Abrubhor The Corrupted's Story

Vrosh nodded in agreement with the Fallen magos, it was after all built by the dark mechanicum in the first place, he turned to face the lord of the word bearers and then back to the weapon “a great deal can be wrought by this weapon, funny how one of his greatest weapons fell so easily.” Vrosh spoke the one word with venom. Before any more words could be shared, the sound of stone shifting around the three of them began to grow, and from the darkness at the far edge of the hall several doorways began to draw open and from the half open doorways the clamouring half dead plague infested guardians began to swarm. “do not let them harm you, unless you want to become one of them!”

Vrosh had killed countless amounts of these plague carriers since he first set foot on the planet, he charged straight into the ranks, combat knife and power axe cleaving the weakened flesh bags to Ribbons a brown mucus like ichor bursting from each kill, thankfully the environmentally sealed power armour kept Vrosh from getting infected by whatever infection or diseases these things contained, but Vrosh wasn’t the only one these beasts were targeting, making their charges towards the Fallen magos and the word bearer with the same intent. To defend the weapon piece.

Sil's eyes focused upon the new threats facing the group and reacted just as swiftly. Her servo skull darted to her shoulder as she concentrated her psychic power forward. Pulling from the Warp itself, she growed and hummed with psychic energy and formed a dome around herself and the device to shield it from harm. The carriers would charge and find themselves slammed against a solid mass of psychic energy. The Magos concentrated on this field while she spoke aloud.

"Teleporterum...return me to the Innovation's Results. I have one piece of equipment for transport"

Sil placed her hand on the device and called out towards Vrosh and Arnok while maintaining her barrier.

"Contact my ship when you escape and I will teleport you both away from the planet. This place should be burnt down to ash if the infestation of plague is this prevelant. I will see you both aboard the Innovation's Result"

With this proclamation made, Sil vanished with the battery component in tow back to her ship in a flash of light. At least the device was safe...and thats all that mattered to Sil.

When she was aboard she called for her Skittarii to abandon the planet and return to the Ark. They had work to preform and Sil was already calling for aids to bring the device to her personal laboratory. This machine was reeling...and Sil was going to make it whole.

"Like these creatures can seek to convert my body! I will tear them asunder with the arms of Chaos! Lord Nurgle's gifts are greater than these corpses!" Arnok laughed as he slowly marched forward in his suit of Terminator armor and with both Lightning Claws by his side, the eight razor-sharp Adamantium blades which exuded a red haze, corrupted by the powers of the Warp. He swung at the walking corpses easily shredding their bodies like paper.

The armor he wore, this suit of Tactical Drednaught Armor easily protected him against the rotten blood that splashed on his armor. "Strike at me and forfeit your existence! He roared as he cleaved at the undead guardians, easily tearing them apart with his lightning claws.

Of course the Magnos had retreated back to her ship. They had the Armageddon Gun now...It was only a matter of time until it was repaired. But for now, he spilled blood for the blood gods name so thus the undead that walk can rot for Nurgle.

Vrosh didn’t even acknowledge the fallen magos’ calls, leaving her to protect the prize, he was known to the Crimson slaughter as ‘the cleaver’, for a reason, and he’d began his killing spree anew, power axe cleaving through the putrid flesh bags with ease, ramming his combat knife into them and ripping it out in a new direction, the more he killed the more frenzied he’d become, laughing like a madman.

Soon enough, between the two chaos lords, the tide of the undeath would slow, until a much bigger beast pulled itself free of one of the tunnels, standing nearly 10ft tall the massive beast watched as the two lords finished off the last of the smaller ones, it charged and with bestial intelligence swung its large foot and booted Vrosh from his feet and across the hall over the plinth where the prize had once been and through the stone wall behind it, nearly 60ft in distance. The beast’s attention turning to Arnok, the monster giving a laugh as it readied to fight the heavier armoured foe.

High above in the clouds, Sil now prepared. The two had been left below, her Skittarii were in the midst of retreating back into orbit, sans a few Skittarii. They died so that the rest could live...and they had a wonderful prize from down below. Though she had promised to give it to Vrosh upon it's completion, she wouldn't let the chance to gain this valuable, nearly priceless and unique artefact go without gleaming whatever could be gleamed from it.

