Difference between revisions of "I-ARMY-2031"

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|image        = File:GSC.jpg        <!-- The image used to represent your army, replace stock Legio image if you like eg File:6543Scheme.png -->
 
|image        = File:GSC.jpg        <!-- The image used to represent your army, replace stock Legio image if you like eg File:6543Scheme.png -->
 
|caption      = Seekers of the Sundered God                          <!-- Can be left blank or Description of Image; i.e. Company Badge, Force Commander etc -->
 
|caption      = Seekers of the Sundered God                          <!-- Can be left blank or Description of Image; i.e. Company Badge, Force Commander etc -->
|Regiment      = Formerly Planet LV-287's Colonists                          <!-- Mechanicum = Divisio name / Army = Regiment Name / Knight House = House name / Orks = Clan Name-->
 
 
|Cognomen    = Servants of the Aether-King                          <!-- The name of your Army/Force -->
 
|Cognomen    = Servants of the Aether-King                          <!-- The name of your Army/Force -->
 
|allegiance  = Traitor                          <!-- Loyalist/Traitor/Orks/Undecided/Unknown -->
 
|allegiance  = Traitor                          <!-- Loyalist/Traitor/Orks/Undecided/Unknown -->

Latest revision as of 19:46, 7 July 2019

The First Curse
I-ARMY-2031
GSC.jpg
Seekers of the Sundered God



Division

Imperial Army

Regiment

Designation:

I-ARMY-2031

Cognomen:

Servants of the Aether-King

Allegiance:

Traitor

Owner:

User:ThatGuy462

Traitor.png


Imperial Information Bureau

++PLANET LV-287++
Location: Eastern Fringe
Class: i. Delta - Dead World

ii. Mining World

Population: 20,000
Surface Gravity: 1.3G (approx.)
Surface Temperature: -14°C to 3°C
Places of Interest: i. Mining Hive Galt's End

ii. The Trakka-12 Sinkhole
iii. The Lights of Heaven, a Warp anomaly visible in space from the planet's northern hemisphere

Description: A barren rock of a planet in its system's outer orbit, LV-287 is home to a small number of colonies eking out a living on its sub-zero surface. Environmental suits are a fact of life for these miners, who nobly endure in the Emperor's name due to the vast reserves of Rhodium buried beneath the planet's surface.
Rhodium is valuable as a catalysing agent, but also for its attunement to the Warp, making it highly valued by Astropaths, Navigators, and even some of the Legiones Astartes, such as the Fifteenth Legion.

+++UPDATE+++
All communication and travel to and from LV-287 has been suspended until further notice by the order of Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the XIIIth and Lord of Ultramar.

History

Settled shortly after the Realm of Ultramar was reintegrated into the Imperium of Man by colonists looking to expand that fiefdom's borders, LV-287 was discovered to be a resource-rich planet, but one wholly unsuited to large-scale colonisation. While the majority of the colonisation fleet moved on, 158 miners stayed behind to establish Galt's End, the first and largest mining colony on the planet.

Eager to capitalise on the planet's natural wealth, others soon flocked to LV-287, and 20,000 people called it home at the time of the last Imperial Audit.

The majority of the resources mined on LV-287 were shipped directly to Macragge, there to become part of the Ultramarines' largely independent supply chains. Some materials, however, such as the Rhodium that was so rich below the surface, was shipped directly to Terra, there to be studied by some of Humanity's greatest psychic minds. Rhodium had long been known to man as a useful material, but only with the coming of the Emperor was its psychic resonance discovered.

Unfortunately for the settlers, that psychic resonance also made the population more prone to warp-borne mutations and corruptions. Nightmares were a constant fact of life, and mutants were such a common occurrence that LV-287 ceased the purges mandated by Imperial Law and simply treated them as the lowest class of their society.

Colonists universally reported visions of a great dragon perched atop the ruins of the Imperium, surrounded by hordes of monsters from their darkest dreams. This dragon they took to calling the Aether-King, and soon stylised images of it began appearing across the planet.

Mining operations which had once been in direct competition now began digging with united purpose, seeking to unearth one vast treasure and forsaking all other concerns. When the administrators on Macragge noticed that tithes were not being paid, a delegation was dispatched to investigate. When they arrived, the entire planet's population had vanished, along with their fleet of mining vessels and any equipment and infrastructure that could be taken.

