Prologue
Jaenera Targaryen
Well-known member
Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40,000 it is owned by Games Workshop.
Location: Craftworld Biel-Tan, Scrying Chamber of Farseer Eleria
Date: 240.994.M41 (Imperial Standard Calendar)
Clad in white and green robes, a Farseer floated in the air while sitting cross-legged above a reflecting pool. Runes carved into its wraithbone walls and inlaid with psychically-attuned crystal gleamed like stars through the pure water of the pool, sending glimmers of light flashing into the scrying chamber above. More runes floated around the Farseer, psychically-attuned gems carved into forms that reinforced a single metaphysical concept each, orbiting her body at gentle speeds.
More crystal shone through the chamber's wraithbone walls, running like veins and arteries across the material from when the craftworld's bonesingers had sung them into existence so many cycles ago. Psychic energy welled through the crystal from the Infinity Circuit, seeping into the surrounding wraithbone and thence into the chamber's interior, forming a background field of psychic power to anchor and protect the Farseer within.
Eleria raised a hand, and almost like a discordant note, a series of liquid crystal wafers slid into the air, alien artifices joining the psychic dance of the runes around the Farseer. Another gesture from her hand, and the discord ended, its notes joining the harmony and indeed, adding new context to the dance and song alike, seventy-eight wafers engraved with imagery and names invoking the metaphysics each wafer had been attuned to.
Alien to her people, but surprisingly elegant and efficient artifices for all that. They followed a single regular orbit around the Farseer, one that contrasted sharply with the eccentric and individual orbits of the runes, but somehow in harmony with both her and her people's own artifices.
Eleria raised her other hand, an active spirit stone faintly glowing in its palm. So faint it could not be perceived, almost as if the spirit stone was not even occupied at all, but it was, no matter how spark-like the soul within was compared to what the stone was originally meant to hold.
At the gesture, three cards gently slid down to hang motionless in the air before her. The Lost Child, inverted. The Sword, inverted. And finally, the Great Eye.
Eleria closed her eyes, and spoke the name of a world. "Balor." she vocalized the alien name while simultaneously closing her physical eyes, and opening her mental ones, visions erupting before her, reflected into her mind from the depths of the Sea of Dreams.
*a Human world on the edge of their domain, swayed away by honeyed words and paltry gifts*
*Human vessels lumber through the void towards the world with fell intent*
*Human soldiers fought and died by the millions, falling under tides of plasma unleashed by confident and overreaching children*
*victory as the Human fleet and armies melt away back through the Sea of Dreams, the little children of T'au celebrating over the bloody battlefield…victory…and defeat…*
*a child writhes on a bed, her skin sloughing off and her flesh running like wax as dumbfounded healers look on*
*mad imagination and twisted dreams flood out of a wound in reality to consume the entire world*
Eleria slammed shut the doors of her soul, weaving crosscurrents of thought to distance herself back to safety. Then, centering herself, she reopened her mind's eyes, while letting the stone in her hand fall, until it hung suspended from a golden chain attached to a golden ring on her finger. It revolved slowly through the air, two more wafers breaking their orbit to hang motionless before her. Separate from the previous reading, but adding new context to the scrying ritual, shaping its metaphysics anew.
The Lovers.
The Lex Imperialis.
New visions flashed through Eleria's mind, as two more wafers slid down and overlaid itself over the inverted Sword and the Great Eye. A new fate was envisioned, replacing what should have been, the Farseer now tracing back the paths that led to her desired outcome.
*the Tau are broken, their bodies bearing the telltale signs of Eldar weaponry, crushed beneath the threads of Imperial war machines*
*a fleet of Eldar ships pass through a Webway Gate, and emerge triumphant in the starry void above Biel-Tan*
*stern-eyed men in black armor escort terrified psykers to a waiting ship, misery and the jangling of chains echoing through the Sea of Dreams*
*a young woman screams as her eyes burn away at the slightest touch of the Anathema to Chaos, the sound of the chains of fate snapping echoing*
Eleria opened her eyes, ending the ritual as she unfolded from her position, gently hovering down to land with a soft ripple on the reflecting pool. Excess psychic energy bled back into the crystal veins on the walls, the wafers of the Emperor's Tarot flying back to stack themselves on her free hand.
