Author |
Message |
 |
|
 |
Advert
|
Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
- No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
- Times and dates in your local timezone.
- Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
- Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
- Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now. |
|
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:04:37
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Gavin Thorpe
|
This is Chapter Five of the first Uriel Ventris novel Nightbringer. I've read through the whole book and I can't seem to make out what's going on in this chapter. It's a dark eldar procedure which is bizarre and confusing.
The octagonal surgical chamber was cold, the breath of its occupants misted before them. The two figures in charge of the procedure moved with a silky elegant poise through the shadowed chamber. The light was kept low, as the Surgeon’s eyes were unaccustomed to brightness and it was widely reckoned that he did his best work in near-darkness anyway. A channelled metal slab was bolted to the floor in the centre of the chamber, surrounded by arcane devices festooned with scalpel blades, long needles and bonesaws. The chamber’s third occupant, a naked human male, lay unmoving atop its cold surface. There were no restraints holding him there.
The Surgeon needed total freedom of movement of the body in order to work and the drugs would keep the subject from moving. The Surgeon had administered the precise amount to achieve such an effect, yet not so much as to prevent him from feeling something of the procedure. Where was the art if the Honoured could feel nothing? The Surgeon wore an anonymous red smock and pulled on thick, elbow length rubberised gloves, the fingers of which ended in delicate scalpels and clicking surgical instruments. His assistant watched his fastidious preparations from the shadows with a mixture of languid boredom and reverence. She had seen the Surgeon’s skill with his instruments many times before, and though the things he could do were wondrous, she was more interested in her own pleasures.
The Surgeon nodded to her and she span, naked, towards the slab on her tiptoes, a wicked leer splitting her full red lips. She gripped the edges of the table and pushed herself upwards and forwards, lifting her legs slowly until she was completely vertical. She walked astride the prone human on her hands then propelled herself into the air, twisting on the descent to land astride the figure. She could see the fear of the procedure in his eyes and smiled to herself. It was always the fear that aroused her. Aroused her and repulsed her. That this human ape could think that she, who had learned the one thousand and nine Pleasures of the Dark, could actually enjoy this. Part of her was filled with self-loathing as she realised once again that she did, and it took an effort of will not to plunge her envenomed talons through his pleading eyes and into his broken mind.
She shuddered, the man mistaking it for her pleasure, and leaned forwards, trailing her tongue along his exposed chest and feeling the skin pucker beneath her. She worked up to his neck and gently bit on the skin, her sharpened teeth penetrating his skin and tasting the bitter flavour of his bad blood. He moaned as her teeth moved up his face, feathering razor kisses along the line of his jaw. Her long, blood red nails trailed up his ribs, leaving smoking, poisonous tracks in their wake. Her thighs tightened over his hips and she knew he was ready. The blood was singing in his rotten veins. She looked over her shoulder and nodded to the Surgeon. Even though the human could not move, she sensed the terror rise up in him. The woman vaulted gracefully over his head, landing with a gymnast’s grace behind the slab, spitting the blood that coated her teeth onto the floor. The Surgeon pressed the first of his bladed digits against the man’s belly. Expertly, he opened him up, paring back the skin and muscle like the layers of an onion. The Surgeon worked for another three hours, dextrously unravelling every centimetre of the man to the bone, laying his flesh and organs open in gory ribbons of meat. How easy it would be to just continue with the opening and take it on to his skull, leaving him a screaming, fleshless skeleton. The temptation was great, but he resisted it, knowing that Archon Kesharq would visit a thousand times such misery on his own frame were he to let the kyerzak die too soon.
Humming alien machinery of rubber tubing, hissing bellows and gurgling bottles of blood surrounded the procedure, gently feeding the still-living cadaver with life preserving fluids. A loathsome metallic construction, like a serrated gallows, swung upwards and over the table, supporting a glossy, beetle-like organism that pulsed with rasping breath. Fine, chitinous black needles stretched from its distended belly and worked at each flensed slab of flesh. Moving too quickly to be seen by the naked eye, they stripped diseased, stringy matter from each organ and hunk of meat, weaving new translucent strands of organic matter in their place. As the throbbing, eyeless thing finished with each segment of flesh the Surgeon would gently lift it back onto the body and meticulously rework it onto the subject’s frame until he was once again whole.
