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.

Chapter 1: Captured

Nicoli sat trapped in a net of razor wire on board what could only have been an Eldar Raider. He and his squad of Guardsmen had been ambushed by the pirates while on patrol, and although they fought valiantly, none were a match for these sadistic parasites. When his squad had turned to run he was caught by this net which even now cut through his clothes and into his skin at every point that it touched and only got tighter with every move he made and every breath he took. He didn’t know where his rifle was and had no grenades with him. He saw other men from his platoon in the same or worse condition; some were beaten badly others stabbed through with blades so sharp they did not allow the wound to bleed. Poisons coursed the veins of others and caused them to spasm and scream shredding their bodies further on the razor sharp invisible wires to the amusement of their captors. There would be no help of escape from them, no help of escape from anyone.

One of the Dark Raiders walked up to Nicoli and stared down at him through his tall crested mask. It spoke with too many voices at once and words that were not possible to make with a human mouth. He stared up blankly at the warrior unable to move without causing himself further agony. The pirate lifted him up by the collar and repeated itself in a tone of obvious aggravation and disgust. It turned to the eight others on the craft and said something that received cheers and laughs from its constituents. A blade then pierced Nicoli’s forearms together and a barbed hook was stabbed through the two bones that made up his shin before he was thrown over the side of the Raider to be dragged along the sharp sands of the planet he protected only moments before. Nicoli clenched his teeth unwilling to allow these monsters the pleasure of breaking him or seeing his pain as flesh was pulled from his body at such a high speed.

He turned himself onto his back, adrenaline and shock now muting the pain that was killing him. He saw his captors leaning over the edge of the sleek ship gesturing and taunting him to see if he would break or beg for death. Nicoli prayed to the God Emperor for the strength to not show them what they sought, when instantly the world around him turned from grey sky and light sand to screaming faces and black on red thunder storms that swam with images he could not focus on long enough to process. Terror finally took him over as he realized what must be happening, this was the warp, the immaterial space behind reality. These psychotic creatures had dragged him into this manifested hell exposing his soul to the raw elements of demons and nightmares. His mind broke, screaming soundlessly into the void at the illusionary visions chasing after him Nicoli raged and pulled torturously at the devices holding him as things too terrible to realize vaulted after the ship. There were no Gellar fields no ship hull or sanctioned psykers, these things had recklessly entered this place without any of the protection necessary to survive. Nicoli closed his eyes and prayed as one of the nightmares opened his fanged jaws and enveloped his head.

As quickly as the transition into the warp had started, it ended. Nicoli hit the ground breathlessly in a sudden stop, no creatures behind him and only the soulless beings of the Dark Eldar in front of him. He was in a new place with dark empty streets and a twilight sky where winged figures swooped too high and too fast to make out their forms. The other prisoners were being unloaded from the vessel into a fortress; still bound as when they had left. After the last of them were gone a lone warrior approached Nicoli almost as an afterthought and kicked a sharp metal boot into his ribs. Nicoli wheezed and coughed still not having recovered from his unceremonious landing. The thing seemed surprised that he survived, and truthfully so was Nicoli.

A howling scream broke out from an alley a few yards away, where an ethereal outline might have fooled the imagination into thinking something was there. The warrior pointed its splinter rifle down the path with a sharp movement that was fluid and unnaturally quick. The Eldar stayed its ground for a few seconds, visibly shaken even though its face was hidden behind a mask. Then in the speed of a blink Nicoli was on the creatures shoulder and it was sprinting toward the fortress gate, leaping over detritus panting as it ran from the imaginary attacker. Mere feet from the gate the frame exploded in a hail of the same splinter ammunition that his captures had used to cut down swathes of men. The world seemed to erupt in crystal shards and debris as he was thrown down a flight of stairs unable to brace himself due to his restraints. Nicoli’s last sight before he blacked out was of the slavers head being sliced from its shoulders by the invisible assailant and a fountain of blood showering the attacker as the fortress gates slammed shut between them.

Nicoli awoke, bruised but unshackled, to an unfamiliar female face bent over him. He was in a small transport with no windows and a dozen other humans around him in various states of disrepair. His wounds had stopped bleeding but they still ached and his weapons and kits were gone. Nicoli thought cynically about the old guardsmen joke, except now he didn’t even have his flashlight.

“Do you speak the language?” The woman spoke in a soft voice but no emotion was shown in her dead eyes.

“Yes, I speak low gothic. Where am I? Who are you?”

“I speak for Kabal of the Severed Spine. You are property of Kabal of the Severed Spine”. The woman sounded as if she was reading a script. Her Low Gothic having been taught to her by hypnosis.