By the time the delegation returned to report their findings, the galaxy was on the brink of civil war. Guilliman declared the planet off-limits until further notice, then made all speed to Calth to rendezvous with his brother Lorgar for a joint operation to crush a nearby Ork infestation. Once Lorgar's deception was made apparent and the Horus Heresy blossomed into all-out war, the mystery of LV-287 went largely forgotten.

But somewhere out there was a fleet with enough mining equipment to dig the core out of a planet, and only time would tell if their dark obsessions would affect the wider galaxy.

Dramatis Personae

The nightmares that had plagued the population of LV-287 eventually coalesced into a single command: Dig.

And so the population put aside all thoughts of self, and all prejudices and rivalries, and dug towards the planet's core. There, they found something. It was the very artefact that had called to them in their dreams; which had bade them dig until their machines were broken and their tools blunted beyond usefulness.

In such close proximity to the artefact, mutations spontaneously wracked the entire population, turning them into twisted monsters wearing the tattered remnants of their mining gear. It bent their minds to its will and finally felt a sliver of its old power returning.

Yet for all its power, it was but a Shard of a Greater Whole. The Aether-King it had once been, a powerful creature which answered to no-one and destroyed all in its path.

But it had been cast down long before even the fall of the Aeldari, and scattered across the galaxy, never to be re-formed. Thanks to the supple and suggestible minds of these humans, though, it would cheat the punishment inflicted by a species long-forgotten, and would live again.

At the Shard's direction, the population of LV-287 packed their equipment onto their waiting ships, and cast off into the galaxy, searching for more Shards, and eventually, a way to resurrect the Aether-King in its full glory.

On Ophidia Prime, they would encounter another Shard, and another population enthralled to the Aether-King. Ophidia's tank-manufactorums were turned over to the production of war machines to defend the Seekers as they went out into a galaxy in flames.

The Prima-General

First among the Aether-King's servants is the Prima-General. Her name long since lost, she was once a PDF officer who had given up that life for the simple existence of a fringe miner. Withe the Aether-King's coming, however, all such desires have been burned away, and now she knows only war. Her body has undergone changes to make her more suited to this task: bony talons extend like wings from her back, and her skin has turned to hardened carapace. With the Prima-General at their head, the warriors of the Aether-King stand ready to crush anyone who would oppose them.

The Lord-Advisor

One of the few to retain a small spark of individuality when the Change swept through LV-287's population, the Lord-Advisor's latent psychic talents were expanded beyond measure.

Now leading a coterie of psychically-active hierophants, she embodies the spiritual side of the Seekers' leadership. She is compelled to search out esoteric lore, and is often drawn to some of the most dangerous battlezones of the Horus Heresy in search of some dark artefact or forbidden lore that will bring her one step closer to the Aether-King and Enlightenment.

The Herald of Magnus' Ruin

A sorcerer of no great skill or renown in its mortal life, the Herald of Magnus' Ruin rose to favour in Tzeentch's eyes by being a master manipulator of what few stands of fate he could discern. Blessed with more and more foresight and power, his apotheosis was achieved when he successfully identified and precipitated the events that led to global war in 14.M02 and again in 39.M02. The global politicking and scheming that occurred during and after these events blessed the Herald with enough of Tzeentch's favour to ascend.

Present for the deal Magnus made to preserve the life of his sons, the Herald was one of few Daemons to announce to Magnus the price of his bargain. Dismissed by the Fifteenth Primarch as a liar, the Herald was nonetheless a primary force in Magnus' ultimate downfall and reascension to daemonhood.

The Aether-King

Simultaneously the revered godhead and driving force behind the Seekers of the Sundered God, the Aether-King has returned to physical form thanks largely to the intervention of the cults acting on its behalf.

Resurrected in the Pyre system after the recovery of the Third Soul-Shard there, the sacrifices offered by the Lord-Advisor and her Hierophants were immense. Almost an entire hive was sacrificed to create the raw material for the Aether-King's physical form, but now that it has returned, the zealotry of the Seekers has risen to ever-greater heights.

Soaring through the skies, leaving hordes of chittering daemons in its wake, the Aether-King's return to power and glory is nonetheless fraught with danger. Vulnerable until it has found and assimilated additional Shards, the Aether-King must be cautious in this time of weakness, lest its enemies from both the physical realm and the Immaterium strike and sunder it once again.