Only the head remained unopened, his mouth moving in a soundless scream of pain and revulsion. The razor gallows lowered the glistening creature onto the man’s face, its fleshy underside undulating warmly over his skin. The black needles extended once more from its body, slithering across his cheeks and working their way into his skull through the nose, ears, mouth and eyes. Threads of agony wormed through his brain as each nerve, capillary and blood vessel was stripped out and renewed. Finally it was done. The grossly swollen organism was lifted from the subject’s head and deposited on a wide metal tray at the end of the slab. The Surgeon lifted a narrow bonesaw as the creature began convulsing, its colour fading from lustrous black to a necrotic brown. Before it rotted away to nothing, the Surgeon split it across the thorax with the saw and removed a dripping yellow egg sac. It would be needed to grow another organism for the next time.
The Surgeon nodded to the naked woman who sashayed back to the slab and raised the man into a sitting position. His movements were slow and awkward, but she knew that his discomfort would soon pass. He gathered his clothing and sullenly pulled a short, blue velvet pelisse with silver stitching around his shoulders. He picked up a bronze tipped ebony cane and painfully shuffled towards the chamber’s door. Without turning, he snapped, “Well? Are you coming?” She cocked her head to one side, her venomously beautiful features twisting into a sneer of contempt. He turned to face her, as though sensing her loathing of him. His eyes locked on hers with a mixture of hatred and arousal and she could see from his beseeching eyes that he had suffered greatly. She was glad, and guessed that it would take at least six of the one thousand and nine Pleasures of the Dark to placate him this time. It was such a shame that human understanding of such things was so limited.
Apparently she has to have sex with the subject to prepare him for the procedure? And why is the beetle-thing replacing his organs? Lastly, why does he act so nonchalantly after the procedure? I guess our human understanding of such things is so limited after all.
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:14:49
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter
Seattle
|
Because the Dark Eldar are fething perverse.
|
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. |
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:15:46
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Huge Hierodule
United States
|
It's a Dark Eldar medical procedure. It's best not to dwell on the semantics of such things.
|
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:17:10
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Unhealthy Competition With Other Legions
Tied to a bedpost in an old motel, confused and naked.
|
Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
|
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:19:38
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter
Seattle
|
Yes.
|
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. |
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:23:03
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Huge Hierodule
United States
|
poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?... Chaos doesn't make them perverse. They're just perverse and evil because they're just a bunch of twisted feths.
|
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/07 22:25:39
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:27:57
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Gavin Thorpe
|
Of course they are, but doesn't really answer the question. Automatically Appended Next Post: Darth Bob wrote: poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
Chaos doesn't make them perverse. They're just perverse and evil because they're just a bunch of twisted feths.
Isn't it the soul leeching of Slaanesh that makes them do these things?
|
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/07 22:29:08
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:31:54
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Unhealthy Competition With Other Legions
Tied to a bedpost in an old motel, confused and naked.
|
Darth Bob wrote: poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
Chaos doesn't make them perverse. They're just perverse and evil because they're just a bunch of twisted feths.
Do you think all Eldar has a little of that in them?
|
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:35:42
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Huge Hierodule
United States
|
Actually, it really does answer the question. There's no logic behind why the Dark Eldar do the twisted things they do. They just do it because they are evil, twisted, and perverse. That's the only justification they need. If you want to look into it, it's possible the procedure required him to be aroused which is why she dry humped him to arousal. His apparent "chillness" after the procedure could/would probably be chalked up to whatever it is they did to him.
Partially. It's true that the suffering of their victims allows them to drain their souls more easily, but they don't only do the twisted things they do solely for that purpose. They're as likely to do it for fun as they are to do it for an actual need to drain a victim's soul. It's definitely a motivating factor, I would argue it isn't the main one.
poppa G wrote: Darth Bob wrote: poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
Chaos doesn't make them perverse. They're just perverse and evil because they're just a bunch of twisted feths.
Do you think all Eldar has a little of that in them?
Considering their perversity and excess was what made them a dying race in the first place by creating Slaanesh and considering they are desperately fighting a losing battle for the survival of their race, I'd say it's unlikely that they'd ever act on those impulses; assuming they still have them.
|
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/07 22:37:43
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:35:49
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Fixture of Dakka
|
poppa G wrote: Darth Bob wrote: poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
Chaos doesn't make them perverse. They're just perverse and evil because they're just a bunch of twisted feths.
Do you think all Eldar has a little of that in them?