“I am a guardsmen of the Imperial…”

She cut him off in a monotone statement “You are property of Kabal of the Severed Spine”.

Nicoli decided not to argue further and tried to think of a more productive question when before he could speak she stood up and walked away. The strange women repeated this mantra to every other person on board the craft, interrupting each objection with the same flat tone, and repeating herself even for those who were already awake to hear it. When she finished she sat in the corner of the craft and stared without blinking at the far wall.

Nicoli scanned the cabin, his eyes adjusting to the unpronounced light he looked for familiar faces or even an officer who he could ask to explain what was going on. He saw several men who might have been from other regiments on the same planet he was from, but he couldn’t be certain. Then he saw a man sitting against the opposite wall, Nicoli recognized him as a storm trooper from one of the elite grav-shute units he was deployed with. The man had lost a leg at the knee and the dressing from the wound was sorely in need of replacing, but he looked as if he was still ready to fight the enemies of the Emperor to his death. Nicoli sat down beside him not making eye contact.

The man spoke first, “I know your face kid. You’re from that partisan regiment am I right?”

Nicoli found himself excited to be recognized by the prestigious stranger. “Yes I am! I’ve seen you in pictures of the drop shute regiment, you guys are heroes! They say we would have been overrun months ago if it weren’t for your raids against the Ork factories in the north.”

“There are no heroes here kid, I’m a prisoner just like you. Do you even know where we are?” The man asked.

“No I don’t. I was just out on patrol…” Nicoli then went into a tirade of his ordeal since leaving the firebase for his patrol, telling the man everything that had happened in full detail.

“Kid stop, it doesn’t matter, none of that matters now.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “Your CO’s probably spared you the truth about this place but you better know now.” The man was looking at Nicoli now with hopeless eyes. “This is hell, no. This is worse than hell. When hell doesn’t want you this is where you’re sent.” He bent down low toward Nicoli so the others couldn’t hear. “This is Commorraugh. This is where the Dark Eldar live.”

End of Chapter 1. Feedback?

My Thoughts: I personally want to put more combat in this story, especially HtH, but this first chapter just flowed too freely from my head to the keyboard. This story does have a plot line and an ending by the way but I welcome any suggestions or plot twists that are PM’d to me so as not to spoil it for the other readers.

EDIT: Grammer

I like it. I'll be eagerly waiting for Chapter Two.

Is the women a Dark Eldar or a human? I'm guessing human due to her behavior, but then why would she have been taught via hypnosis?

Well done, great story; easy (kind of) to read and interesting, nice work!

I agreee RustyKnight, I think it's a human that's been held prisoner for a while and has come to understand the reality for these prisoners; her stern words simply to prevent giving false hope to these doomed souls.

Keep it up ComputerGeek, can't wait!

Yes, she's human. From what I've read Eldar will not 'pollute' themselves with speaking the human language so they have slaves who talk for them. She isn't so much soothsaying as she is working for her owner.

Thanks for the feedback, I have chapter 2 sketched out a little more processing and I should have it posted.

Chapter 2: Torture

It had seemed like months since they had been captured, it may have only been weeks. Time passed differently here in this twilight colored cell. Where once they had tried to keep track of time by the regular beatings and harassment from the Dark Eldar Warriors, it seemed now that these events occurred far too frequently and at random intervals. Wounds didn’t even heal the same here as they did in real space. Nicoli looked down at the holes in his arms from when he was captured and they were still there, the bleeding had been bandaged up but scabs would not form.

The only thing that kept Nicoli from ending this internment himself was the paratrooper Torrent from the transport. His speeches about “duty to the imperium” and jibes about it being the “coward’s way out” reinforced Nicoli’s indoctrination and kept him focused.

“You’re a trained soldier, a member of the glorious Imperial Guard” he would preach to Nicoli. “I don’t want to hear any of the same crying from you as I hear from these civilians.”

Nicoli had sworn an oath to the man to kill at least one more of the Eldar before meeting the Emperor, and he had no intention of breaking the last oath he would ever make.

Nicoli was asleep when they had come for him. One of the Guards struck him with a whip through the bars of the cell, a trick the Dark Eldar would practice on prisoners constantly, but instead of being drawn back as usual the whip had paused mid journey and flew back toward him wrapping itself around Nicoli’s arms and dragging him to the walls of the cell at the command of its sadistic master. There were five of them all in the green with gold trim of the Severed Spines heraldry. Four Warriors in their spiked armor and tall crested helmets and the fifth one who always seemed to select which slaves were to go with them. The fifth one was a tall skinny individual with no hair, in a loose fitting robe and its skin had been pealed from its face and reattached via hooks at the top of its skull.