Sub-Cults

The Shards of the Aether-King are scattered far and wide across planets throughout the galaxy. The Aether-King was cast into a deep slumber at its fracturing, there to remain until awakened by the presence of a psychically receptive species. Each of these shards has exuded its psychic force upon the inhabitants of these worlds, and each expresses its will in a myriad of forms depending on the Shard's contents and the nature of the inhabitants. The term "Shard" and "Cult" are used interchangeably to describe the forces bound to each section of the Aether-King, for in reality all are but an extension of the Fractured Lord's will.

The LV-287 Shard

The Inhabitants of LV-287 were the first to discover a Shard of the Aether-King, and the reawakened Shard's panic at being alone drove the inhabitants into a frenzy, horribly mutating them and driving out any thought beyond the Shard's survival. Several leader-creatures were deliberately spared the worst of this mental reconditioning, able to process more complex thoughts and ideas to aid the LV-287 Shard in its ultimate goal of reforging its shattered soul.

The Ophidian Shard

The Ophidian Shard was the second to awake, and is possessed of a greater cunning than its counterpart on LV-287. Exuding its influence more subtly, it took control of several of the planet's strongest fighting forces, eventually inveigling itself into the minds of Ophidia Prime's powerful Armoured Battlegroups. Mutations were still rampant, for such is the cost of contact with the Aether-King, but the minds of these thralls were kept sufficiently intact to enable them to operate the great war-machines that were Ophidia's primary strength.

When discovered by the LV-287 Shard, the two forces combined into a whole greater than the sum of its parts, much like the Soul-Shards themselves. The animalistic fury of LV-287 was combined with the fearsome firepower of Ophidia, and the force began to evolve from a tidal horde into a structured army. Ophidia Prime also provided more reliable pilots to operate the Seekers' aircraft and naval vessels, and allowed the Aether-King's vassals to plot more accurate courses through the Warp.

The Pyre Shard

Upon arriving at Pyre, the Seekers of the Sundered God discovered yet another Shard. Awakened into a war already well underway, this Shard proved to be a bellicose distillation of all the rage contained within the Aether-King. Largely consisting of former manufactorum workers wearing pressurised and armoured work-gear and wielding industrial axes, the Pyre Cult has provided a focussed hatred for the enemy that was largely missing before the Pyre Shard's reintegration into the Blessed Whole.

Although the Pyre Cult is currently a small fraction of the total power of the Seekers, operations throughout Pyre will only see this number grow.

Short Stories

Ashes of Pyre

The Seekers of the Sundered God

The battle between the Seekers of the Sundered God and the Imperial Fists hung in the balance.

The Ophidian Cult's tanks had obliterated a heavy weapons squad entrenched in a building and caused some damage to the enemy Typhon, but between the Super-heavy ordnance being fired at them, and the burning phosphex and graviton waves being unleashed by the Leviathan, the Cultists of LV-287 were dying in droves.

At the exact tipping point of the battle, the aircraft Blessed Thunder streaked from the heavens, unleashing a torrent of fire into the Imperial Fists.

Destroying a Contemptor-Mortis Dreadnought with contemptuous ease, the Thunderbolt fighter sped past to unleash a barrage of Kinetic-Piercer Missiles into the flank of the Typhon. The resultant explosion improbably tipped the Super-Heavy vehicle up onto its nose, where it hung for a precarious second before impossibly crashing down directly on top of the Leviathan, crushing it and effectively eliminating the greatest threats to the Seekers' assault.

"You see, siblings?" The Lord-Advisor called out, her robed arms flung wide.

"Fate itself is bent to our purpose! It is but another weapon we wield to restore the Sundered God!

"With fate fighting for us, who can stand against us? Charge, my kin! Onwards and into them! Drive these foes before us!"

Pressing forward with renewed vigour, the Seekers of the Sundered God descended upon the Imperial Fists and tore them to bloody rags.

As the commander withdrew in his Spartan Tank, the Seekers let loose a feral war-shout, singing praises to their god.

With the Loyalist Emperor's Children repelled at the granaries and the Imperial Fists driven off in open battle, the Lord-Advisor now had the time and breathing room she needed to study the new Soul-Shard she had uncovered. Perhaps not enough to resurrect the Aether-King yet, but certainly a firm step in the right direction.

