weapons, they are long companions. I carry a small battering ram strapped to my pack, too. It is no burden. I have sieged before, it is strong like me. It breaks doors, I break faces.

I let my hand touch the skinning knife on my belt. It is crystal. It has always been with me. It always returns to me. It is a riddle, and I hate riddles. But it is my riddle, the one the Dragonspeaker gave me.

“Go forth in the world” he said. “Go and share your gift with those not of the Tribes. It is with them your riddle will know an answer. The riddle of crystal is yours to solve, Lum.” And so I go.

The Dragonspeaker has spoken, and the voice of the dragons is his. We hold the dragons on high, for we are their divine children. We of the Warders of Silver are blessed with the Touch of Silver. They call us “Shifters”. I walk closely with the Beast, and you can see the Beast without when I call it. That is when my foes tremble. That is when I send them to their ancestors.

They call me a Barbarian, a Berserker. They are right. I can call the rage, and fight on through what would kill others. I fight with my ancestors’ strength when I rage.

I watch over the ocean of green as the bird returns. It is a blackbird, and it sings a song of spring. I take another pull of my ale, and feel its coolness dive to my belly. It is time to stretch, and I place my giant mug on the ground.

I stretch, axe in hand. I work, practicing strikes and parries. Swing for the head. Block. Chop the kneecap. Parry. Step right, slice with a backhand. Kick and step through.

I work until the muscles are loose, until the sweat beads on my body. I think on my path to this place. I may not be smart, but I can think about my path, and learn from my steps. That is how we become wise, the Dragonspeaker tells me. I need not be quick of thought, if I am willing to think long on a puzzle. I am Lumfarangdelarukh, of the Warders of Silver. I am called Lum by those who would speak of me.

Such is Lum's voice. Simple, but not boring. He can use some big words, he just takes his time getting to them.

Just plugging along...

Well, I had a blast expanding the log entry into some real fiction. It's early yet for Zarkov, so he doesn't really have a voice at this point. As the game progressed, he started to really flesh out and develop. I hope that will come across in future stories.

The Ian story is kind of on hold right now, as one of the characters may be getting a retcon in the game, and I'll change the fiction to suit it. If it takes too long, I'll repost part one before continuing.

The next series I'll put up are the stories of Lumfarangdelarukh, but everybody calls him Lum. He's a barbarian I've been playing in a D&D 3.5 game, and he's dumb as a brick, but built like a brick shithouse. Not the most original character concept, admittedly...but 180 degrees from what I normally play. Maybe even 270. So, he's a ton of fun.

Last time I played him, we got attacked by a plant creature called "the root of all evil". I started planning tactics, relaying them to the DM, and one of the other players said "Hey, Dangerboy...aren't you raging (berserk) right now?" "Oh, yeah", I said, "I charge in blindly and hit it with my axe." I knew it was going to hurt, but it was fun anyway. Incidentally, that plant swallowed Lum whole, and I got to miss most of the fight. The laughs, however, were well worth it.

In case you haven't noticed, I adore cooperative storytelling and role playing. There are a lot of gamer stories out there...but few tell the tale of how they passed Go and collected 200 dollars. Just sayin'. It's always about the fun you have, not the things you do.

Zarkov Barbossa, Chap 3

And now, the conclusion of Zarkov's first adventure with the Inquisitorial Cadre. Do please let me know what you think in the comments.
To catch up: Part 1
Part 2

And now, Chapter 3...

We moved deeper into the Shatters, our nerves tight and trigger fingers ready. The scent of blood heralded something ahead, and we slowed our pace accordingly. Turning a corner in the passageway, we came to a crossroads of sorts, and a scene of devastating carnage.

Bodies of troops lay all about, shredded by bullets. We noticed quite quickly that almost all of the entry wounds were in their back, and a bit more looking about revealed a heavy stubber set up to fire down the hall. The operator had taken his own life with a sidearm, likely after filling his comrades full of bullets. I noticed an empty holster on the gunner’s chest, and held the revolver in my hand. The leather of the holster read “Give ‘Em Hell”, just like the inscription on the GM-6.