In the same way all humans are potential serial killers yes.
|
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam |
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:38:29
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Major
Middle Earth
|
I never really understood why the human bad guy in nightbringer was working with the dark eldar if they captured and tortured him. Maybe some kind of perverse stockholm syndrome, alternatively maybe he needs those treatments to live.
Why its done in such an elaborate manner? Because Dark Eldar.
|
We're watching you... scum. |
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/07 22:44:51
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Judgemental Grey Knight Justicar
|
The Dark Eldar have to feed off intense pleasure, suffering, or pain. It was explained in one of the books that they lost something in fall and if don't feed off the emotions around them they start to fade away.
|
01001000 01101001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00101110 |
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/08 17:10:48
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Gavin Thorpe
|
Darth Bob wrote:
Actually, it really does answer the question. There's no logic behind why the Dark Eldar do the twisted things they do. They just do it because they are evil, twisted, and perverse. That's the only justification they need. If you want to look into it, it's possible the procedure required him to be aroused which is why she dry humped him to arousal. His apparent "chillness" after the procedure could/would probably be chalked up to whatever it is they did to him.
.
Still not sure if Psienesis was trying to answer my question but thanks for elaborating.
I know the Dark Eldar are sadistic, but I'm confused by the "replacing diseased organs with beetle silk" part. McNeil doesn't make it clear. Maybe they wanna renew him for subsequent tortures.
It seems like the human needed to be aroused for the procedure, that's not explained either. The female Dark Eldar loathes human apes after all. And after the procedure he asks her if she's coming (for what?) without any elaboration on their prior relationship. She stares at him and he stares back like a doofus.
Supposedly McNeil planned to elaborate further but was in a rush for time and thus we ended up with a jerky, mish mash of a novel.
|
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/04/08 17:13:55
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/08 17:19:23
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Fixture of Dakka
Temple Prime
|
poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
That they have to consume the essences of others by making them feel the extremes of sensation (usually pain as pleasure usually involves dirtying themselves) is really just a bonus. Even if Slaanesh were to die tomorrow they wouldn't be any less sociopathic or sadistic.
|
Midnightdeathblade wrote:Think of a daemon incursion like a fart you don't quite trust... you could either toot a little puff of air, bellow a great effluvium, or utterly sh*t your pants and cry as it floods down your leg.
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/08 17:20:48
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter
Seattle
|
They might have a goal in mind, or they might be doing it for the lulz, because the Dark Eldar are fething perverse. Replacing your internal organs with a bunch of xenotech gribbly-creatures that simulate being your spleen is right up their alley, especially if they can later come up on you and chest-feth you as some fanged orifice suddenly sprouts in your ribcage... or if they can have your organs rearrange themselves (agonizingly painfully) while dancing a waltz.
|
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised. |
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/08 17:23:17
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Liche Priest Hierophant
|
poppa G wrote:Are Dark Eldar just freaks or does Chaos make them perverse?...
I think you will find that Eldar make Chaos perverse. (Or did rather back in the day...)
|
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/08 17:24:02
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Fixture of Dakka
Temple Prime
|
EmilCrane wrote:I never really understood why the human bad guy in nightbringer was working with the dark eldar if they captured and tortured him. Maybe some kind of perverse stockholm syndrome, alternatively maybe he needs those treatments to live.
Why its done in such an elaborate manner? Because Dark Eldar.
Graham McNeil has the weirdest fetish for going really in depth with the nausea fuel. He just really loves to write things to make your stomach churn.
|
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/08 17:24:33
Midnightdeathblade wrote:Think of a daemon incursion like a fart you don't quite trust... you could either toot a little puff of air, bellow a great effluvium, or utterly sh*t your pants and cry as it floods down your leg.
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/08 17:35:06
Subject: Re:What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Navigator
Frostbite Falls
|
The guy was slowly and agonizingly dying from when they had tortured him.
The trauma and pain of that event broke his widdle bwain.
The procedure was the Dark Eldar way of temporarily halting the effects of the torture so he could continue to function.
The Wych dancing naked over him during the operation and following him back to his quarters for am S&M quickie is because the Dark Eldar are what would happen if society was based solely on the contents of 4Chan.
|
|
 |
 |
![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2014/04/12 12:50:49
Subject: What's going on in this story?
|
 |
Keeper of the Holy Orb of Antioch
avoiding the lorax on Crion
|
Because dark eldar, there twisted as can be
|
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all. |
|
 |
 |
|