Bringing it to her personal laboratory, she had it teleported to her work space. At once, several heretek rushed into the room and began to run their own diagnostics of the device while the Magos removed her armor. This work would require precision, patience and a fine hand. This couldnt be done in such a robust suit of armor such as this. After removing her armor, she took her combi-tool from her belt and her utility mechadendrite sprang to life with various tools.

Hereteks began to chant prayers to the machine spirit inside as Sil moved herself to get whatever she could reach with her probes and mechadendrite. It would take a great deal of time...maybe even days to complete. But it would soon be ready to wielded once again in the service of Chaos.

Arnok laughed as the creatures fell with ease, with their skill they might as well be fighting unarmed children. They could not even fight back. Regardless their blood shall spill despite how pitiful this actual fight was. However a nearly ten foot tall creature had pulled itself from one of the tunnels and had proceeded to boot Vrosh 60 feet away and through a stone wall.

"There! That seems to be a worthy challenge!" Arnok roared as he began to use the power of the warp and conjured five orbs of fire around him. "Laugh as you will beast! I shall roast your body in warpfire! Now feel the power of Chaos beast and kneel before us!" And with a thought, the orbs as big as small boulders came rushing to the beast. He did not need only his claws to rip in to shreds, he would enjoy killing it slowly.

The Beast recoiled from the warp flames as they began roasting through his flesh however the hide of the beast seemed to harden and heal regenerating and becoming immune to the flames, it charged forward raising one of its meaty fists, now covered in hardened plates of chitin, and swinging to bring it crashing down towards Arnok. if the beast was to strike, the force of the blow would launch Arnok from his feet and only the protective barrier of the terminator armour's secondary defences would keep the blow from seriously wounding the chaos lord.

Vrosh pushed the stone work that had fallen on him aside and rolled over to get to his feet, the power pack damaged but the nature of the daemonically possessed armour it would regenerate and so would Vrosh’s broken rib plate, he turned his head and grabbed the closest weapon looking item pulling it from the rubble, he’d raise up a large imposing weapon, a daemon maul, the head of the giant mace crackling with energies and having eight closely packed bladed peaks upon it, he’d grab his power axe from the floor mag latch it to his waist and his knife had escaped his grip when he was launched, he quickly began running back toward the fight, the bigger deadlier weapon in hand.

Arnold laughed as the creature slammed its fist into him, almost severely wounding him but his unholy terminator armor withstood the blow, however he would fly a few feet back. "Good, all the more enjoyable after we drag your soul into the warp beast!" He roared as the armor began to fix itself. Tainted with the warp, and with the soul of a demon chained inside it, the armor reapired and mended itself as he marched forward brandishing his pair of lightning claws.

He would take great glee in ripping the beast to pieces. Like a bolt of lightning, Armor would dissapeared and suddenly re-appear behind the demon, and with both claws slashed at its legs tearing them to pieces with ease. It mattered not what the creature was wearing, in his grasp all who got close with these unholy arms were all prey.

With the beast wounded from behind, it had to take a knee, Vrosh rushed up seizing the chance to strike it in the head with the daemon maul, an explosion of force and energies ripped into the beast’s flesh and bone, popping its eyeballs and launching it from Vrosh’s own titanic strength, the head of the two handed war mace cutting into the stone he glanced to Arnok and hefted the daemon maul throwing it to the terminator clad chaos lord.

“i’ll distract it this time and you strike it with the maul” Vrosh charged the standing beast and scooped his knife off the floor and quickly drew his axe, burying the power axe into its shoulder and then with the knife stabbing it in the throat, the damage brought about by the maul didn’t seem to heal upon the beast.

"I will be sure to crush its skull with this then!" Arnok spoke as he lumbered forward before suddenly vanishing and appearing on top on the beast like a bolt of lightning. With the Daemon Maul in both hands, he swing the mace down with his own unholy strength paired with the strength of his unholy Terminator armor. The Mace would probaly pulverize the beats skull to dust, probaly sink even further into the beast spilling blood and matter onto the floor.

