Apprehensive Inquisitorial Apprentice
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FOREWORD: This may be found as incoherent and the segments or "chapters" may not be especially connected. This is because I write this for my P&M blog and just make it up as I go along.
This thread is meant to be a place where those who enjoy my writing style can find all that I write in one long post. All new material will be added into the original post accompanied by another post to inform about the update. As the content starts to build up, I will also add navigation and maybe a short summary so that all who enter here may quickly find what they want or enjoy.
Please comment and critique!
STORY OF MY FRIEND'S FIRST MINI
Stay awhile and listen...
The other day I was sitting at the painting table in my FLGS , painting away at countless purity seals and everything in colors I dont own (cheap bugger that I am). Suddenly, a friend of mine appears beside me! Flabbergasted, I handed over my minis to the staff for safekeeping while he and I went out for a fabulous lunch at a nearby Burger King.
I asked him: "What business bringst thou hereabout?" A valid question, in the circumstance.
He looked at me with a perplexed face, swallowed his current mouthful and declared with a voice like an angels' choir: "Why, my old friend, 'twas thine status written in the Book of Faces, I deciphered thine words and made haste to take use of thine offer of a free lunch."
And then all was clear, it came back to me; I had made a facebook status about the fact that I would spend the day in the city. I even offered to pay for lunch because I have a job whilst many of my friends dont...
Back at the store, we sat down and spoke of many things, I painting while he observed. A man of musical talent and great creativity, Big Dick, as he was affectionately called by his friends, knew to appreciate sleight of hand and sense of aesthetics and was in good humor among the warhammering crowd even as he did not paint himself.
It was then that a indigenous Redshirt descended upon him, their vision based on movement and interest, or rather lack-there-of, and offered him a free introduction to warhammer painting, including even the possibility of keeping the model he painted.
Ever one to accept a challenge, Big Dick chose from the very limited selection of AoBR-marines and set out to show his colorful worth. He decided he would give his stout marine a space wolf paintjob as he had been quite taken with the idea of vikings IN SPACEEEEEEE!
Our story ends as he completes this work of art in fifteen minutes and hands it to me to do some highlights because as he puts it: "Screw this, I have to use that small brush? that! Lets see what you can do with him then, Picasso."
And that is how my acolyte squad ended up with it's eleventh member. !All dialogues are paraphrased and may not have occured!
ARMY FLUFF
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Chapter 5
What were they doing here? It seemed as though the very city itself resisted their presence, not just the citizens but also the ground and even the air felt wrong.
They had made camp a few leagues outside the city's borders, these had been the Inquisitor Lord's orders and it wasn't as though Acolyte Tiberius could have any objections even if he wanted. He had heard stories. Not officially of course, but some of the lads that had been in the retinue longer would sometimes tell anecdotes, and not the funny ones like the ones about his former employer's amazing tactical genius and the ironically entertaining ways he had used it. No, these were stories that had to be spoken in hushed voices in the hours of darkness in fear that you may get less than comfortable insight into the more unpleasant details, should anyone hear you.
His new boss was a maniac, that was for certain. But there are many kinds of maniac, he told himself reassuringly, and some of them are better to have behind you rather than in front of you and by all accounts, Inquisitor Lord Fyodor Karamazov was one of these people. Or so he told himself, atleast.
*Smack!*
Warrior Acolyte Tiberius came to his senses just in time to cover his face before he hit the ground.
"What in the eye of terror did you do that for?!" he protested as he got himself to his knees. He got up and turned around just in time for another armoured fist to connect with his helmet, this time he managed to stay upright.
"The first one was for daydreaming, the other one for cursing. Be glad, I could do you in for heresy for that `eye of terror´ remark." a metallic voice said above him.
Tiberius' eyes instinctively homed in on the source of the voice but all he could see was a massive silver tower right next to him, obscuring the sunlight. When his eyes had adjusted, he could just about make out a vaguely helmet-shaped outcrop on the hulking figure.
Oh, one of them, he thought as he quickly backed away, head bowed in frightened reverence.
"Round up your comrades, we are moving out." said the Grey Knight. He was wearing ornate terminator armour, almost white in the heavy sunlight.
"Y..yes, yes of course my lord."
Tiberius scrambled away on unsteady feet.
Inquisitor Lord Fyodor Karamazov opened his eyes as a servitor entered the tent. He always slept sitting, in his armour and his ancient power sword in his lap. History had proven this necessary. Anyway, a new day, and lots of things that had to be done. With extreme prejudice. Oh, and fire, of course.
And don't forget the sharp objects.
This had all the workings of a wonderful day in the service of the Imperium.