The Lord-Advisor smiled as she ran the new Shard between her fingers, considering the possibilities that lay before her and the glory that awaited her at the Fractured Lord's return...

Deivivication

The Lord-Advisor had been in meditation for weeks, attempting to channel and harmonise the power of the Sundered God's Soul-Shards. So far, the Soul-Shards pulsed independently of each other, their erratic power fluctuations proving too much for her acolytes to handle. Her lips cracked and her body ached from the effort of constantly repeating the un-words of her Master's dark language.

Nine Hierophants from each of the Seekers' sub-cults had died in this session, the stress of channelling the Aether-King's gathered Soul-Shards proving too much for them. The corpses had been left where they fell; each of the other Hierophants too focused on siphoning power from the Lord-Advisor as she accessed the Shards.

On the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth week, the bodies suddenly began to jerk and spasm sporadically, yet with united purpose.

Unsteadily, wracked by the palsied twitches of the dead, the bodies moved to the centre of the meditation chamber.

As each body reached the Soul-Shards, it erupted into a spray of gore and viscera, covering the Soul-Shards and the Lord-Advisor with their remains. All the Lord-Advisor could do was watch as each body shuffled to the Shards and erupted over her and the Echoes of her Dreaming God.

With each eruption, the power released by the shards surged, forcing even more power through the Psychic Choir arrayed around it. Each spike killed yet more Hierophants, who would then unsteadily shamble towards the Shards in their turn.

The layers of gore became so thick that the Lord-Advisor could no longer see; her entire world was reduced to the darkness around her and the waves of power emanating from the Soul-Shards.

Eventually, the power receded, and the Soul-Shards settled into a steady rhythm. For what felt like an age, the Lord-Advisor was trapped, unable to move or call for help; cocooned in the remains of her acolytes.

Eventually, light returned as she was freed by unseen hands, and the Lord-Advisor wept to behold was had become of her Sundered God.

Coated in gore and ropes of sinew and flesh, the three shards now pulsed in glorious and beauteous unison, the warp-touched flesh of her acolytes creating both a physical and metaphysical bridge between the Shards of Pyre, Ophidia, and LV-287.

The disparate calls of the Soul-Shards had now coalesced into one blessed command: ++MORE++

More psychoactive flesh was required. Far more than the Lord-Advisor had available to her. Looking around, she saw that only nine Hierophants still lived, and to sacrifice them would be to seriously compromise the power of the Seekers of the Sundered God.

No, the flesh would need to come from elsewhere. From the armies involved in the swirling battles of the Pyre System. The Lord-Advisor sent psychic commands to her acolytes and through them to the Seekers' sub-cults.

Any psychoactive flesh in the system was to be harvested and brought to the meditation chamber. The Lord-Advisor herself would find the lodestone: an individual psyker or cabal powerful enough to provide the final push to bring the Sundered God to full consciousness. Allied psykers would need to be quietly kidnapped. Enemy ones would be captured by force. All flesh in the Cult was now turned to this singular purpose.

Plans were in motion, and the Aether-King's resurrection loomed. With such a momentous event so close at hand, steps must be taken to ensure it came to fruition. The Lord-Advisor moved with renewed purpose, all fatigue and injury forgotten in the zealotry of her Fractured Lord's final awakening...

From the Shadows

Battles had raged throughout the Pyre System in the last month, but the Seekers of the Sundered God had largely ignored them; other objectives had drawn their obsessive attention. While the others had warred over which mortal would rule the Galaxy, the Aether-King's servants had silently kidnapped as much Flesh as they could acquire.

An entire Facility had been emptied on Fort Bellegarde in one night of quiet abductions, joining the Flesh now serving as the raw material for the Aether-King's corporeal form. The Flesh had been cut, reformed, and arrayed around the Shards of the Sundered God in a rough approximation of what would be its final form, but without the Lodestone to serve as a catalyst, the Flesh remained dead and silent.

Guided by the Aether-King during one of her meditative trances, the Lord-Advisor knew she could avoid conflict no longer. The Lodestone must be taken from one of the Psykers prowling within the armies of the Great Pretender, who fancied himself an equal to the Aether-King's Eternal Master.