Vrosh pulled his weapons free, unpowering the axe and mag clamping it to his belt sheathing the knife and giving a low chuckle “close enough to a good fight” he glanced about before looking back to the entryway far above them, he then begins walking towards the staircase, leaving the temple, the prize already theirs “our goal is gained, no need to further stay on this wretched planet”

The crimson slaughter chaos lord soon arrived at the entrance looking across his minions “ALL CRIMSON SLAUGHTER FORCES RETURN TO THE FLEET!, WE HAVE OUR PRIZE! Vrosh looked to the sorcerer and recognised the runes upon the psyker’s armour, soon enough the bloody reaper’s teleportarium would power up and return Vrosh to his ship, the thunderhawks and dropcraft would ferry back the crimson slaughter back to one of the six original crimson slaughter ships in orbit.

"Sorcecer, prepare our exit off of this planet. We have what we came for, along with the word of Chaos being spread in this sector." Arnok spoke as he began to march away from the beasts mangled body.

On the surface, Arnok gathered his forces and Thunderhawk transports were already on course back for the Scourging Inferno and other ships. Their work was now done here, and they have their weapons in hand once again. Today was the start of bloodshed.

Adsiltia was still listening to the comms chatter in the micro bead in her ear, nodding a few times to herself while she continued on the repairs on the device. Her mind was racing with plans, ideas and seemed to be debating a few things to herself while she responded to Vrosh and Arnok through the Micro Bead.

"Indeed we have our prize. However, this item so rather badly damaged. It will take a few weeks to fix. I will find you when it is ready. For now, we take our leave. Adsiltia out"

The Communications line cut off and Sil began to set her orders for her Fleet to leave. The Skittarii from the planet had made it back to her ship and were moving themselves into quarantine just to ensure they did not have any sort of diseases on their persons. With her orders given, and their cargo in tow, the ships of her fleet began to turn away from the Armada and right proper warp jumped out of the system and disappeared from sight.

Sil had plans to see to...the Imperium should be met and brought into the fold.

"Okay. We should be safe from orks on the surface here...not like they were aiming much anyway. I can't really see worth shit."

The roller skater had an answer for that. "Go, Furfrou! Use Flash!" The fancy looking poodle lit up brightly. "There's an official tour course, but we're well outside it."

"I'd ask why you have a glowing dog, but nothing that's happened today makes any sense. Might as well just go with it," Terrance rationalized. "We have to somehow get survivors down here without the orks chasing us down...wait, what the hell is THAT?"

Deep down, Terrance really wished he was back on Terra, within the safety of his impregnable ANDEE suit.

"Hmmmm?...I never expected anyone to come down in this tomb...I guess those greenskins are making a mess up on the surface..." The armored figure looked over at Terrance. "To think that after weeks of searching this tomb...someone happens to drop in...regardless I almost have found what I seek here...I so happen to be very busy and thus have no time for interlopers...By all means use this place as refuge despite the halls littered with the dead and the damned..." The figure soon turned around.

"Oh...And don't follow me...I will be sure to make sure to sunder your existence if you prove to be a nuisance...Now, happy greenskin killing. This battle is sure to get much...more orkish than I like...I am not going to be crushed under random ordinance..." The figure laughed darkly to himself as he began to vanish in the darkness.

"Okay, who the hell is THAT? And why does he know what's happening?"

"Okay, got me that time, Terran, but poor Cuddles is all spooked. There's ghosts said to roam about here, and she can't do much to them if one were to attack. Perhaps they'll be sympathetic to us seeking shelter...perhaps they'll attack and try to make us join them for intruding. Hard to say, we Ruulans don't talk much about this place."

"But you learned about it in school, right? In which case, it's time for that history lesson. I need to know everything you do about what's down here, that creepy dude notwithstanding."

"This place...it's an ancient mass grave. Three millennia ago, the king of this region fought and conquered other lands. Of course, the cost of conquest is hundreds of dead soldiers, Pokemon and human alike. They were all hastily buried here. No one knows for sure just how far these tunnels go, but trespassing past the official tour route is illegal due to being a matter of public safety. Not only can someone get lost down here, but there's also the ghosts I mentioned earlier. This place is truly the empire de la mort."