All but the wafers that still hung in the air, Eleria gazing at the changes to her original reading. The Lost Child, still inverted. The Magus overlaid the inverted Sword. And the Emperor overlaid the Great Eye.
Calling forth the runes, Eleria narrowed her eyes, as she saw the sigils of the Hawk, the Crone, the Outcast, and the Bloody-Handed God, all surrounding the Petitioner.
Then, dismissing the runes, she gathered herself up, and floated over to solid ground. Pausing as she regained her footing, she held up the stone in her other hand, its golden chain winding over her fingers. Eleria regarded it with an unreadable expression on her face, before bringing it close to her lips.
"Soon, my love." she whispered. "Very soon now…fire for blood, blood for fire, in the name of Khaine, and the Golden King."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Location: Mandeville Point, Balor Star System, the Eastern Fringe, Ultima Segmentum
Date: 275.994.M41 (Imperial Standard Calendar)
Reality tore in blazing kaleidoscopes of millions of shades of colors that exist and cannot exist in reality. That in itself was not unusual, with dozens of ships coming and going through the Mandeville Point every single day. Most of them were Tau vessels, but their ether drives never translated as violently as this, skimming only on the surface of the Warp as they did.
No, this could only be achieved by Warp Drive, and those were few and far in the Balor Star System, ever since the world had shaken off the yoke of the Adeptus Terra to embrace the new future promised by the Greater Good. Only free traders and the odd if not rare Rogue Trader possessed such technology here, and only when they passed through Balor.
But what emerged from the Warp was no Rogue or free trader.
A mile-long ship pulled itself free of the miasma of the Warp, its Gellar Field trailing streams of imaginary matter that quickly faded into the void. Smaller ships followed in its wake, each nearly a kilometer long. All their hulls featured ornate iconography with various themes, from two-headed eagles, wings, talons, and beaks, to grinning Human skulls and angels and saints in full armor brandishing weapons in defiant challenge and condemnation.
Then, as the alarms began to sound, the Imperial Dauntless Class Light Cruiser fired its prow lance at the Tau Orbital overseeing the Mandeville Point. Moments later, and the light cruiser's port broadsides fired, macrocannon shells flying through the void at relativistic speeds.
By its very nature, even without being fired first, a lance would always strike first. The beam of focused energy slammed into the orbital's shields, and expended itself in a great surge of diffused energy. This came at a cost, however, as the shields themselves were expended, Tau systems struggling to bring them back up. Then the macrocannon shells struck, some deforming and spinning away into the void on impact with the orbital's armor. Others struck true, tearing through armor and into the station's innards.
Gouts of fire erupted into space from leaking atmosphere ignited by shattered power conduits. Bodies both living and dead tumbled into space, the former twitching and spasming as they asphyxiated in the void. The orbital was dead, a shattered hulk drifting away into deep space, leaving a trail of debris and dead bodies in its wake.
The escort squadron that the light cruiser was leading didn't stay idle either as it destroyed the orbital. The Sword Class Frigates turned their attentions to the various Tau vessels nearby, most of which were scrambling to flee, while others broadcast their civilian status and pleaded for peace.
It didn't matter to the Imperial Navy. Laser batteries lashed out with unyielding fury, turning the Tau vessels into burning and drifting scrap.
"Mandeville Point is clear." the Astropathic communication lanced through the Warp, to where the rest of the liberation fleet was waiting. "Proceed to the next phase."
"Acknowledged." the reply came, and once again, reality tore open. Dozens of Warp rifts were opened up by Imperial Warp Drives, massive vessels sliding back into reality and shaking off the madness of the Immaterium from their Gellar Fields. More light cruisers led the way, followed by squadrons of frigates. Then came the kilometers-long cruisers, the Lunars forward of the Dictators, the latter hanging back to protect the transports that carried the armies of the Imperial Guard. Greatest of them all was the multi-kilometer-long bulk of an Overlord Class Battlecruiser at the heart of the fleet, the Imperial flagship's sensors already probing the void and zeroing in on the target world: Balor Prime.
The Imperium had come to reclaim its usurped world, and woe to the traitors and xenos that would stand in its way.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N
Me: Mmm…I feel like dunking on the Tau today.
The Muse: Okay, here you go!
Me: Thanks! And wow…! I never thought of this before!
The Muse: You're welcome!