“Looks bad gang”, I said.

“How does anyone turn from the Emperor like this?” Venus asked, a look of pure disbelief on her face.

“Same way they end up with 8 eyes”, Barick said. “Something vile is in this hole with us.”

We made ready to continue down the left hand path, and I realized I was going to have to lie to Sergeant Raynard when I returned topside. I’d just tell him his friend died doing the Emperor’s work. It was a lie, and a damned lie at that, but it would ease his heart a bit.

I nodded to Barick, and we settled back into a marching order. We had not progressed far when the tunnel we were in opened up suddenly into a chamber, a dead end as best we could see. Evidently the miners had found some sort of ore or another here, and expanded their dig. Just as we crossed into the room, I heard a shot and reacted quickly, slamming into the wall on my right.

“Right side, right side!” I shouted, and watched as most of the team followed suit. Ignace, however, huddled to the left side wall, becoming a target. I leaned out from the wall, getting a quick look into the small chamber. I could see four hostiles, and in that quick glimpse they looked like mutants as well. Solid rounds impacted the stone around me, and I retreated against the wall again.

I looked at Ignace on the wrong side of the tunnel, and asked “You didn’t grab any flash-bangs, did you?”

“Negative”, he responded, as he fired his lascarbine at one of the mutants.

“Well, shit”, I said, with feeling. The twists had a good field of fire, and I didn’t want to put myself or my team into that field. “Next time we have our pick of supplies from a Munitorum clerk, grab flash-bangs. Never know when you’ll need ‘em.”

Venus spoke suddenly, asking by vox in my microbead what a flash-bang did. I told her, between dodging shots and firing my shotgun into the chamber.

“You might want to hold your ears and close your eyes then”, she said. I braced just in time, it seemed, as suddenly she was bright enough to cast brilliant light into the chamber, along with a thunderous boom. The mutants all brought hands to eyes, temporarily blinded, and we moved forward and started taking shots at them.

It was difficult to target them, though, as I was distracted by Venus. After going bright, she began to hover off the ground, discharges of purple arcs of power rising from her skin to strike the tunnel ceiling. I tried to remember fire discipline, and emptied out the shotgun in short order. Only two of the mutants were down at that point, so I pulled out the revolver and took careful aim, just like taking shots on the practice range.

I heard a metallic ping! and watched as Ignace was knocked back a step, but he seemed to shrug off the hit. Still, the cold grip of worry wrapped itself around my heart. He put the lascarbine to work, and didn’t seem to be hurt, so after a quick glance around to check the rest of the team, I settled back into a kneeling shooter’s stance.

As bullets and las-bolts continued to fly, I settled the front sight over one of the twists and slowly squeezed the trigger on the big revolver. It fired with a throaty roar, and my target went down like a joygirl in a whorehab. Good handgun for hunting therapods, I thought.

I felt an impact on my chest, like taking a punch from an Ogryn, and I didn’t see who dropped the last twist. I was busy picking myself up from the ground and making sure I hadn’t grown any extra holes. Luckily, my flak armour held, and I was likely just dealing with cracked or bruised ribs. That I could handle.

We took stock quickly, clearing the chamber, and I turned to Venus. “You OK?”

“Yes, I think. Just a bit shaken. The warp is not stable here”, she said.

“So the lightning…”

“Not intentional” she interrupted.

“Nice work on the flash though. Glad to know you can do that”, I said.

She smiled at the praise, and I turned my attention to the cogboy. “Any new holes?” I asked, eyeing the ragged tear in his red robes where the bullet had struck him.

“I am well within tolerance, thank you Zarkov”, he replied. I couldn’t tell if he was pulling my leg or being dead serious, so I decided to take him at his word. We formed up again, me on point, Barick on tail, and kept working our way through this little section of a very big mine.

