Tales of the Rancid Blade: Pure Rapture

Ari Ashi had been to the Voir Grim many times before and he rarely tired of the show.  The Tau visitor sat in Lady Hosphel’s box, high above the general murmer of the crowd.  The gilded balustrades and sweeping statues that made up the theatre’s decoration seemed as mighty demons sweeping around him.  Below, the general audience were in a rare state of calm as the curtain on this grim stage was yet to be raised.  Thick crimson and white theatre curtains, the material looped like sagging skin, hung to the floor of the old stage.  The chatter of Kabal’s social elite wafted from below.  Hosphel rarely came to the show these days.  Her attention was else ware.  She was not happy to revel in the spoils of victory.  Once Cemephon’s human and Tau populations had been rendered and the planet plundered she had moved onto a new scheme and a new plot.  He was comfortable bathing in his new life.  The life of adopted terror.

Sometimes he tried to think how long it had been since he had stepped from the webway into his new home.  He couldn’t tell really.  The Dark City’s crimson season was unchanging and the dark light of the sun seemed to wash over the city and it’s grim neighborhoods in an eternal day.  He often thought back to the heady days of his first arrival.  He had drunk in the anguish of this city and he now knew he would never really leave it.

He glanced at the program.  The wafer thin program made of pulped and dried flesh with a sickly brown ‘ink’ described the three acts of the show.  It was to be the tale of Le Barbier de Commorragh.  The Troope Coupe-Gorge had arrived from the Black Heart’s show halls and along with local favorite The Soubrett, were reviving the show that made their name.  He turned his attention back to the crowd below and let his mind wander again.

Once he arrived in the dark city the waves of hatred he felt for his own people had been replaced by a warm simmering loathing.  He remembered the throngs of Fire Warriors, their confidence in ruin, broken armor hanging from their bodies, marching in to the maw of the dark pits.  The crowds that inspected the newcomers cheered in bloody glee as the throng of soldiers were sheparded to their long doom.  There were humans too, by the thousands.  At the end the broken corps of the Imperial Guard had been in tatters and the waves of raiders swept over their lines and wrecked them.

Once Anemos had been killed the dynamic and every responsive character of the Tau army on Cemephon had changed.  He had assumed full control of the Tau war machine and had ground it into the guns of the Imperial lines.  His glee was satisfied through unique logistical games~ always his forte.  One of his favorites was shipping the wrong type of ammunition to an advancing column just before they reached the front.  Or one that he savored the best was shipping helmets to the front with bloody heads in them. Chaos and depression were rife through the front and the Imperial forces took full advantage.  The humans’ enthuseastic embracing of the confusion of the Tau was met with similarly devilish results.  Attacking human forces, eager to get to grips with their enemy, found many of the Tau had become suicidal.  Dropships, devilfish and even Pathfinders were rigged to explode when the humans got near.  Some of the Tau killed themselves out of seer horror at what they had become while others had to be motivated.  More and more Kabilite warriors poured into the planet and in chaos and confusion the planet simply turned into a feast of brutality and misery.  Pockets of resistance amongst the Tau and the humans left on the planet tried to fight their way out but they were mostly wiped out or captured.  When Ari Ahsi left Cemephon he left it as a smoking ruin of charred and bloody stubs.  The fallen Etherial had feasted on the pain of his brothers and sisters for weeks.  The Tau Empire’s good natured dreams of colonial expansion turned into the bloody bath water of the Kabal’s luxury.

The curtain rose and it pulled his attention back to the now darkening theatre.  An expectant hush fell over the crowd.  All eyes were on the stage.  There was a palpable sence of expectation yet it was suffused with a resignation, so common in the dark city, that this wouldn’t be enough.  They had all seen the show a thousand times and while the excitement was here there was also the lingering boredom of repetition in the air.  The Soubrette’s massive bloated form stood in the middle of the stage.  Her multiple limbs moved about in a graceful way that belied her opera singer’s form.  Around her were eight or nine restrained figures.  The forms were secured on a slight diagonal racks.  Barbed restraints held them in place.  Some human, some eldar, Ari noted one was a tau.  The quiet lingered in the room and then she began.