"Ironic then that we're using it as a shelter for the living, then. Come on. Let's get to the surface and try to get some more people down here. You got some sort of superhero jumping about and cleaning up the city. Gotta make sure we don't get shot in the back when we go to help our friends out in the..."

Terrance was interrupted by the northern gates SLAMMING shut. "Great! The battle knocked out the power plant! Now everywhere down here's gonna be pitch black! And it's gonna be night soon!" The Ruulan was understandably worried about this turn of events.

"Shut up, skater boy, you need to calm down. Nobody ever won a battle by being scared. Now's the time we put our thinking caps on. What's our next move?"

With the sound of the power going out and the lights going out, the Sorcerer sighed. "How troublesome...But it does not impede me one bit...that artifact...that orb to give a creature much more power...I wonder how it will work when we have it in our hands..." The man chuckled as he proceeded into the off limits section without hesitation. Ghosts, spirits...Simply child splay to deal with...

With the orks now here, his actions here would easily go unnoticed...not as planned but he could use this to his advantage...Regardless if the artifact was not here there must be something that could be brought back.

The Space Marine soon lost his resolve as she had evidence against him. He tried to remain calm however it was clear something was wrong. "So what? Evidence is always forged...I am---" The man tried to speak but lost his voice.

"So my puppet has been caught? A pity...I thought there would be more use from you...But looks like my eyes in your brothers chapter is now going to die...Shame...you had some use left...

"But as expected of a useless puppet...I can't have you spilling out my ultimate plan...Do not fear, your soul shall be damned to my will now 'captain'...But you have played your part well my puppet..."

"N-No! I-I did what was asked!...NO!..." The man suddenly screamed.

"farewell 'hero'...Oh I wonder how they will react to...This!"

Suddenly the Captain was lifted into the airs as chains erupted from his body. Chaotic taint poured from his body as the man screamed in agony. "Ah!...Greetings 'brothers' and the so called 'saint'...It looks like you found my puppet...A shame I suppose but his time and use has run out...But...I bid you all...farewell for now..." The voice laughed as the soul of the Captain was dragged away and his body continued to have chains explode from his body.

As Plinth flung downward through unfolded space gravity seemed to have a mind of its own. She directed at low angles across walls falling down corridors now strongly aligned with the greater gravity of the world in which they resided. The outer layer was dying, she could feel that clearly, and while it wasn't a thinking creature of its own she could detect the chaos energy in its flesh corrupting local expressions of dimensions. A sudden appearance of a thorny arch in her path among the Almanac was evidence of that and she struck it hard with her shoulder on the way down. Saving the men behind her shouldering the obstacle out of their local reference frame. The small distortion of air seen that shattered the armor upon her skin the shoulder underneath now dislocated.

Anyone in this decaying space could hear the faint howl of an ill wind like cracks through a wall. Gouts of dark grey ink leak through cracks in reality reducing the walls or energy it touched to an empty bleakness. Just a faint shipper of ectoplasm as it shattered the space and the plane bled to fill the void. As the outer layer's fuse burnt the black storm would flow ever closer. They had to be out of the hole and well clear of the impact site and hope the tide of Black Storm retreated back behind the bulwark after it consumed what it had potential to. A vast planar storm the enemy of all things that exist attracted to a particular point in space-time. It was possible for psi-forges to become tainted working upon foreign matter so they were built with a certain fragility. They could not control the storm though they'd made inroads to keeping the matter out. Making the plane too weak to keep out the threat was certainly more reachable a task and one hard to stop. Less a self-destructive fire than gleaming attractant of a certain bleak end. Even Mykrul's Vein did not control the storm so much as know how to stay out of its way. What the confluence of compressed void touched it made no more. Only the trundling Necropolis held the secrets to hold the storm at bay and it protected its secrets well.