We spent another two hours clearing tunnel by tunnel, chamber by chamber, with no further contact or incident. It was tense work, though, and the muscles across my back were tight with the strain.

I was starting to get hungry, and gave thought to calling a pause to hit the ration bars we were carrying, but I noticed that the light looked different here. The more I strained my eyes, the more I realized the light was taking on a pink tint. We walked a bit further, weapons ready, and we all looked at each other in turn, realizing the pink glow was coming from a chamber ahead of us, just around another bend in the constantly meandering tunnel.

You might think a pink glow doesn’t sound all that bad. Believe me, you wouldn’t have wanted to be standing with us, seeing the way it cast the stones in a sinister light. My stomach started to tie itself in knots, and I took a deep breath.

Venus spoke. “There is unrest here, something stirs the warp.” If she could feel a bad influence in the immateria, the stuff between the worlds, then this was bad news indeed. I had the feeling we were about to find out what happened to the guardsmen, and I prayed to the Emperor that he would watch us for a few minutes from his Throne. We all made the sign of the aquila, then made ready to enter the chamber.

We came around the corner to observe a brightly lit chamber, suffused with that pink glow. The source of the glow was evident: a large crystal, perhaps 4 meters in height and one in diameter stood like a monolith in the center of the chamber. As we looked upon it, the light within it began to pulse slowly.

Venus shouted to us to stand ready, sensing something happening in the immaterium, and I readied my shotgun. Suddenly, I felt as if I’d been thrown out of a dropship, as the light went from pink to green in a nauseating flash. A rush of foul air moved past us as a true monster appeared near the plinth of crystal.

It stood two and a half meters, sickly green with flesh hanging from it in strips. A cloud of flies buzzed around it as it gazed hatefully at us through one large cyclopean eye, set dead center in its face below a single decaying horn. The mere sight of it made me want to vomit, but I choked down that response and raised the combat shotgun to my shoulder.

Sila and Ignace couldn’t handle the sight of the thing, and I heard their footsteps receding down the hallway. Barick started firing at it, and Venus assaulted it in her own way, using her psyker abilities against it. I pumped rounds into it as fast as I could cycle ammo. The thing seemed wobbly, and I began to recite ablutions at it as I’d once heard a priest in our merc company do. I wasn’t sure if I got the words right, but it seemed to make my gut settle down, so I kept it up.

It charged us, and we scattered to force it to select only one of us to engage. It chose me, and raised a sword that was rusted and dripping with mucus. I used the shotgun to try to keep it at bay, firing whenever I had a clear shot. It hit me a few times in the ribs, but my armour managed to hold up against its weapon, and I moved with each hit to absorb as much shock as I could. It stank like a rotten grox tossed into a latrine pit, and I had to fight to keep from gagging, even as I tried to keep my face from being chopped in two.

Venus did something to it with her mind, and it dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. It then blinked out of existence with a grotesque wet ripping sound. Having an Emperor-sanctioned psyker around has its advantages.

“We are returning to you”, I heard the cogboy’s voice over the vox. The crystal began to flash, and I’d swear it was angry, if such a thing could be. Barick pumped a few shots into it, but they just chipped tiny slivers off of it. It flashed faster, and I didn’t want to know what else it could pop into the room.

“Run!” I yelled. “Everybody out! NOW!” Venus complied immediately, but Barick looked as if he would stay. I showed him the three grenades I’d just pulled off my belt, and he smiled broadly. Then he sprinted down the tunnel. I ran to the plinth, pulling pins and dropping the grenades at its base.

Then I sprinted, adrenaline and a bit of fear pumping my legs like an athlete. I was counting down from five in my head, and averaging plenty of footfalls between each digit.

Safely down the tunnel, we all heard the meaty “crump” of detonation, and I rested against the wall, my chest heaving with exertion. Sweat, and maybe a bit of blood, dripped down my body.