Rising from the floor of her meditation chamber, the Lord-Advisor summoned the leaders of the Seekers and prepared once more for war. The Lodestone must be found and integrated into the Blessed Whole before it began to rot, and that meant meeting the foe in open battle...

Fractured Lord of the Wending Way

Navigator Kresh awoke in agony.

The Iron band clamped around his forehead was the most painful, blinding his Warp-Sight and effectively rendering him defenceless.

Lesser agonies also registered along his body; the aftereffects of the ritual scarification he had only been semi-conscious for. His body was now traced with bloody whorls and patterns he did not recognise and that pushed new pain into his head if he stared at them too long.

Iron spikes hammered into his wrists and ankles flooded his pain receptors like a river during Corhal's wet season threatening to burst its banks; each spike attached to chains that bound him to the floor before an inert monstrosity of flesh and crystalline shards that stretched into the shadows of the dark chamber.

"You are fortunate indeed, Navigator Kresh of house Trysst" a voice croaked from behind him, "for you are the Lodestone which will mend our Fractured Lord."

A maimed yet barely corporeal form limped into Kresh's field of view, leaning heavily on her staff as though suffering from fresh and unfamiliar injuries. The foul spoor of the Immaterium radiated from her in overwhelming waves, forcing Kresh to quietly recite the Meditations of Serenity his House practised during severe Warp Storms.

"I am the Lord-Advisor to the Aether-King, and He has seen fit to both bless and curse me on this most glorious day.

"I have been scarred by the efforts of those who would deny the Primordial Benefactor's claims upon humanity, yet I have also been given you, Master Kresh.

"You are our conduit; the last part of this grand puzzle," The Lord-Advisor stretched her arms wide, hinting at the massive size of the flesh-golem behind her.

"All we need is a gateway to the Great Ocean, and we could not have asked for a better one than you."

Leaning in, the disfigured creature lifted the iron band from Kresh's forehead, and almost by instinct his Third Eye opened.

What he beheld was a vast and impossibly ancient intellect stirring in the depths of the Shards before him.

To his credit, Navigator Kresh of House Trysst did not falter. He met this malign intelligence with brave defiance in fulfilment of his oaths to his House and to his Emperor.

Before the might of the Aether-King, however, he was a guttering candle in a hurricane.

Dark energies poured from the three Shards, using the Navigator to re-forge connections to the Warp severed when the Elder were still young, simultaneously using the Navigator to become one coherent mind again.

Kresh's mind was destroyed almost instantly, mercifully sparing him the pain of his levitating body bloodily tearing free of its iron shackles; and shielding him from the terror of his body's rapid mutation into the final offering of Flesh to cover the Shards of the Aether-King and bury them deep within the chest of its new corporeal body.

The Lord-Advisor collapsed to her knees in rapt adoration for the Dark Glory that took shape before her.

Giant wings sprouted from the Flesh, accompanied by giant Talons and a whip-like tail. Massive jaws that could swallow her whole sprouted rows of teeth like mining picks.

Flesh darkened and turned pitch black, lit only by the energised ochre magicks that flowed just beneath the surface like blood.

The Immaterium raged around this new form like a Tempest, wracking the Seekers of the Sundered God with newer and more extreme mutations; re-forming the very stones of the Meditation Chamber into a riot of colours; and calling forth a host of chittering Daemons to do its bidding.

With a final triumphant roar, the Aether-King; Fractured Lord of the Wending Way and Vizier of the Ninefold Path took to the skies, revelling in the freedom it had for too long been denied.

Eventually coming to rest in orbit between two Bulk Landers whose crews had slaughtered each other in a bout of mass-paranoia, the Aether-King cast his mind out into space, surveying the Galaxy he had once terrorised, and plotting the first steps for his glorious return...

The Fractured Whole

Kel'Sla'Teer reclined lazily in one corner of the former meditation chamber.

She was Pyrian, and therefore a new addition to the Lord-Advisor's cabal, but she had already set about making a name for herself.

One of the few sorcerers to survive the Aether-King's rebirth, Sla'Teer wasted no time ingratiating herself to the Fractured Lord's many servants, gaining powers and gifts the Lord-Advisor had worked for decades to earn.

"Sla'Teer" the Lord-Advisor began, feeling her usual scowl form across her face, "Why are you not meditating with the others? Why do I find you here, in MY sanctum?"