The Souberite’s opera was a combination of her voice and the tailored screams from the various members of the ‘orcestra’ before her.  Their pain was educed by her augmented and focused song.  She would choose her victims based on how her voice and its focused vibrations would affect the various parts of their bodies.  She would sing long dead songs and with her voice eviscerate them.  She began on a human female, the horrible high tone vibrating through the woman’s brain so as to induce a particular tone of scream, then to the Tau, the creature uttered a low wail, then to another which produced a guttural beat, then back to the human female for the high pitch.  The opera had begun and the waves of anguish swept across the audience.   By the time the tide washed against the Ari Ashi it had become pure rapture.

Wyches of the Screaming Dragon

Incubi of the Rancid Blade

The Soubrette

The Soubrette is one of the many Haemonculi that dwell in the halls of the Rancid Blade.  When not performing the traditional tasks of a Haemonculi she delights audiences nightly at l’opéra de la macarbe.  Her unique singing talents are in great demand.

Actev Nu~ Archon of the Rancid Blade

Tales of the Rancid Blade: He was grinning.

Hyperion Campaign Game 1: Battle Report

Burgoful gripped the barrel of his splinter rifle tightly as the adrenaline coursed through his veins.  He could feel the mighty waves of hate and anger and malice flood over him like torrent flooding over fire.  The cool of the water mixed with the fury of steam.  He and his minions stood between what appeared to be two large  burned out power shunts.  The rectangular shunts were about twenty feet tall and stood like two towers reaching to the high ceiling of this chamber.  Snaking pipes and conduit connected the towers above them.  The deck plates of the space station were blackened with recent impacts.  There was still power in the station, the atmospherics were still functioning, but it looked as though it had seen decades of neglect.  And this wasn’t the first fight it had seen.

He could hear gunfights through the corridors of the large station.   The loud knocking of bolter fire was followed by the hollow calls of splinter weapons.  He glanced toward his fellow warriors.  Their oiled olive colored armor seemed sickly to him in the dull light.  He saw a line of spittle roll for Ultrni’s cold lips, the eldar was in ecstasy.   Burgoful grimaced feeling only contempt for his companion.  That whelp could barely contain himself.  The exploding sound of bolter shells hitting the conduit brought him back to reality.  The marines had closed on their position.  Burgoful took a glance around the side of the tower.  He could see the dark shadows of marines behind several piles of utility boxes.  He pulled back as they opened fire again.  As he sheltered he saw part of Ultrni’s shoulder explode.  The hanging spittle flicked away and blood splattered across the warrior’s face.  A new unearthly craze crept into the eyes of the wounded eldar~ but otherwise there was little effect.  The man was besotted with pain.

A couple of the other elves stole shots at the marines.  The hollow sound of their splinter weapons was like wind through dead branches~ it rattled.  Antellan, another of the sickly armored warriors, hoisted his large splinter cannon around the other side of the tower and produced a hail of venomous shards towards the marines.  Botler shots exploded around them showering them with parts of the tower.  Burgoful stepped from cover and squeezed off a few shots.  He was suddenly aware of a form beside him.  He saw that it was one of Haemonculi.  This creature, stooped so he was slightly smaller than Burgoful, was a hive of stitches, a quilt of flesh.  His distended head peaked like the top a pear and his long face held the flesh of many.  His fine robes concealed a writhing mass of body parts beneath.  Burgoful looked into this creature’s eyes and thought he saw something wriggle within one of the orbs.

The creature paid him no attention, nor to Ulrini’s head as it erupted only feet away, hit by another bolter round.  They were showered with a grim rain.   Ulrini staggered back, his head was oddly deformed now.  He still had the appearance of ecstasy on his face.  Large dark swells of blood seemed to well from the newly formed cavity in his head and like a sickly dam breaking it’s banks.  Blood wallowed down his face.  He staggered, toppled, and then hit the ground.  The Heamonculi withdrew something from deep within his robes.   Burgoful tried to glimpse what it was. Perhaps it was a small key perhaps.  Shiny at least.  The creature cast the key into the dark of the chamber before them and as it few through the air it seemed to expand and grow.  A gate was opening like a wound.  He could see the webway beyond.

Almost immediately a storm of color and movement erupted from the now orb shaped gate.  Blue and gold light rippled from the forms as they appeared.  At the lead was the Lady Hosphel.  She rode a hellion’s hover board, her hand gripping the edge of the board to steady her from the forces within the webway.  As she emerged she released her grip from the edge of the board and drew herself up to her full height.  It was one quick motion as she sped past them toward the marines.  Her scant orange armor was was not the only accent to her pale white flesh.  Long dark curls, laced with razor hair pieces, pirouetted from her head.  She gripped her custom lance as she bellowed into the dark of the chamber before her.  Followed by ten other board riding Hellions, her new bodyguard, they all crouched low on their boards speeding toward their enemy.