“The light…it’s normal again”, Sila said.

“The Emperor Protects”, Venus replied, making the sign of the aquila again.

“Stay here, team”, I said. I walked slowly, reloading the combat shotgun as I went. I peered around the corner to see the crystal laying in countless pieces, a glittering gravel pile instead of a sinister obelisk. I let out my breath in a deep sigh, only then realizing I’d been holding it.

I returned to the other acolytes. “Mission accomplished, I think.”

“You know that was a fraking daemon, right?” Barick asked.

“And yet we are still well within tolerance” Ignace replied. I laughed, deep and long, and the others joined in. “Was that humorous?” the techpriest asked without tone, and it threw us into a true laughing fit, my already bruised sides truly hurting.

After a break to eat some ration bars and rest briefly, we made our way out of the Shatters, and back toward the great seal. I tapped the appropriate code out at the door, and we heard the gears start to turn in response.

The commissar stood in the doorway, awaiting our return. He stepped in to meet us, one hand on his bolt pistol.

“The mine is clear”, Ignace told him. A sharp sound whipped our heads around in unison, though, and we were shocked to see the miner that Barick had sent out standing there before us. He’d changed since we saw him, and now had 6 eyes in his enlarged head. The stone had changed him, just as it had changed the others; it had just taken longer to do so. The commissar’s bolt pistol barked once, and the poor miner’s head exploded in a cloud of blood and smoke.

“Correction”, Ignace said, “The mine is now clear.” Barick looked at me sheepishly, and we left the Shatters behind us.

“Shattered Hope”, someone had scratched into that door. Truly, it had lived up to its name, destroying dozens of lives. The miners had discovered something better left unfound, had been tainted, had rebelled and died. The very guardsmen who had attempted to reclaim the place for the Imperium had succumbed, perhaps having lingered too long beside that massive gem of evil.

We’d been lucky, scoring one in the win column our first time out, and managing to do so with only a few scrapes and deep bruises. It was time to record an after action report for Inquisitor Jonas, and I looked to the commissar.

“Tell me commissar”, I began, “do you have any amasec?”

Zarkov Barbossa, Chap 2

The Gorgonid mine lives up to its name. The entrance is beyond massive; you could probably walk a Warhound into it. Monstrous floodlights provide illumination, but there are several places where the mine recedes into darkness that your eye just can’t pierce.

We walked for perhaps an hour before we reached the door they’d erected to seal off the Shatters. It was a massive structure, with mighty gears the size of a Leman Russ. It took a full ten minutes for the techpriests to wind it open, and Ignace stared in awe the entire time. The gleam in his eye spoke of reverence. Finally, the entryway to the Shatters stood open.

“We’ll keep a team here”, the commissar said, “in case you return. Code is 473. The Emperor Protects.”

I turned to the team. “Barick, will you take tail?” He nodded affirmative. “I’ll take point, I’ve got the armor for it.” I pulled the shotgun off my back, setting the selector for semi-auto fire. I was pretty sure I’d need it for close-quarters scrapping. I hate it when I’m right.

“Let’s do this”, Barick said. We walked forward, the great gears of the seal already turning to close off the Shatters. Minutes later, as we walked, we heard the massive door close with a great, throaty boom. We all stopped, nearly in unison.

“That’s not ominous at all”, Sila drawled with obvious sarcasm. A few smiles and chuckles met her statement, and I nodded to her in approval.

We moved on, hiking for quite a while. At points, the tunnels grew close, and we noticed what seemed to be scorchmarks on the walls. I’m no miner, but I didn’t think some of those marks were from ore extraction. Ignace stopped momentarily to touch the blackened stone, muttering under his breath about carbon scoring and mineral composition. I may never understand the way the cogboy thinks, but he makes a hell of an asset.

