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Mysteries of the Tuatha Pt 2: Shadows and Devils
🕑 Added 2024-05-02 13:58:59 +0000 UTCLorgar Aurelion, the Seventeenth Primarch, High Priest of Chaos, aliases The First Heretic and the Urizen, was not happy. Not happy at all. The daemon primarch stared balefully at the creature that had incurred his ire, seated in his personal study.
The space at first many would think was underwhelming: the sanctum of perhaps a minor worshiper of the Dark Powers, consisting of a stool made out of adamantium, a singular desk that once had contained all sorts of quills and parchments, and walls covered in shelves that had once contained all manner of arcane lore.
Above them, upon the ceiling, was a painted mural, designed to resemble the sky of the Urizen’s homeworld, Colchis. Oh, there were certainly emblems and sigils of chaos, but this being Lorgar’s personal sanctum, he had carefully made sure each and every eight pointed star, daemonic wheel, and ode to the glory of chaos were tastefully and subtly done, incorporated into the decor or else paired with some piece of affirmation, such as the framed scroll he kept mounted that contained upon its pages a litany written by a cleric of Tzeench extolling the virtues of perseverance and holding hope meant to bolster Lorgar’s spirit in the brief moments of doubt, or one of his more amusing paintings, consisting of a gyrinx holding onto a tree branch below which a menagerie of daemonic horrors snapped at its feet, it’s title embossed upon a plaque on the bottom of the frame, pressed into solid silver: “Hang in there”. He particularly enjoyed the latter piece.
All done to suit Lorgar’s aesthetic preferences: in all things chaos could be found, but at the same time it was not gaudy or overdone. That sort of thing was saved for those less assured of their place beneath the Powers of the Empyrean: the truly faithful needed no pageantry to reassure themselves. The shepherd does not require the crook, only his flock.
For millennia, this space had been undisturbed: the only one with access was Lorgar himself, creating a serenity that had allowed him to write and read countless theological texts and treatise in order to advance his understanding of the forces of the Empyrean. For millennia it had stood unviolated, a single soul having access. For millennia, it had stored countless texts rarer and more valuable than any sum of thrones, copies or original editions that Lorgar had sent billions if not trillions to their death to acquire.
Until Lorgar had foolishly brought into his study the creature he stared at. It resembled at first a book. It still looked like a book. To all his senses, it had been a book. And yet, whenever he turned away or stopped paying attention, the creature would devour whatever tome it was closest to. Worse, it replaced the devoured tome with something that on its face resembled a perfect copy, but in reality was just another devouring tome, one whose contents were radically altered compared to the original. Odes to the chaos gods replaced with litanies of insults, passages about their glory replaced with volumes about their impermanence, texts that had once been of their theologies found themselves subtly rewritten to become criticisms of their canons.
Worse, he wasn’t sure which books had been altered at this point. As much as the Primarch hoped he had found all these information eating PARASITES, he would likely have to meticulously quarantine every tome in his library and inspect them to find the ones which had been corrupted.
The devouring book he had at first thought some amateur tome of chaotic cosmological musing, wholly mundane. It was, by initial appearances, a hardcover bound in black, heavy, immaculately machined paper-pulp made into a thick board of sorts. On it’s spine was written the title and it’s author: Night-Games, by an A. Wake.
A. Wake. Awake. Lorgar didn’t know if he found the pun amusing or annoying, but considering how many irreplaceable pieces of his collection had been vandalized and the fury he felt as a result, he was currently leaning towards the latter emotion.
Leaning forward, he opened the book. It began with some passage talking about darkness and shadows and literary theory that Lorgar found extremely trite. The minutiae of genre conventions of horror had initially been interesting, if overwrought in dense and impenetrable symbolism and metaphor, and the book made reference to figures and stories he had never heard of, but it had still, initially, been a rather refreshing change of pace from his normal fare.
Pressing his finger down upon it, the Aurelion began to crush a sheath of papers underneath his index finger, causing a soft, high pitched noise to emerge from the false-tome, one that the primarch assumed was its way of signaling pain but could have just as much been a mere autonomic response. Pressing harder, the Primarch felt the wood-pulp beneath his gauntleted digit give way as he poked a hole through the creature.