"Forgive me, Lord-Advisor, but I was under the impression this chamber was HIS now." The wry smirk smeared across her avian features suggested she was anything but sorry. "And I must answer our Master's call. I can't help it if He summons His favoured consort during meditation hours."

The Lord-Advisor's form began to phase into the Immaterium as her anger rose and psychic energy coalesced around her. At the edges of perception, vicious forms waited, far more warlike and bellicose than the Aether-King's usual servants, promising death and destruction to all.

"You are an insect! We march under the gaze of our God only because I made it so! Where were YOU when the Shards first awoke? Where were YOU while we gathered the Flesh our Lord would inhabit? Where were YOU when we drove our enemies before us in holy war?"

"How DARE you talk to me like this?!?" Sla'Teer's voice became shrill with indignation. "I am Hierophant-Consort to the Aether-King, and you will-"

++ENOUGH, BOTH OF YOU++ The Voice thundered into both women's skulls, making the Lord-Advisor flinch and forcing Sla'Teer to cry out in pain.

++DO NOT FORGET WHO YOU SERVE, MORTALS. YOU ARE ON THE CUSP OF GREATNESS, AND YOU WOULD WASTE THAT BICKERING?

++BEGONE, BOTH OF YOU. OUR ENEMIES MASS FOR AN ATTACK AND YOU WILL BE NEEDED TO REPEL THEM++

As the Aether-King's presence receded from their minds, both sorceresses shot each other a wary glance.

Their master had ordered them to cooperate, but the battlefield could be an unpredictable place, and many would-be heroes had become valiant martyrs due to a single unfortunate stray shot.

Klaxons sounded throughout the compound, and both women raced to their chosen bodyguards, each eager to help the other find glory through noble sacrifice on the battlefield...

The Aether-Queen

The Aether-King roared a challenge to the posthumans arrayed against Him.

His horde of faithful warriors had taken to the field to drive the Great Pretender's forces back into the empty void at the system's edge. It did not matter to them that they fought the Pretender's first cohort of genetic aberrations, or that no fewer than 18 heavy weapons were arrayed against them in their small strike force; they would carry the day - after all, they had a god on their side!

Truly unleashed for the first time since his resurrection, the Aether-King surged forwards, an avatar of dark glory and the unstoppable tides of the Great Ocean.

Opening His mind to the ebb and flow of the Warp, the Aether-King prepared to sear the very souls from these genetic accidents.

Suddenly - disaster! Where once the Great Ocean had been calm and malleable to the Aether-King's will, He found it turbulent with the thoughts and emotions of species past and present.

Too late, the Aether-King attempted to close his mind to the storm He had unwittingly invited within Himself. With a decompressive pop, He disappeared into the Great ocean, leaving His Seekers to battle on alone.

While the Seekers charged headlong into the First Legion's gunline, the Aether-King wandered the pathways of the Warp. So much had changed in the millennia of His absence!

Where once the ancient Eldar's stellar empire had stood proud, now there was a Presence in the Warp. It was foul. Perverse. The culmination of all the Eldar's dark and shameful excesses.

"Good..." the Aether-King mused, "I always hated those arrogant creatures. I am glad to see them gone."

"Oh, they aren't gone yet, my Lord. Not completely. But they are a broken shadow of their former selves. Much like you." The sinuous voice came from the deep currents of this new area of the Warp, and eventually the Speaker emerged.

"Greetings to you, Aether-King - Fractured Lord of the Wending Way! I bid you welcome to the realm of my Master Slaanesh. It may take some time for you to adjust, but what is time to immortals such as us?"

The Speaker was distinctly feminine, closely mirroring the shape and proportions of a human woman, but at a much larger scale. She had adorned herself with a delicate crown, and wielded a greatsword as tall as one of Khorne's Warhounds is long. Lithe, feminine figures danced in and out of perception, beguiling to any mortal but ignored wholly by the Aether-King.

"Who are you, and what is this place?" The Aether-King's confusion was plain, and the Speaker seemed to savour it like fine wine. "This realm was once mine, and now I find it infested with your kind."

"Ah... Confusion. It has been so long since an immortal has been confused by us, I had forgotten the exquisite taste. But you are correct. Your Wending Way threads through here, and I knew that one day you would return and try to draw from it. I am the Aether-Queen; once Speaker for She-Who-Thirsts, and I have ruled as Regent of the Wending Way in your absence. I have tracked down yet more of your Soul-Shards, and know where in the material plane they may be found. I have amassed followers, both mortal and not, and expanded the Wending Way into areas previously closed to it; to you."