A full two hours into our journey, we finally came to a narrowing in the passage, blocked by a two meter wide door. It was red in color, a barrier of steel and iron standing sentinel to Emperor only knew what. The inscription at the top of the portal read XII, but a more informal name had been burned into the door by some woebegone worker with a cutting torch: “Shattered Hope”. A wheel was set in the center of the door, much like a bulkhead door on a ship.

I motioned Barick to me as Ignace grasped the wheel. The techpriest turned it quickly, swinging it outward, and Barick and I advanced through the opening, shotguns at the ready. It took us only seconds to sweep the corridor, and we saw no targets. “Clear”, we both said in unison.

We stood, and the rest of the team joined us. The inside of the door was marred by claw marks, and the walls and floor were browned by a liberal dousing of dried blood. How it got there, we could only imagine, and I noticed Venus make the sign of the aquila over her chest. The stone here was ragged, sloppy in comparison to the rest of the mine; the lighting seemed to have a ruddy quality to it, as if the very stones should weep blood for the fallen. I shook the thought away, pointing out the branches ahead to the team with my left hand.

Sila pointed to the right hand passage, and we silently agreed to take that pathway first. I rounded the corner with Ignace at my elbow, a las-carbine ready in his hands. My breath caught in my throat as motion drew my eye, the shotgun swiveling, ready to fire. I emptied my lungs in a long silent sigh as I realized I was only targeting a centipede, bright orange and as long as my forearm, but pretty well harmless.

I forced myself to relax, trying to stay loose. We continued our advance, entering a ragged chamber with a shallow pit to one side. We spread out, looking for anything to give us a clue what had happened here. What we found, though, was enough to put a sumphole-cleaner off his lunch.

Sila made a little noise, as if she’d started to scream but held it in check. We all followed her gaze at the pit, and six faces looked coldly, back at us. Six heads, with no bodies or belongings to be found, had been arranged in a semi circle in that pit. All of us made some variant of the aquila, most of us just the half-wing thumb in palm you can do with one hand.

As we were looking, I heard a ragged, wet slosh of a breath behind me. It was nothing anyone on the team had done since I’d met them, and I brought the shotgun up to my shoulder as I pivoted off my back foot. Venus was behind me, and I noted her startled expression as the shotgun’s maw stared into her eyes, but I also noted a disfigured monster behind her and without hesitation, I yelled “Drop!”

Venus complied without thinking, dropping to her left side, heedless of the effect of landing on the hard rock. As soon as I registered her motion, my finger convulsed on the shotgun’s trigger, and I made a mess of the thing’s chest. As it reeled backward, more shots poured into it from my companions, and I didn’t even need to put a second round into it. I offered up a silent thanks to the Emperor, our first contact had gone as well as I could have hoped, everyone meshing like one of Ignace’s machines.

I offered Venus a hand up as I looked down upon the fresh corpse. It was one of the most disgusting things I’d ever seen, and I’ve fought Orks before. A mutant, dressed in the tattered remains of a guard uniform, its face looked like wax brought too close to a kiln. It also had a few extra eyeballs, now dimmed in death.

“What in the name of the Emperor is that?” Sila exclaimed. Her normally pretty face was scrunched into a mask of pure disgust.

“Judging by the clothing and dog tags, I would venture that it is, or rather was, one of the Guardsmen lost here”, Ignace answered.

Barick chimed in, “Wait…how does a guardsman end up looking like...like…that?” Eyes wide, he pointed to the mutant’s face as he stuttered, clearly disturbed as we all were.

“Well, that sounds like a mission objective to me”, I said. Barick looked at me accusingly, and I winked at him with a good humor I didn’t particularly feel. “Let’s keep doing this.”

We moved out again into the main tunnel, relieved to see no movement after the commotion we’d caused putting the big mutant down. Ignace pointed to a door on the left side of the passage, and we moved toward it. I reached a hand out to the wheel and gave it a spin, then a short kick to open it. The door was not impressed, and shrugged off my kick, remaining closed. It wasn’t so much my pride that was hurt as my foot, and Barick moved up to assist as we bounced off the door a few times with our shoulders.