Let's see where this goes, shall we?
Death in the East
Prologue
Prologue
Location: Craftworld Biel-Tan, Scrying Chamber of Farseer Eleria
Date: 240.994.M41 (Imperial Standard Calendar)
Clad in white and green robes, a Farseer floated in the air while sitting cross-legged above a reflecting pool. Runes carved into its wraithbone walls and inlaid with psychically-attuned crystal gleamed like stars through the pure water of the pool, sending glimmers of light flashing into the scrying chamber above. More runes floated around the Farseer, psychically-attuned gems carved into forms that reinforced a single metaphysical concept each, orbiting her body at gentle speeds.
More crystal shone through the chamber's wraithbone walls, running like veins and arteries across the material from when the craftworld's bonesingers had sung them into existence so many cycles ago. Psychic energy welled through the crystal from the Infinity Circuit, seeping into the surrounding wraithbone and thence into the chamber's interior, forming a background field of psychic power to anchor and protect the Farseer within.
Eleria raised a hand, and almost like a discordant note, a series of liquid crystal wafers slid into the air, alien artifices joining the psychic dance of the runes around the Farseer. Another gesture from her hand, and the discord ended, its notes joining the harmony and indeed, adding new context to the dance and song alike, seventy-eight wafers engraved with imagery and names invoking the metaphysics each wafer had been attuned to.
Alien to her people, but surprisingly elegant and efficient artifices for all that. They followed a single regular orbit around the Farseer, one that contrasted sharply with the eccentric and individual orbits of the runes, but somehow in harmony with both her and her people's own artifices.
Eleria raised her other hand, an active spirit stone faintly glowing in its palm. So faint it could not be perceived, almost as if the spirit stone was not even occupied at all, but it was, no matter how spark-like the soul within was compared to what the stone was originally meant to hold.
At the gesture, three cards gently slid down to hang motionless in the air before her. The Lost Child, inverted. The Sword, inverted. And finally, the Great Eye.
Eleria closed her eyes, and spoke the name of a world. "Balor." she vocalized the alien name while simultaneously closing her physical eyes, and opening her mental ones, visions erupting before her, reflected into her mind from the depths of the Sea of Dreams.
*a Human world on the edge of their domain, swayed away by honeyed words and paltry gifts*
*Human vessels lumber through the void towards the world with fell intent*
*Human soldiers fought and died by the millions, falling under tides of plasma unleashed by confident and overreaching children*
*victory as the Human fleet and armies melt away back through the Sea of Dreams, the little children of T'au celebrating over the bloody battlefield…victory…and defeat…*
*a child writhes on a bed, her skin sloughing off and her flesh running like wax as dumbfounded healers look on*
*mad imagination and twisted dreams flood out of a wound in reality to consume the entire world*
Eleria slammed shut the doors of her soul, weaving crosscurrents of thought to distance herself back to safety. Then, centering herself, she reopened her mind's eyes, while letting the stone in her hand fall, until it hung suspended from a golden chain attached to a golden ring on her finger. It revolved slowly through the air, two more wafers breaking their orbit to hang motionless before her. Separate from the previous reading, but adding new context to the scrying ritual, shaping its metaphysics anew.
The Lovers.
The Lex Imperialis.
New visions flashed through Eleria's mind, as two more wafers slid down and overlaid itself over the inverted Sword and the Great Eye. A new fate was envisioned, replacing what should have been, the Farseer now tracing back the paths that led to her desired outcome.
*the Tau are broken, their bodies bearing the telltale signs of Eldar weaponry, crushed beneath the threads of Imperial war machines*
*a fleet of Eldar ships pass through a Webway Gate, and emerge triumphant in the starry void above Biel-Tan*
*stern-eyed men in black armor escort terrified psykers to a waiting ship, misery and the jangling of chains echoing through the Sea of Dreams*
*a young woman screams as her eyes burn away at the slightest touch of the Anathema to Chaos, the sound of the chains of fate snapping echoing*
Eleria opened her eyes, ending the ritual as she unfolded from her position, gently hovering down to land with a soft ripple on the reflecting pool. Excess psychic energy bled back into the crystal veins on the walls, the wafers of the Emperor's Tarot flying back to stack themselves on her free hand.