Eventually, he relented, not because of any mercy for the wretched thing, but because his finger reach the cursed warp-wood that his desk was carved from, taken from the dark and twisted mahogany that grew at the edges of the warp. Regardless of his piques and whims, the thing was too valuable to casually damage, not when replacing the desk would be inconvenient and repairing it likely impossible (he was fairly certain the Great Unclean One who had made it in the first place had been permanently slain some millennia ago).
“Who made you?” Lorgar muttered, picking up the tome and watching as it slowly mended, the hole closing. “Why did they send you to me?” Sabotage, yes, but it was such a petty form of it that Lorgar didn’t actually know what goal it was meant to accomplish: he had memorized much of the lost books, and while the loss of his own writings was annoying, it meant, at best, a century spent recreating them-
AND REALLY, WHEN ONE THINKS OF IT, THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FOR THE BEST: SOME THAT HAD BEEN LOST HAD BEEN WRITTEN WHEN HE WAS A YOUNGER, MORE INFERIOR WRITER. THEY WERE EMBARASSING, FRANKLY: HOPEFULLY THIS TIME THEY’D FINALLY, FOR ONCE COME OUT RIGHT HE THOUGHT. MAYBE HE’D FINALLY SUCCEED IN TRANSFERRING THE THINGS HE KNEW- THE KNOWLEDGE DESPERATELY TRYING TO ESCAPE HIS BRAIN, THE REVELATIONS HE HAD FRUITLESSLY TRIED FOR MILLENIA IMPART TO HIS WAYWARD BROTHERS AND THE FOOLISH, DELUDED SERVANTS OF HIS FATHER- FROM HIS SKULL PAPER.
A PART OF HIM THAT HE TRIED TO QUASH KNEW IT WOULDN’T HAPPEN, HOWEVER: FAILURE WAS FAILURE, NO MATTER WHAT WORDS IT PUT ON LIKE A MASK SOME LOW, DARK PART OF HIM WHISPERED, A PART OF HIMSELF THE PRIMARCH IMMEDIATELY QUASHED, IGNORING IT EXPERTLY.
Lorgar blinked. Something…Something was off. He couldn’t tell what, though: the sensation of being watched passed over him, and some old, long forgotten and withered instinct was telling the primarch…
Something. He didn’t know what, however. Looking around, the Primarch didn’t see anything amiss, couldn’t put any words to what he had sensed UNTIL HE SAW THE BOOK IN HIS HANDS, AND REALIZED IT HAD CHANGED. A SMALL, BUT IMMEDIATELY NOTABLE DIFFERENCE: ITS COVER.
NIGHT JAPES: A WARHAMMER 40,000 HORROR STORY, BY ALAN WAKE.
…What was going on? Confused, Lorgar opened the book, all his senses screaming something out to the primarch. It set him on edge: the primarch could feel his twin hearts beating faster even as his senses, somewhat dulled by millenia of meditation and research, went into overdrive, bringing everything around the primarch into harsh detail. Every errant noise, every foreign smell and unidentifiable taste in his mouth began to be cataloged as he instinctively prepared for the possibility of being attacked, his eyes flicking around as he documented each and every shadow and discerning which ones could potentially contain assassins, spies, or others who wished him ill. And yet, despite the atmosphere becoming heavy with an air of malice…
Nothing happened. Turning his eyes down to the book once more, he scanned it’s opening paragraph, its forward, wondering what else had changed.
Greetings fuck-face! If you’re reading this you’ve finally decided to start asking questions instead of sitting around in your tower with your thumb placed firmly between your buttocks and up your god-damn asshole. Sure, you needed some prodding along but hey, you finally got there in the end Lorgar, and mostly by yourself even! All you needed was a good push.
I bet you’re asking yourself pointless questions like “what was the purpose of sending you this book” or “how did it even reach you”. To answer those questions so we can move to meatier subjects, because you’re the type of reader to get coal in his stocking come winter-time.