Eventually, the door gave way, and we brought our guns up in unison as our eyes took in the room. It seemed to be a shelter room, a place for miners to retreat to in case of cave-in. Huddled against the far wall, a dirty man whose clothes had been reduced to rags shivered. He was a bit emaciated, and I wondered how long he’d been holed up in here.

“Don’t kill me!” he screamed. He held his hands in front of him defensively, as if to ward off bullets.

I glanced at Venus, and she shook her head slightly, indicating that she detected no warp activity. Barick moved forward, asking the poor man what had happened.

He had little to say, the poor bastard, pretty much answering any question with “I hid here. Guns!”, or some variation of that. I pantomimed a head shot to Barick, but he shook his head firmly.

“I’m going to take him out of here,” Barick said. We waited silently in the little room while Barick carried the small man bodily to the doorway, instructing him to meet us at the Seal. I had a bad feeling about it, but let it go. I am much more likely than Barick to solve a problem with bullets, but still, I worried that the miner should be given the Emperor’s Mercy.

Barick returned to us quickly, and we prepared to get back to business. Nothing could prepare us for the carnage we were about to find.

Zarkov Barbossa, Chap 1

And so the more fleshed out tale of Zarkov Barbossa and the other Acolytes of Inquisitor Jonas begins. 6 paragraphs of journal gets detail, character introductions, dialogue, and swells into a full chapter. Enjoy!

We hadn’t finished our training yet, so I felt a bit nervous reading the mission brief. We’d just received a flash-dispatch from Inquisitor Jonas, and as we were his closest assets to Sepheris Secundus, we’d been given the nod to run our first investigation for him as a lead team, to be later relieved by some of his more veteran agents.

I sat at a long table, a steaming mug of recaf in one hand, as I listened to Sila read the particulars. Tall, tan, and blonde, and with a voice like smooth amasec, Sila just happened to be smart as a whip. A bit odd for all that, she was recruited from the Adminstratum, and was able to sweet talk datalooms into giving up their secrets. She still wore the green robes of her former office, and in fact all of us were still using our own personal gear.

“Once we’ve reached Sepheris Secundus, we’ll be making planetfall close to the Gorgonid Mine. An Imperial Guard unit has run a cleansing operation there to deal with a cultist menace. They encountered success until reaching an area the locals refer to as the Shatters, and they have sealed that area off completely and requested Inquisitorial intercession.”

Sila continued to detail the particulars of the mine, but my mind wandered a bit as it usually does during the boring part of mission briefs. I looked across the table at Venus, our psyker. I’d never worked with a psyker before, and I found myself wondering what she could do. Her dark hair framed a pretty face, and her fingers fidgeted constantly with a pendant around her neck. Her head snapped up and her eyes met mine, and I quickly looked away.

“What can we expect for support?” Barick asked in his baritone. A member of the Adeptus Arbites, he represented the law enforcement aspect of our cell. When he wasn’t wearing the Arbites armor, one could best describe Barick as “average.” Average height, average build, average looks, dark hair, mid 30’s: he wasn’t the sort to stand out in a crowd.

“We’ll be on our own”, Sila replied. “Our task is to discover the truth of the Shatters, so that others may cleanse it properly.”

Ignace was next to respond, in his near-monotone. “The Omnissiah shall watch over us. Our mandate is clear.” Like most tech-priests, he was truly something to look at. The lower half of his face was obscured by augmetics for comms and a respirator, and there were always clicks and whirs issuing from under his red robes. As near as I could tell, he was young, but truly I was only judging by the lack of gadgets attached to his person. He could have had any number of juvenat or other treatments in his temple before joining our little band.

Sila raised one eyebrow in response. She didn’t like to be interrupted. “It will be 18 hours until we arrive, and there’s a lighter waiting for us in bay 2”, she said.