Plinth landed hard on the writhing tile suffering taint from the chaos sorcerer shattering it in a crater while grabbing her shoulder. The bonded psimatter in the walls turned corrupt now that Jinhai had abandoned nodes within it to construct the Zhou. The outer layer had long since turned discordant the pattern burning itself alive in a slowly igniting signal flare. The framework of this core layer was pulling itself from the Almanac and Myrkul itself rejected the tainted portions like cutting out diseased flesh abandoning the whole pages entirely. Then fire erupted from chaos marines set on exterminating them even here. Plinth raised her Censer calling forth a distortion of purpose. Informing the framework of a new shape to take though perturbed by the sigils calling forth the warp. It wasn't on her side anymore but the psimass wasn't on the sorcerer's yet either.

The small long room took on a mind-tortured ceiling but plain pale walls slowly folding farther away. As if it were one huge product floor the ceiling some inexpressible distance above. With the loss of concordance from corruption the entire core layer began to unpack. Spikes and thorny walls expressed from the floor seeking unwary manflesh and tainted alike, the hunger of the warp large in the psimass's remaining concordance, though at present they did little but serve as slowly metastasizing thorny cover.

However it did reveal the sorcerer as he entered the core layer from the tortured above. The walls fell away slowly revealing all but for the cancerous spiny growths forming in this underlayer. One sharp tendril near him shuddered with a pale chasm in its base then exploded in a riot of dark grey ink scattering a dusty dried ectoplasm everywhere. If only for now the plane forced the storm to return at bay.

At its center as the fringes of this huge room revealed themselves was a dragon frozen in time. As if frozen in time roaring a gleaming humanoid-shaped heart beat at its core as faceless hooded Jinhai hurried emptying a crate of huge flat gems by fusing them between hollows of the three story tall creature. The single Jinhai occupying the hollow merely holding the statue together so others could work unfit to control the creature itself. Some stopped loading as green rays of disintegration lanced out into the distance toward Abruhor. A spike leapt to intercede with one as the warp did its corrupting influence. It then promptly exploded into green fire then ectoplasm as the whole vicinity shook and collapsed out of reality with the touch of the black storm.

Plinth looked up with horror then back to the leader of the squad from behind cover desperately trying to stab her shoulder. Her voice was deeply worried, "They're not done loading but we need to get out what we can! But Ex Libris's psi-seed is not here his body is not animate! I need a humankind to get into the Zhou for a one-way trip to dragonhood or a hole blasted in the ceiling to tow the Zhou out! The damned demonkind's crater shouldn't be too far from the Zhou's location in the core layer! The whole area should be clearer to detect at least until the taint eats the inner layer!"

"I might be pretty but I'm not humankind!", She tried to smile though winced at the pain from her shoulder. Spall of stone pelting her helmet from oncoming bullets with hard pings. Her head shook violently as one well-aimed bullet blew off a horn.

The influence of chaos all about them, the IMPs had already readied their weapons by the time they reached the Zhou. They didn't even hesitate when the sorcerer appeared, two of them stepped forward and hit their knees before unloading a suppressing fire at the sorcerer and his guards. A third Planted a repulser rod in the ground behind the suppression team, and Kath turned to Mada as she spoke.

"Understood, Jackson your lead now." He said, then turned and, engaging his suits overdrive, full on sprinted towards the "Zhou". In a matter of heartbeats he had reached the creature and jumped clear up and into it's chest, one fist reared ready to punch his way inside of it.

Jackson, the IMP who had planted the repulsar, didn't give pause as his commanding officer took off running. He pulled his own rifle and joined in the suppression of the sorcerer while relaying coordinates to the surface team, and from them to the Glaive. "Oh Zero zero four G nine Echo Bomber Bomber, Spacial distortion at eighteen fourtythree percent, variant of sixty five. Hostiles engaged, I repeat hostiles engaged, Daveth Jackson assuming command, I need reinforcements warped in to this location."

The Bridge

Commands streamed forth from the monitors as Jackson relayed his instructions. Ean was busy coordinating the extraction for the IMPs on the surface, and Emily was prepping for immediate Orbit breach once the relic was aboard. It fell then to Akio to coordinate the reinforcement of the Retrieval team and get them back aboard with the target.