Burgoful snapped off another couple of shots toward the marines who were now advancing.  Like a sliver of light through an open door he saw the form of Incubi emerge from the gate and sprint toward the marines.  The champions of Commoragh launched themselves toward the marines in a fury of blades and cold hate.  The Haemonculi joined them.  Several new arms sprouted from beneath the creature’s cloak revealing blades and knives.  It had been ready for combat all along.  Burgoful cried a cheer of victory as the most vicious minions of the Rancid Blade surged forward.  He and his fellow warriors surged behind them.  They abandoned their cover with a feverish glee following the Incubi straight into the sights of the imperial guns.  They didn’t care.

What he observed in a matter of moments increased his horror and passion.  In the open cavern beyond several teams of marines advanced, their weapons unceasing.  Three groups had been advancing in on their position.  Lady Hosphel and her Hellions had accelerated toward the most distant group leaving the Incubi to engage the last two squads~ The Marines numbered twice that of the Incubi.  Within the blink of an eye the Incubi lunged at the most forward group of marines and sew them.  Just like that.  An instant.  The cold and quick killers dispatched heads and hands, limbs and legs as though they were prepairing a salad.  And then they lept backards. One was summersaulting.  Burgoful’s head turned as he watched the Incubi retreat.  He didn’t understand.  Retreating? But they moved faster than his mind.  Now that the Incubi were behind him the unengaged Marines turned their bolters at his squad, who in their passion, had moved right into the firing line.  His warriors, now out of cover, were cut apart.  He took a hit in the sholder, his own blood slew across a bulkhead.  His passion drove him on.  One of the Incubi was hit in the chest, shards of green and red, and he crumpled.  But the majority of the squad had been uninjured.  Burgoful saw Allatran’s cannon take a hit from a bolt round.  The chamber exploded, showering its owner with venom splinters.  Allatran crumpled in a bizzare stuttering shake as poisons corrupted him.  Burgoful’s leg detached below his knee, severed by an exploding bolt from the advancing marines.   He fell while screaching in pain. The Incubi surged forward again, their blades seemingly willing their masters onward.

Burgoful, now on his side, clutched his stump.   He craned his neck to witness the Incubi engaging the last of the humans.  A marine’s hemet clattered to the ground.  He couldn’t see if there was anything in it.   An ever growing pool of his own dark oxygen rich blood was growing about him.  He heard the sound of movement.  A team of orange clad wyches sprinted from the still open gate.  He was grinning.

>Characters of the Rancid Blade: The Lady Hosphel

>The Lady Hosphel 

The Lady Hosphel is often known as the Mistress of the Dragons.  She is the leader of the Screaming Dragon Wych Cult which makes it home in the many arenas of the Cabal of the Rancid Blade.  She and the Archon Actev Nu have had a long and profitable relationship through the years.  She and her wyches are happy to entertain and provide a never ending parade of victims for the amusement of the cabal. In turn the wyches are sheltered and honored amongst the minions of the Rancid Blade.  

The lady first rose to prominence in the arenas of The Cymbel.  As one could imagine she became used to the finer things in life while fighting in the arenas of the most privileged.  Cymbel is a small  arena circuit reserved for only the most powerful and wealthy of Commoragh’s denizens.  It was in this most elite circle that she came to be noticed.  When she struck out to form her own cult she did not want for wealthy patrons to support her and her clan.  The Archon Actev Nu was the most wealthy.  

None would call the lady a servant of the Rancid Blade because it if often unclear who in fact is in charge of the cabal.  Her and Actev vie for ultimate control.  Some years he is undisputed and others she is of clear prominence.  One of the closest warriors to Actev once said that the Lady and the Archon lead the cabal as though they were in a constant knife fight with each other.  The Lady is amongst the most powerful of leaders, especially in these dark days when for several years it was rumored that Actev had been slain.  The lady is a highly skilled martial artist and performer favoring an Agonizer as her weapon of choice.  Often she rides to war bare breasted on a reaver jet cycle.   However, recently she has been seen with a phalanx of Incubi.  Her fortunes must have increased indeed to have such assistants at her side.  