"FIRE UP THE THRONE! WE HAVE WORK TO DO, THE ENEMIES OF THE EMPEROR SHALL RUE THIS DAY!"
To be continued...
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Chapter 6
"Blinding" was not in any way sufficient to describe the pain, it was like every bone in his body was trying to turn into molten lava inside of him. Apparently, he observed skeptically, with some success. The wound on his shoulder had only gotten worse these last few days since the battle. He would agree, though, that it had been a good one. Casualties had been had but fortunately most of them had been on the other side. A very good battle in fact, Tiberius had a medal to prove it and now he was lying on a stretcher among the corpses of his more mortally challenged colleagues. That was not where they used to keep the wounded in his old employment, but much was different with these inquisitorial people and he was new, so he was not going to complain.
"So where'd they get you? My shoulder hurts like an ork with a sledgehammer."
He turned his head to the stretcher on his left, hoping to get a bit of clarity in what was a slightly fuzzy memory only to be met by the blank stare of someone who is, well, less than alive. He turned his head to his right, a ball of worry forming in his stomach.
"What. In. The. Emperors. Name." This was bad.
The sun rose over the battlefield and the victims of the battle. The Throne of Judgement trudged onward on heavy metal feet, spewing thick smoke from its exhausts and torches. White marble glinted in the sunlight, outlining the dark gold armour of an old man with a white beard and a large sword resting in his lap. Beside him, in utter silence, a scribe was diligently working away on a crackling scroll. On the other side of the old man was a large multi-melta directed by a mindless drone, more machine than human, devoid of free will, its' humanity long since gone in the service of the inquisition.
Slowly, but with an air of complete finality; like the advance of a glacier, the Throne closed in on the city, trampling the corpses of heretic and loyal alike, its driver indifferent to those who could no longer serve.
The men on the barricades could only watch in stunned horror as this visage of unnerving calm got ever closer for every second. Behind it now, silver shapes began fanning out on either side.
They hadn't asked for this, the rebellion was supposed to bring peace to the planet, and the inquisition was not even real. The Leader had assured them that it was simply a horror story from the days of the Heresy, when the universe was in chaos, literally.
This was a doomed cause ever since the envoy to the outworlders had come back in more pieces than when they left.
The battle of the plains had been a disaster, too. The silver reapers were way to well armed and nothing seemed to penetrate their shining armor. There had been others as well, bigger than normal men and clad in thick metal, but these were subject to fear and cowardice just like the rebels themselves and when the Leader had the Gate opened, they had died just like the humans they apparently were.
But that is were it all had went wrong, when the gate opened.
That was three days ago.
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Being on missions alone was the best thing Anval knew, no other people to worry about, no one to keep alive but himself. Which was important, since he wasn't very good even at that. But it helped when that was the only problem because he was not sure how dying was for others, most of them seemed to like being dead so much that they apparently chose to stay that way.
That confused him, whenever he died he would just not be able to get any rest at all for all the guilt that gnawed in the back of his mind. He felt like being dead made him neglect his responsibilities.
"The Emperor sacrificed himself for our faults, but he never let that stop him from His duty, now did He, Anval?" His mother would often say when he was a youngling. "Are you going to let something minor stop YOU from YOUR duty, Anval, my son?" The harsh training and indoctrination of the Grey Knights had all but deleted all of his memories from before Titan, but for some reason this had persisted.
"No, mother."
"Good, now pick the broom back up and stop whining, it's just a bruise." It seemed like an eternity had came and went since then, things had been easy back then. Life was simple, now it could be ever so complicated.
Very complicted, even, at times. Such as now. There were questions that needed to be answered all the time, and many of them didn't even make sense. Another thing about questions, Anval reflected, is that more often than not, they have no answers. And no one tells you!
But right now they had tentacles. Emperor-damned Chaos!
That is another thing he couldn't remember from his childhood. Had there been quite as many tentacles and pointy teeth back then? Probably not.
Although, he was certain that there had also been fewer purity seals, and he did love those purity seals. I'm glad I was there when they invented them, he thought as he nonchalantly dodged a barbed spear thrown at him, trailing poison from the tip, and ducked behind a chest-high wall just as a hail of sizzling bolter slugs passed through the air that his head had occupied not a second earlier.
Aw man, cursed bolts? These traitors did not beat around the proverbial bush, that much was for sure. He chucked a handful of assorted grenades over the wall and waited for the tortured screams before he broke cover and charged across the plaza toward his demonic prey, a writhing mass of agonized flesh and metal. So, a few bloodletters and a few traitor marines, nothing special.