Nicoli was outside the cage before he could stand, he didn’t know how because there was no door to open in the cell. But he had given up on trying to figure out the magic’s these creatures possessed. Several more were chosen and even though he was starring right at the cage, he only ever saw the victim being struck then dragged to the cell wall. His brain seemed to turn off for the moment that they were removed from their cell as if it were unable to except the truth of how it was done.

They were then directed past the other cells containing various species to the door way at the end of the prison. The fact that the thin creature and the four warriors had went in the other direction and left the ten men unguarded unnerved Nicoli. What manner of security did they have in place that they weren’t worried about an escape? Having seen the sorcery the Dark Eldar possessed all of them decided it was better not to find out.

The stairs in the doorway led eventually outside to an anteroom of a small coliseum above the prison cells. There Nicoli and the others met the strange young women from the transport. She was kneeling on the stone floor with her arms crossed behind her back. Her long red hair gently flowed out of the high pony tail that rested on top of her head and thin streams of hair framed her innocent face. Her makeup was drawn to highlight her striking eyes and thin lips with subtle dark lines. A poison green bikini tightly held her breasts as several slim gold chains ran down her athletic torso and linked the top to the thin cut bottom piece. Below that her pale and flawlessly toned legs were in full view down to her knee high black boots. She had a collar around her neck with a chain being held by what Torrent called a Wych.

“You are here to fight. Some of you who fight will die. All of you who do not fight WILL die.” The same tone n her voice as before, the Women did not look up as she spoke.
The Wych gave a gentle tug on the leash and the women rose following her master without a sound into a shadowed archway where they disappeared. One of the slaves ran after them calling out questions he wanted answered, when the man arrived at the archway there was a bright flash of steel and his body flew to the back wall impaled on a black trident. The veins on his face changed color from the amount of poison that flowed through him; slowly destroying his organs while keeping his heart pumping and his brain conscious. Not one of the others bothered to help.

Inside the arena it was silent and the stands were empty but they were soon joined by the Women and the Wych. The two brought along with them six brutal looking Orks who were chained and staring at the humans like a next meal. The Wych made a sign in the air with his free hand and the shackles on the Orks released falling into the dirt.

There was no more warning as the first of the Orks to reach the humans tackled a man and smashed him repeatedly into the ground killing him in a flurry of deafening roars and bloody punches. Upon seeing this Nicoli raised his hands into a fighting stance to meet the creature closing in on him. The beast was running on all fours intending to tackle Nicoli in the same way its brethren had done to the first man. The moment it leapt Nicoli’s instinct took over and he threw out a kick as if he were breaching a locked door. He had connected with the Orks head perfectly his back leg planted just right so that he slid as the force of the attack drove him back. His assailants’ neck snapped to the side and its body spun off target hitting the ground with a roll and springing back on its feet. Nicoli knew that Orks were tough, but anything should have died after that hit. It screamed with raw hate as it charged again rising to its full height to bring both fists down on Nicoli in one crushing blow. Nicoli saw the opportunity for a counter charge and took it; he slammed into the creatures fully extended abdomen and drove the Ork onto its back. Once on top Nicoli drove his fists in an explosion of strikes to its jaw before it grabbed him and threw him aside into another one of the prisoners.

Both Nicoli and the other prisoner landed hard, the other man rose to his feet seconds before him only to be killed by another Ork who was using one of the smaller prisoners and a club. Nicoli grabbed a sharp stone and jumped on the Ork stabbing into its back and neck while it tried to throw him off. After a few moments of this the Ork simply jumped in the air and landed on its back crushing Nicoli underneath. The concision had forced everything about what was around him out of his mind. He felt his ribs break and blood flooded out of his lungs when there should have been air. He couldn’t understand how he was drowning when couldn’t feel any water. Nicolis’ felt something large and heavy land dead on top of him but he couldn’t focus long enough to make out what it might have been. There was no bright light or tunnel, no choir of angles singing to him as the lack of air into his lungs finally caught up to Nicoli and he died… The first time.

A sharp electrical current burned through Nicolis’ body and he snapped awake seizing. He could feel that he was staked to an operating table held up right as if he were a display at some museum. There was nothing else supporting his weight and he felt the pull of gravity against the spikes through his arms and legs. This was only the first pain to strike him as he opened his eyes he saw that his body was cut open with his organs, although still attached, laid out on silver dishes in front of him. Nicoli tried to scream from the pain that surged through his entire body but only a dry whisper came out. This drew the attention of the other figures in the room.