Lady Hosphel is an Archon. She is an HQ choice and an independent character.  She carries an Agonizer, a Shadow Field, a close combat weapon, and takes combat drugs.

Lady of Speed  Special Rule

Lady Hosphel is an ace at fighting at speed from the seat of her reaver jet bike. She may ride a Reaver Jetbike into battle for a cost of an additional 25 points.  She benefits from the following Special Rules: power through pain, acute senses, fleet (if on foot) or skilled rider if mounted.

>Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part 20: His primary creditor

>

Burgoful had seen the body.  His crew had carried it, dripping, from the streets of the old city back to the oubliettes of Archimedes.  It was here that the old Homunculus had begun his cruel work.  His lonesome work.  It was here that the old Archon was reborn.  There were so many deals that the old one had made.  So many plans and schemes and bargains.  None of the partners on the other end of the deals, and the plans, and the schemes were prepared to let Actev Nu get away from their bargains through something as easily as being shot through the skull and having his heart cut out and stolen.  They paid in saves and in dark favors to make sure the old Homunculus brought the Archon back from the dead.  Despite what Burgoful knew about the dark ways he was still amazed when watched the Archon walk through the crescent door into the dank light of the antechamber.  It was him.  It was the man grown young.  

The Grand Archon, as he was known, had been the lord of the Chalice Pit, the Nightmare of the Chill Worlds, and the curse of a thousand million brothers.  He who had once been the old Archon of the once mighty Cabal Rancid Blade and lord of the Screaming Dragon Cult, now stood before Burgoful as a young man.  His head was shaved clean and the fine princely features of one of the sculpted class now only held a shadow of the old man’s face~ but a shadow was enough.  He wore a long dark robe, a dank green, and held a white cloth in his hand.  His eyes were the color of a glacier~ cold and blue.  They met the Sybarite’s and Burgoful saw the old man deep down.  Behind the Archon shuffled the form of Archimedes.  His long leathery head moved mechanically as the horror merchant stepped into view.  His hand curling out, from within long blue robes, two of the six fingers were scalpels.  

“My old steward” Actev said revealing a grim of evil energy “I see you are surprised.  You should not be.  Death and time have made me stronger.  Stronger than I have felt in an age.”

The Sybarite nodded. “You look young”.

“I feel it.  I feel as though a metal grip were released from me.  I feel as though I am as young as when I was in the elder days.”

“You are younger…” Hissed the Haemonculi “Your body and heart is that of a Trueborn who sacrificed himself for his master.  The form of your old body has been…” the creature thought of an adequate term. “… retired”.  Actev held out his hand, stretching his fingers, inspecting his nails.  

“It feels as though these are my own fingers.  My own hands.”

“It should.  The body hasn’t changed.  Just the brain.  All that remains of your old self is your brain”

“Then why does he look so similar to the man he was?  I mean his foes will know it’s him”.  Burgoful asked.  The horror merchant turned away  snarling at the question.  

“Do not ask of that which you choose not to experience”.  The sybarite was silenced.  “The lord of the Rancid Blade has many friends…  and they have paid well to see he has been restored to his former greatness.”  

Actev looked into the crimson darkness the surrounded them.  He knew he had no friends.  There were none who had friends in the dark city.  

“Tell me Archimedes,  what to I owe thee for this service?”

Silence for a moment and then: “Nothing great one…  nothing today… ”

Nothing today.  The Archon nodded.  He mentally added this item to a new list he was forming in his head.  Nothing to be paid to the Homunculus Archimedes.  He was sure that he would find out what compound interest would be paid to his creditors.  Those who would not let him be slain by a human’s pistol.  Those who would not let deals be undone and plans unravel so easily.  He nodded to himself in confidence.  

“Burgoful, what of my domains?” he asked as he began walking confidently from the Homunculus’ door.  Their footfalls echoing through the dark passageway before them.  The old leather face watched them leave with an evil smile on his maw.  He listened to their footfalls.  “What of the Lady Hosphel?”  

“She has been watching over your domains my lord.” The Sybarite replied  “She has secured your realms during your… convalensence”

Actev Nu nodded again considering the wych.  For a moment he was glad of her loyalty and then he reconsidered.  She, it seemed, was now his primary creditor. 

>Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part 19: The Silvery Hand

>

There are many who can claim the mantle of greatness amongst these stars.  Many who can be called heroic, or gigantic, or even mighty.  The heroes of the Space Marines live to fight a thousand wars and that is heroic.  The ageless lords of the Eldar strive for the remnant of their race and that is timeless.  Even the flicker of greatness can be seen in an Imperial officer or a Tau colonist for the moment of his life.  But there are some beings who cast a longer shadow than those.  There is one who casts a shadow that the ages can not measure and time is fearful of.  The Silvery Hand is his name and he is bringing his children together.  

The mighty Actev Nu was not the first of his minions.  One of the greatest Archons of the fallen Eldar kin.  Perhaps the greatest.  Actev’s greatness was born, like so many others, out of the fall.  But unlike his dark brothers something changed him as he fell.  When the birth scream of the Thirsting God occurred all those millenia ago Actev was but an Eldar.  At the moment he slipped toward the vortex of Slanessh, pulled into the horror, a silvery hand stretched out from the cosmos and caught him.  A molten dream captured him and carried him away.  He fled from the horrors of that moment and as he did a living silver crept into his eyes, crept into his mind and hid there.  It hid there and helped him carry his domains to the great crimson city of the webway.  The Silver Hand hid there and through its shiny influence Actev became a mighty master of the dark streets, an overlord of the horrible neighborhoods.  Through the millenia the Silvery Hand secreted away…  waiting… growing.  

When the great Confessor Sylax was but a preacher he was lead by the Silvery Hand across the blasted sands of Mordia.  His trek brought him renown and took him to the Sororatas that were cloistered in the mission there.  As Sylax marched across that furnace landscape he was sustained and changed by the melted glass and molten that existed there.  The spirit that lead him was the same that guided Actev Nu, unknown, for the millenia.  Unknown it sustained Sylax through his pilgrimage across the wastes and through the decades of war and conspiracy and tricks and schemes.  Sylax, guided by the Hand manipulated the 27th Mordian Iron Guard for two hundred years advancing schemes, unknown even to himself, but known by the Silvery Hand.  When the Inquisitor Gulofil learned and revealed Sylax’s true nature the Confessor fled.  Few believed the claims of Gulofil or his minions but Sylax was driven out, stripped of his titles.  He fled to and hid in Commoragh.  He was sheltered by the same Silvery Hand that had brought ActevNu to power so many millenia ago.  The Silvery Hand protected its own.  

Sylax returned to the real world hundreds of years later. The Mordian 27th regiment was long destroyed but the Sisters of the Cloistered Heart were yet to be unleashed.  Sylax continued the schemes of the Silvery Hand with the sisters at his side and none as faithful as The Nurse.  She stood by his side, bore his child, Sylvie and raised her to be a sister of the Adeptus Saroratas.  The Silvery Hand was at work in the universe through Sylax, preparing the way… Getting ready.  

Through the generations Actev Nu was also working the will of the Hand.  Though he only knew a faction of what he did.  His actions and the actions of the Confessor built the path the Silvery Hand needed.  Actev Nu’s eldar pirates disrupted trade fleets and delayed colonial settlers so they would not reach the Sleeping Worlds.  Sylax destroyed the moon of Palthanx so that the gravitational vacuum would activate long lost technology, technology frozen by those who once moved the stars and moons at will.  The minions of the Actev Nu included the corrupted Etherial Ari’Ashi who is but now leading a vast invasion on the Cemephon System to divert Imperial resources from discovering hidden worlds.  The attention of Inquisitor Nelthas was diverted so easily by the Tau invasion fleet.  She had been so close to finding the long hidden tomb of the Cyiontyr and all it’s secrets.  But the Silvery Hand knew best and it had for bllions of years before any of these character’s races had been born.  It’s manipulations had stretched though the eons, protecting, working, nurturing those who slumbered. 

Until one night both Sylax and Actev Nu were struck down on the field of battle~ the same field of battle.  Thrice wagered schemes played themselves out to that moment.  Sylax and his companions fled the field of battle with his broken body.  They cut the Archon’s heart from its corpse and carried it in the bloody helmet of the Archon.  Sylvie, the daughter of Sylax, and her lover, Yanaloo, a minion of Actev Nu’s arena, carried the servants of the Silvery Hand back to the dry sands of Mordia.  They were lead down the winding stair by the Nurse, the last and most faithful of the sisters that dwelt in the old Mission.  