With a flourish, this pretender to the Aether-King's throne drew Her sword and presented it to Him, hilt-first. "But with your return, my Lord, I relinquish the throne to you once more. My servants and I await your command, oh great and powerful Aether-King."

The Aether-King took the sword warily. "Why now? Why take me from the battlefield and risk the lives of my mortal instruments?"

"The Wending Way threads through events past and present as you well know, my Lord. I knew your followers would be fine without you here and now, but they will have need of you again very soon, so I shall now be brief. I propose an alliance. Let us cement the bonds our regencies have created. Become my King, as I shall become your Queen, and we shall expand the Wending Way together - bound by purpose and desire for eternity!

"Besides, someone must manage your affairs here while you occupy yourself on the mortal plane, and I will need someone to act for me in realspace. Do we have an accord, my King?"

The Aether-King pondered briefly, scrying the threads of the future, which remained infuriatingly obscured. Eventually, He presented the sword back to the Aether-Queen. "We have a compact - for now. Now, send me back. The Great Ocean grows turbulent around Soranus, and I have foreseen the necessity of my presence..."

Alone Again

The Lord-Advisor was nauseous. Realspace and the Great Ocean superimposed themselves on her vision, as though she were being physically pulled from one to the other.

Kel'Sla'Teer was convulsing on the floor, a thin, watery line of vomit drooling from her beak as she tried to keep from swallowing her tongue using only her psychic gifts.

The Aether-King, His court, and all the servants sent by the Aether-Queen has vanished into the Great Ocean. Whatever ritual these Bearers of the Word were conducting drew heavily from the Wending Way, and both members of the Aether-Monarchy had withdrawn to protect their ethereal assets from this unwitting assault.

Now part-Neverborn herself, it was all the Lord Advisor could do to retain her grip on her Fleshform - to loose hold now would mean certain death - she was not strong enough to brave the Great Ocean as pure Thoughtform yet.

Eventually the maelstrom receded, whatever portal the mortals had spawned now stable enough to not disrupt every Psyker in the system.

++I WILL NOT RETURN++

The Aether-King's voice thundered into the two sorceresses' mind with grim finality, shocking both women to tears.

++MY PRESENCE IS REQUIRED HERE, AND I CANNOT DISTRACT MYSELF FROM MY NEW TASKS.

++YOU WILL CONTINUE TO ACT AS MY HERALDS - MY MOUTHPIECES IN THE MORTAL REALM. MORE SHARDS OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS ENTER THIS SYSTEM, BORNE AS WARDS BY THOSE WHO FANCY THEMSELVES THE GREAT PRETENDER'S ELITE.

++NOW GO, RETRIEVE THESE SHARDS, AND BRING THEM HERE. I CANNOT RETURN TO YOU NOW, BUT LOOK TO MY COMING AT THE DAWN OF THE EIGHTH++

With that final cryptic prophecy, the Aether-King's presence removed itself from their minds.

The Lord-Advisor knelt, dumbfounded by this crushing revelation from her Sundered God.

Sla'Teer was quick to return to her feet and scurry away - Without her Daemonette patrons to protect her, she would now be vulnerable to the Lord-Advisor's anger.

Forgetting her for the moment and establishing a psychic link with the Prima-General, the Lord-Advisor began issuing orders.

War machines which had been stowed at the blessed Neverborn's arrival would have to be put to holy use once more.

Establishing further links, she began to organise these machines' Reconsecration to the Aether-King. Much would need to be done before they were fit for war again.

Once again, the task of directing the Seekers fell fully to her. The Lord-Advisor did not shrink from her new duties, but assumed them once more with the easy confidence of a zealot assured of her ultimate and inevitable victory...

Combat Reports for I-ARMY-2031

Campaigns

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Battles

Battle Name Date Planet Battle Outcome Battle Summary
The Second Golloch War~The Taking of Sevastopol Station 249.009.M31 Sevastopol Station Traitor

April - Covenant of Fire

Sevastopol Station is the collective name for a system of docking stations, defense platforms, and weapon batteries defending Mandeville point TK-421, better known as ..→