“You are awake?” It was the slave Women. This time dressed in what might have passed for a surgical apron, but made of a tight fitting green leather material exposing her navel and the smooth sides of her body. Large gold hoops held the front and back pieces together with the exposed parts of her flesh covered in a full body lace stocking worn underneath the apron. On her feet she wore high heeled shoes that clicked with every step. She did not have any blood on her but with gloved hands she held a silver tray full of sharp devices covered in wet dark fluid. “Congratulations are due; your fight against the Green Skins impressed my master”. Still no rise or fall in her tone.

Nicolis’ rage boiled inside of him, he wanted to scream at her all of the curses and threats he had ever heard. He wanted to tell her exactly what he wanted to do to her master and what hells await them for the afterlife. But the only sound he could manage was a gentle breath of air from his lungs.

The thin creature from before was also present, considerably more covered in blood and holding a large blade in one hand; it spoke to the slave girl in its alien language and she translated. “You should be honored; very few are allowed to die at the hands of the Severed Spines most prized Homunculus. Fewer still are ‘improved’ upon by his work.”

Something in the way she said improved set off every fight response in Nicolis’ head and he thrashed and pulled against the restraints as the pain flared even deeper into his nerves. Nicoli tried again to scream until he felt he would pass out. The Homunculus reached up to hold his head as it inserted a small slug like creature into Nicolis’ ear and then plucked an eye out to bring around to see it nest inside his head before bringing out in front of Nicoli to look at his own battered face and severed throat.

It spoke again, and the Women translated. “You will be unable to speak until the damage is repaired. The Orks are truly brutal creatures but they will not due for the plans we have.”

The two of them operated on Nicoli for hours, swapping damaged organs, removing and reattaching muscle in denser bundles. They even sawed off his arms and legs to make some bones a few inches longer. Nicoli felt everything, they kept him alive with heretical machines and drugs made of the Emperor knows what. It wasn’t until they cut into his brain that Nicoli was able to pass out. The nightmares he endured weren’t any relief. He dreamt of his home world burning, his home town being attacked by the Dark Eldar and his brothers and sisters being captured. He dreamed that they had made him into one of the monsters that he saw roaming the prison and they made him talk to his siblings in the same monotone voice as the slave Women. He saw himself punch his youngest sibling across the face when he grabbed onto Nicolis’ arm pleading for help and told them “You are property of Kabal of the Severed Spine”. He remembered how he was one of the oldest and always protected them when he was around, but as he saw them all in the arena he did nothing while each of his brothers was murdered by the Dark Eldar Warriors and he watched them, unable to even comfort them in their time of need. He screamed at himself to do something but he couldn’t move.

When Nicoli awoke he was back in the cell with the other humans. There were fewer of them now, and he couldn’t find Torrent. As Nicoli stood up he felt the lines of every incision made on him as a fresh sharp pain and his bones and joints settling painfully into place, he was also taller. He was terrified about what he might look like after the macabre operation he had been through but none of the others reacted in disgust or fear of him. Everything around him appeared slower and his heart raced even though he had just woken up but he wrote it off as an after affect of the drugs they must have given him.

A few hours later Warriors came dragging a body with them, it was Torrent but his leg had been replaced. When they arrived at the wall one of the Guards made a symbol on the wall with his hand and it disintegrated allowing them to place Torrents unconscious body inside. Nicoli approached the wall as they exited and one of the guards spun around with a splinter pistol. Nicoli grabbed the Eldars wrist as if it were a normal human being and drove his knee into its stomach. The creature doubled over and Nicoli now had the weapon pointed at one other Warrior while the rest all pointed their weapons back at him.

“You will not kill him” The words were not high gothic but a voice inside his head told him what they meant. “The Mon Kieghs’ life is worth a considerable amount more then all of yours!” It had to be the creature the slave girl referred to as the Homunculus but a beam of light from behind him stopped Nicoli from seeing it. Nicoli had never been able to understand him before but now something had changed.

Nicoli dropped the gun in amazement and shouted at the creature “What have you done to me?”

It still did not address him or even acknowledge that he spoke as the warriors dispersed. Instead the slave girls voice appeared from behind the skeletal figure and told him. “We have plans for you Mon-Kiegh. It would be wise for you to cooperate before your nuisance outweighs your value to us.”

Having been through too much in what seemed like only a day to Nicoli, he obeyed and returned to his cell where he waited for Torrent to wake up.

This is great i eagerly await the next chapter.