“Alright, then”, I said, standing. “Let’s get gear ready and meet in the shuttle bay in 15 hours. I suggest getting some rack time if you need it.” I winced inwardly, reminding myself that in this band, we were equals. My habits as a merc sergeant were proving hard to break.

“Quite right, Zarkov” Sila responded. She left the room without further comment, and I followed suit.

The lighter was a small and nimble shuttle, built more for comfort than any dropship I’d ridden in my mercenary days. It felt a little decadent to ride dirtside in an acceleration couch rather than cargo netting seats. The entry into the atmosphere of Sepheris Secundus was almost leisurely; I’d grown accustomed to stomach lurching approaches to avoid enemy fire. I looked out the viewport next to my seat, watching the planet lose its curvature as we descended.

The surface of Sepheris Secundus was marred by great scars where man had mined it for its resources. Those scars had grown over millennia, and would surely continue to do so until the globe could offer no more value.

The descent continued, eventually becoming a final approach, and we passed a true wonder. I’ve been to many worlds, and each has its own feature or creation or three that boggles the mind. On this world, near the Gorgonid mine, is the Glass City. It hangs from beneath a mind-boggling mass of mountain, a carved bridge of land of gargantuan size. Thousands of souls live there, administering the various mining operations of the world. The entire city is built from a sturdy silicate material, giving the place the look of a glass sculpture writ large. I took a moment for myself to soak in the sight before returning my thoughts to the mission at hand.

The lighter settled to the ground without even a bump, and I grabbed my gear and started to kit up. My combat rig isn’t the best for sitting comfortably, and I’d left the top half of my flak armor in my kit bag. In seconds I was dressed, checking the magnetic strips on the back that married to my weapons. On the left side of my back, I put my lasgun in place; on the right, my combat shotgun. They mag-clamped into place, tucked where a twist could draw either at a moment’s notice. For years, they’d been constant companions, and had seen me through more than a few tight spaces, especially the flak armor.

The boarding ramp opened, and we disembarked, gathering in a small semi circle at the bottom of the ramp. We were at the edge of a small encampment, a bivouac leeched to the buildings and equipment of a normal mining installation. A young troop came running up to us, his uniform slightly large on his thin frame.

“You must be the Inquisitor!” he said, looking right at Venus. “Come with me please, I’ll take you to the Sarge! Er…I mean, to Sergeant Raynard!” He danced from foot to foot with nervousness, and I decided to try to relax him a bit.

“Lead on, son. We’ll follow.” He settled a bit and turned around, and I shared a smile with Venus as he did, and gestured to her in an after you flourish.

As we walked through the bivouac, I realized they’d been hurt pretty bad. There was a lot of shiny new kit here, and shiny new faces lugging it around. Fresh troops, rotated in to cover losses.

As we walked by the medicae tent, a high pitched laugh poured out from it. It was disturbing, to say the least, tinged with lunacy. I’d seen combat fatigue before, but something had broken at least one trooper’s mind here. I made the sign of the aquila across my chest, hoping we were not about to face the Archenemy; we didn’t have near enough firepower for a Chaos incursion.

We came upon Sergeant Raynard in short order, bawling at his troops to get their asses in gear on some task or another. I smiled involuntarily, a warm nostalgia washing over me. I can’t recall how many times I’ve given much the same speech. Barick coughed to get his attention, and he turned to us.

“Oh, hey, you lot must be here for the Shatters. Which one of you is the Inquisitor? Wait…ah. I see.” He surely realized none of us were full on Throne agents. “Well, the commissar is waiting for you, anyway. Or did you want to get kitted out?”

Ignace spoke, again in his near monotone. “It would behoove us to arm ourselves before we begin. We should see your Munitorum supply agency.”

“Get me some frag grenades, Ignace” I said. “I’m going to talk to the Sarge here and get a sitrep.”