There was no chance to parry when the halberd descended like the wrath of gods. A brief shriek and the deamon disappeared into a cloud of dust. Anval swung again, this time a deamonblade provided a flicker of resistance before another explosion of dust and then the deafening sound of silence as the onlooking traitors held their breath and hesitated for just a fraction of a moment before their chaos-induced insanity got the better of them.
Chainswords and knives drawn, they threw themselves at the lone terminator, intelligence not a factor in a mind ravaged by madness.
They clashed with great ferocity but the by-now-not-so-silver-anymore-but-actually-really-Grey Knight stood his ground, force halberd a blur at this point.
Any passers-by would have serious problems telling who was on which side in the melee that ensued, crazed battle-cries and laughter saturated the plaza as the five superhuman brawlers fought tooth-and-nail for domination, weapons and wounds no longer a concern for any involved, just the thrill of battle and steely conviction were of any matter.
Or, at least, so would someone with a way of words describe it had they witnessed the fight, preferably from a very long way away.
In reality though, it was fairly one-sided. Actually, it wasn't fair in any way, shape or form. It was a slaughter, and the traitors got the bad end of the bargain.
"I find your lack of face disturbing" Was the last thing Word Bearer traitor marine Farros Gaile heard in this life before the storm bolter three inches away from his helmet blazed and the darkness conquered.
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"And so the mighty Lord Draigo, using nothing but his mind and a plastic spork, banished the fell bloodthirster whilst he himself actually was in the warp!" This met with a cheer. "And then, like, he stood above the corpse of the deamon and reforged it's axe into a superpowerful sword, fighting fire with fire; deamons with a deamonblade!" The speaker flailed about with his laden fork to illustrate.
"And they say that even stuck in the warp, the ruinous powers don't dare touch him and one day he'll return to rule and close the Eye of Terror with mind bullets!"
By now the speaker had climbed atop a table and was striking heroic poses with his fork as his sword and a blanket as a cape. The tavern cheered as one man. Various alcoholic beverages sloshed around in the air as the patrons started dancing and and singing, swinging their large mugs to keep pace. Only one man in the entire bar seemed unaffected by the jollymaking, but no one gave him as much as a glance.
That is, until he left his seat and stood upright.
Only then did he get noticed, as many had in their drunken haze not even realized that the massive hooded shape in the dark corner was something other than a pile of robes. And who could blame them? It is not as though humans often are twelve feet tall.
He coughed politely. Silence ruled as everyone in the room wondered where the thunder had came from.
"Where did you hear that story?" The hooded figure demanded. On the table, the caped hero with the fork sword became suddenly self-aware and instantaneous sobriety hit him like a ton of bricks.
"Aaaaah. Well, ugh, you see, I-" He began, feeling extremely lonesome.
"That is fine, come over here. You look like you've seen an Ork in a suit, I'll help you get home." The massive man extended a metaphorical hand.
"T-t-thanks."
Thawn hated to have to silence knowledge, but what can you do. Orders were orders; anyone who knew of Chaos was to be alive no more.
And no doubt this planet was infested, just the other day there'd been actual deamons and traitor marines, and the boss was having a war on the capital hive even now. What had happened was, apparently, that some sort of preacher of Chaos had come here. Or a psychic preacher had been tainted, Thawn didn't really care which. This person had then managed to sway a lot of the population without them even knowing, got them in conflict with the PDF who sent a distress message and the Inquisitor had been closest.
Inquisitor Karamazov had then called on the Knights that also were close. This had been Thawn and his friends, currently assisting Greg the Librarian with gathering books for the chapter library and keeping the general noise level in the sector acceptable. Greg had been all over the mission, he and Karamazov went way back. They had been in inquisitor college together, or something. Anval had forgotten.
It got hard to remember details about others when you got so old that you forgot how old you were. And he was old, Justicar Anval Thawn was just as much a part of the Grey Knights' foundations as the floors and pillars on holy Titan, probably more. Floors actually had to be replaced every few thousand years...
So had it come to pass that he ended up in old Fyodor "No Innocents" Crazypantsoff's employ. Not long after that they made landfall only to find that not a single man of the PDF had made it out alive. Actually, not much of a surprise really.
And then they had gotten into a war with an entire world. It wasn't fair, Anval caught himself thinking. Those poor sods wont stand a chance.
Now though, his "special skills" had apparently been reason enough to get him sent on a "top secret misson" where "Superglory" and "Megahonor" was sure to follow, he'd been told. It was undoubtedly a suicide mission, so words like that often got thrown around when you fished around for volunteers.
Well, Thawn, who had way more experience with suicide missions than most, volunteered on the basis that it was nice to get out into the countryside for a while and clear his head. The mission officer had laughed at him.