Down down down into darkness they ran.  Their feet falling on old stone.  Flaming torches held aloft they strode through dark passages carrying the bodies past watching eyes inscribed on anchant walls.  In the oval Chamber of the Eclipse The Nurse took a vial from the dusty shelf and as Sylax drank the universe groaned in horror.  The silver flowed into Sylax.  His old eyes expanded while the channels of his brain filled with quicksilver.  He grasped the dead heart of the old Archon and absorbed it’s evil core into his new body.  It seemed to melt into his chest.  As the silver engulfed him he rose from the arms of his daughter, floating above the ground, lifting to center of the oval chamber.  His body expanded.  A dark green light flowed from his eyes while face reveled in the power of his new form.  His body expanded and his mind awoke.  The Silvery Hand was born into the world.  It lifted up and placed the old Archon’s helmet atop it’s head.  It swept the Nurse aloft with a broad long arm capturing her and cursing her to live with him forever.  

Sylvie and Yanaloo fled the chamber.  As they ran they saw the dark metal eyes of the newly awoken, the long sleeping, the Nercontyr reborn as the Necrons.  They stood and came to life.  The Silvery Hand was their lord of long ago, a son of the Star Gods, and imbued with their power.  His millenia of plans and works, orders, machinations, and schemes was almost fulfilled.  His minions were almost ready.  His silver tide would sweep through the universe.  His carefully laid schemes would now unfold.  He would prepare the way for the horror of the Necrons.  Few were left to stand in his way.

>Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part 19: Death Bed

>

There are vaults in places where darkness has never strayed from. These vaults are secured in the dark by wards and hexes and locks and keys. Barred by the curses and traps of those who have lost the will to do anything but curse and trap. To enter here one must pass through a knot of old wood and down the passages of the Eldar. One must walk in the ways of long dead races. The names of those Old Ones are long lost. Those that knew the names wanted nothing else but to loose the names and they cast their minds out so that the names might be gone too. Most, but not all.

Some called him Confessor (those who have confessed). Some called him a Missionary (they whom he has lead). Others called him father (she whom he had sired). She knows his names. His daughter, Sylvie, knows these places too. She knows who made these walls. She had once been an Acolyte of the Sisters of the Cloistered Heart. In her youth She had toiled in the sands on Mordia along side her sisters. Bringing grapes from the dry earth. Making the wine. Then, as she had come of age, she had fled with her lover. A dark vixen of the dark cults. A vixen that had been brought via the schemes of Sylax. That had been long ago. There had been many years and many battles since. Her sisters, she had joined them then, had fought with the armies of the Imperium. The Confessor had lead the Mordian regiments in war, their crimson uniforms like dark gore against the mud of a hundred battlefields. Their long war against the Tyranids. And she had been there, the Rhinos carrying her through the fields toward the foes of Sylax. SYlax’s long struggle with the fool Dolgoth~ the last in a long line of hunters. All this time her lover had lived in the dark passageways with her dark father waiting, visiting. All this time he had been planning and plotting. Sometimes he knew what his purpose was for but other times it was as though he were driven toward a purpose he did not know. It was as though some hand were at work within him. Some dark hand.

She now stood at his bedside and sought to rescue him from the peril that all mortals must eventually meet. Sylax lay on his death bed. He had been struck by a human’s blade on the field of conflict and laid low. Sylax had schemed that Ozzymadius would fall but had not foreseen his own fate. She fled the field with his body. The dark vixen Yanaloo had taken Ozzymadius’ body through another way. Sylvie fled through the knot of wood, past the traps, opening the locks, and she spoke the riddles that untied the hexes. As she carried him through the webway, his life dripping on the cobblestones of those passages, all his plans ground to a halt. His plans had come to a halt at the end of soldier’s bayonet. As she carried him he spoke, clinging to life, he spoke of all his plans. He spoke of all his machinations. He told her of the twelve keys and six dreams. He spoke about the great Maw of the Unknowing and the Great Scheme that he had started all those years ago when he had set out across the great deserts of Mordia. The scheme that had driven him across that world. The scheme that had driven him to find the sisters cloistered there. To find her mother. It had driven him and drove him now. The great scheme that had lead him to bring together the Dark Eldar, and the Tau, and his old foe in the forge of battle… She had laid him on his bed. His very heart cloven in two. He spoke to her of things that she must do. He grasped her hand tightly. His broken and torn face gnashing. “Take me back to Mordia!”