All but the wafers that still hung in the air, Eleria gazing at the changes to her original reading. The Lost Child, still inverted. The Magus overlaid the inverted Sword. And the Emperor overlaid the Great Eye.
Calling forth the runes, Eleria narrowed her eyes, as she saw the sigils of the Hawk, the Crone, the Outcast, and the Bloody-Handed God, all surrounding the Petitioner.
Then, dismissing the runes, she gathered herself up, and floated over to solid ground. Pausing as she regained her footing, she held up the stone in her other hand, its golden chain winding over her fingers. Eleria regarded it with an unreadable expression on her face, before bringing it close to her lips.
"Soon, my love." she whispered. "Very soon now…fire for blood, blood for fire, in the name of Khaine, and the Golden King."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Location: Mandeville Point, Balor Star System, the Eastern Fringe, Ultima Segmentum
Date: 275.994.M41 (Imperial Standard Calendar)
Reality tore in blazing kaleidoscopes of millions of shades of colors that exist and cannot exist in reality. That in itself was not unusual, with dozens of ships coming and going through the Mandeville Point every single day. Most of them were Tau vessels, but their ether drives never translated as violently as this, skimming only on the surface of the Warp as they did.
No, this could only be achieved by Warp Drive, and those were few and far in the Balor Star System, ever since the world had shaken off the yoke of the Adeptus Terra to embrace the new future promised by the Greater Good. Only free traders and the odd if not rare Rogue Trader possessed such technology here, and only when they passed through Balor.
But what emerged from the Warp was no Rogue or free trader.
A mile-long ship pulled itself free of the miasma of the Warp, its Gellar Field trailing streams of imaginary matter that quickly faded into the void. Smaller ships followed in its wake, each nearly a kilometer long. All their hulls featured ornate iconography with various themes, from two-headed eagles, wings, talons, and beaks, to grinning Human skulls and angels and saints in full armor brandishing weapons in defiant challenge and condemnation.
Then, as the alarms began to sound, the Imperial Dauntless Class Light Cruiser fired its prow lance at the Tau Orbital overseeing the Mandeville Point. Moments later, and the light cruiser's port broadsides fired, macrocannon shells flying through the void at relativistic speeds.
By its very nature, even without being fired first, a lance would always strike first. The beam of focused energy slammed into the orbital's shields, and expended itself in a great surge of diffused energy. This came at a cost, however, as the shields themselves were expended, Tau systems struggling to bring them back up. Then the macrocannon shells struck, some deforming and spinning away into the void on impact with the orbital's armor. Others struck true, tearing through armor and into the station's innards.
Gouts of fire erupted into space from leaking atmosphere ignited by shattered power conduits. Bodies both living and dead tumbled into space, the former twitching and spasming as they asphyxiated in the void. The orbital was dead, a shattered hulk drifting away into deep space, leaving a trail of debris and dead bodies in its wake.
The escort squadron that the light cruiser was leading didn't stay idle either as it destroyed the orbital. The Sword Class Frigates turned their attentions to the various Tau vessels nearby, most of which were scrambling to flee, while others broadcast their civilian status and pleaded for peace.
It didn't matter to the Imperial Navy. Laser batteries lashed out with unyielding fury, turning the Tau vessels into burning and drifting scrap.
"Mandeville Point is clear." the Astropathic communication lanced through the Warp, to where the rest of the liberation fleet was waiting. "Proceed to the next phase."
"Acknowledged." the reply came, and once again, reality tore open. Dozens of Warp rifts were opened up by Imperial Warp Drives, massive vessels sliding back into reality and shaking off the madness of the Immaterium from their Gellar Fields. More light cruisers led the way, followed by squadrons of frigates. Then came the kilometers-long cruisers, the Lunars forward of the Dictators, the latter hanging back to protect the transports that carried the armies of the Imperial Guard. Greatest of them all was the multi-kilometer-long bulk of an Overlord Class Battlecruiser at the heart of the fleet, the Imperial flagship's sensors already probing the void and zeroing in on the target world: Balor Prime.
The Imperium had come to reclaim its usurped world, and woe to the traitors and xenos that would stand in its way.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N
Me: Mmm…I feel like dunking on the Tau today.
The Muse: Okay, here you go!
Me: Thanks! And wow…! I never thought of this before!
The Muse: You're welcome!
Let's see where this goes, shall we?
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