“I’ll take the opportunity to research the history of this mine, as well”, Sila added.

The rest of the team went along with the techpriest, led there by the wet-behind-the-ears trooper who had met us. I looked at the sergeant, noticing the weariness around his eyes, the slight bend to his shoulders.

“You’re not just hired muscle”, Sergeant Raynard said.

“Nope. Served as a merc. Fought some rebels, fought some orks.” I replied.

“It’s real shit in there, man. We don’t know what the frak hit us. Just black as a banker’s heart in there, and twice as ugly.”

His eyes grew distant, his shoulders slumped more. He seemed to fold in on himself, and I knew he was about to open up in a way fighting men don’t often like to.

“Look, we lost some good ones down there. One of my friends, been with me for ages man. Didn’t come out. You…” His voice trailed off, but I saw the question in his eyes.

“We’ll look for him, Sergeant. And I’ll give the Emperor’s own wrath to whatever hurt your boys”, I said.

He walked a few steps to a duffel and reached into it. He sank one arm up to the shoulder into it, grasping around like a child for a teat.

“If you do, use this”, he said, bringing a massive revolver out of the duffel. It was a massive GM-6, a heavy slug shooter that could probably stop a charging grox with one shot. He held it out to me with both hands, almost reverently. I took it from him, realizing it might have belonged to his lost friend. An inscription on the barrel read “Give ‘em Hell.” I turned it over in my hand, then tucked it into the back of my belt.

“Sarge”, I said, “I’ll pull the trigger myself.” We both knew it was only wishful thinking, but we also both knew it was a soldierly ritual millennia in the making. He wouldn’t be going back into that mine, but I would soon. So it was my job, for now, to take revenge for those he couldn’t keep breathing; to make their deaths meaningful in the eyes of Him on Earth. Being in command of a squad of men isn’t just about giving orders, it’s about keeping them alive enough to accomplish the mission, to only spend lives when there is no other way. Any line officer who forgets that usually ends up with his holes in the back, rather than the side facing the foe.

I saluted him, out of respect, and gave him a nod. I walked off then to rejoin the team, outside the Munitorum tent. Sila filled us in on the history of the mine, but honestly my mind was drifting as I watched the hustle around me. Something she said brought my mind crashing back to the here and now, though.

“Say that again, Sila?”

“Well if you’d listen”, she huffed, “I said that this mine once had a Chaos cult cleansed from it, and these men are concerned that this is a recursion of that same taint.”

Well, there was nothing any of us had to say to that, but plenty for us to think about. We moved on to the “Pre Fab Hab” the unit’s Commissar was using for quarters and office, our steps just a bit heavier, I think. On the way, the techpriest handed me three frag grenades and a microbead vox that he’d obtained from the quartermaster. I nodded my thanks to him, hooking the grenades onto a strap of my flak armor.

The Commissar was a stout man, built like a fireplug. His hair and eyes were both black as deep space; his face was a craggy cliff carved from equal parts dour and scowl. The trademark cap was hung on a hook behind him, as was his stormcoat. He looked up at our entrance, and a dark cloud seemed to pass across his face.

“Well. You must be what the vaunted Inquisition has sent to bail our arse out of the warp, eh? We’re frakked.”

He stood then, a hand stroking the butt of his bolt pistol in a gesture born of long habit.

“Four squads worth of troops we lose, and they send us pups?” His eyes bounced then to Barick and I, and he nodded then. “Well, who am I to question? If you’re ready, I’ll take you to the seal.”

There wasn’t much for us to say to that, so Ignace spoke for us. “That would seem the prudent course, Commissar.” With that, we headed off to enter the mine. I wondered for a moment if we would become a team in the trial surely to come, or if we’d end up as tally marks on some Munitorum sheet for casualties, or worse, come to rest in the medicae tent, laughing maniacally for our days and nights to come. I took a deep breath, made the sign of the aquila, and walked into the maw of the Gorgonid.