"I'll have your salary ready for you when you get back, shall I? Haha, you're a funny one, you. Mind if I have your dessert if you happen to not make it?" And so on. You could have cut the sarcasm with a knife and used as a building material.
And now he prowled through the busy hive city hunting for a renegade Chaos priest. He was wearing terminator armour and carried a nemesis force halberd almost twenty feet long, but still managed to remain unseen by the general population. All he needed was to cover up any shiny bits of himself and his weapon with baggy cloth in brownish cloth and done; invisible. The fact that he was roughly the size of a small building mattered not, people simply choose not to see things that shouldn't be there.
His target would no doubt be protected by the most horrible things imaginable, deamons and traitor marines, the priest could open portals into the warp for lesser beasts to travel through.
But Thawn had a very particular set of skills; skills that he had acquired over a very long career. Skills that made him a nightmare for people like them. He would look for his mark, he would find him, and he would kill him.
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If you are eye-catching enough, then no-one will remember you. Sure they will notice you, but they won't see you. Humans are by nature paranoid, a trait developed over millions of years to make sure only those smart enough not to feed the big, hungry kitty cat with the huge teeth or eat the colorful beetles and frogs, would carry on their blood line.
Predators have always used tactics and subterfuge to catch their prey and so the prey gets very good at spotting traps and moving shadows.
Justicar Anval Thawn knew this because he had often been the predator. But eventually, he realized, the prey starts to expect traps and ambushes; becoming blind to that which is painfully obvious.
So Anval Thawn made no effort to be invisible, the trick was to be so visible that no one looked for you in the first place.
Still, a robe was useful, the " =][= " made people nervous.
So he walked through the streets unseen, tracking this "leader" as they all called him. The air tasted a bit like rusted metal, as unnatural powers often do, so he decided to follow his nose. No doubt his target would be found at the epicenter.
Directions from a few tortured citizens and a renegade PDF-soldier, in fact the last surviving member, gave him the last of what he needed, the trail was hot now.
And the PDF had finally been killed to a man, as is custom.
This slow, meticulous and sometimes violent journey would go on uneventfully for a few days more before anything more worth noting happened.
So we skip forward.
A swift cut split the oncoming chair, causing the wood to catch fire as it flew past and hit the wall behind. Thawn had barely even entered the room when this happened, so someone had been expecting him. A quick look around the circular office revealed a massive metallic desk with a, most likely, bolterproof window behind it. There was also an absence of chair, a few diplomas on the wall, flower pots, small tables, a sofa, some lamps, Valhallan hand-woven carpet, small man with a plasma pistol and ethereal energy crackling around him, a rather nice painting, striped wallpaper, powered off servo skull and hold. on. just. a. moment...
Plasma scorched the wall as he just managed to throw himself to the floor.
He raised his head only to have his whole world enveloped in blue energy before everything went white. Because that is what happens when you get hit square in the face with pure light, even your corpse gets blinded.
To be continued...
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They say that no one knows how old a Space Marine can get because no Astartes ever get to die of natural causes. However, they also say that Orks are creatures with no grasp of higher technology whose very society is built on violence and scrap metal.
Which is true, but the fact that many interpret this as Orks being a stupid and lower form of life is actually one of the major reasons that marines rarely get to be very old.
Thawn knew this to be a fact, alone among his peers, owing to his rather unique experience of many things more deadly than commonly thought.
Plasma guns, however, everyone knows they are deadly. And Justicar Anval Thawn had, when we left him, just gotten a reminder.
We find him now in a plaza, his armor still on but battered and broken, his lifeless body hung up publicly as a statement and a warning.
Okay, he thought as things started to buzz into life inside his head. Time to go through the good old checklist.Fingers? Yes. Toes? Fine. Ears and eyes? Yes , and... Yes. Blurry though. Sense of pain? Yep, very functional. Wounds? Healed, as usual Now, can I get down from this pole? Let's find out!
Five minutes later, after much struggling and wriggling, a scream and a thud confirmed his success. He scuttled away into the darkness, scornfully rubbing his chin.
As our immortal avenger continues his pursuit, the eye of narrative moves across the plaza and over to a pole by now only decorated with a note stuck to it with a knife. The note made of canvas, read:
Dear Murderer,
You're pissing me off.
You do NOT want to see me angry!
Yours Sincerely,
Me.
As he hurried through the streets on his way to the local inquisitorial watch house. No doubt it would be abandoned and looted in these circumstances, but it would make a good base of operations.
It was painfully obvious that he would have to enter a whole new level of commitment. Now it was personal...
Anval Thawn, Justicar in the Grey Knights, decorated with terminator honours, would have to go into SCOT MODE!
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