Here’s the question you should be asking: who wrote this book? How do they seem to know you so well? Which Warhammer is the Warhammer Forty Thousand? Will daddy ever love you?
The answer to the last one is no, by the way: just in case you weren’t sure. After all, not like you’re particularly bright, or particularly likable. Honestly, it’s a wonder Kor didn’t just put you in a bag and toss you off a clif-
Lorgar shut the book, teeth clenched, breathing calm, steady, and measured to contrast the veins in his forehead currently bulging. He was a master of his own mind, a lord over his will. He would not let juvenile insults bother him, even ones made by someone who had a rather disconcerting amount of knowledge over the primarch and their background.
“Very well, Alan Wake,” Lorgar muttered, mouth stumbling over the name for some reason that set his instincts alight before he returned to read the apparently personally targeted taunt. “You have successfully captured my interest, may the gods have mercy on your soul.”
`I’m gonna assume you said something ridiculously cornball like “may the gods have mercy on your soul” or some shit. Do me a favor, keep that shit to yourself. And that brings us to the purpose of me writing this book.
Big things are happening in the Galaxy Lorgar-buddy, and it’s time for you to start contributing to the plot. The book is meant to be a guide, to help keep you on track. Other stuff too, but those would be spoilers, my friend.
A guide to what, you might be asking?
Find me and find out. Meantime, enjoy the book.`
The page after that was a simple dedication.
This book is dedicated to the Old Gods of Asgard, Saga Anderson, and my better half.
Continuing, Lorgar found the page listing information about a publisher, and the Primarch raised his eyebrow at the name Black Library: doubtlessly it wasn’t the real one since last he was aware the greatest source of arcane knowledge had little interest in genre literature, but it was yet another reference to things only a select few enlightened were aware of. The other name mentioned, Games Workshop, was an entire mystery, but presumably they had been the one responsible for publishing the original devouring book. Turning the page and beginning the actual story, Lorgar blinked AS HE REALIZED THAT THE TOME SEEMED TO STAR HIMSELF, SITTING IN HIS TOWER, PONDERING THE FALSE-TOME THAT HAD EATEN HIS LIBRARY.
WITH MOUNTING CONFUSION THE PRIMARCH READ A WRITTEN VERSION OF THE EVENTS HE HAD JUST EXPERIENCED, DREAD SLOWLY INCREASING AS HE REALIZED THE TOME SEEMED TO KNOW HIS VERY THOUGHTS.
NO, HE REALIZED: THE TOME DIDN’T KNOW HIS THOUGHTS. IT HAD PREDICTED THEM. THE SAME FEELING THE PRIMARCH HAD FELT EARLIER ONCE MORE BEGAN RINGING, THE PRIMARCH’S INNATE INSTINCTS AND PROGRAMMING UNABLE TO IDENTIFY OR CATALOG IT LIKE HE DID SO MANY OTHER SENSATIONS. THERE WAS NO ALMOST CLINICAL DISSOCIATION THAT HE EXPERIENCED WHEN ENCOUNTERING UNKNOWN POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS STIMULUS: HIS ATTEMPTS TO CATALOG AND ANALYZE THE STRANGE, ALMOST SINKING SENSATION IN HIS SOUL WERE ULTIMATELY FRUITLESS. HE FELT HIS BREATH QUICKEN, HIS HEART BEAT FASTER AS HE REACHED THE PART OF THE STORY THAT DESCRIBED THE ACT OF READING IT.
Lorgar blinked as he felt the sensation fade, though it its place something else remained. A strange buzzing in the brain, and when he attempted to continue the book, he found the letters indecipherable, his eyes sliding across the words without comprehension.
They were there, but he had simply lost the ability to understand them. The primarch could only put together brief passages, lonely words, and disjointed sentence fragments: everything else his eyes slid over like a man shoved onto fresh ice. By focusing intently and putting all his faculties against deciphering the text he could occasionally make out brief letters, but only by straining his mind to the very edge of his ability could he make out entire words.
The only passage he could make out was a single sentence, describing him deciding to untangle the mystery of the book by investigating the forge of souls and interrogate it’s master about the Night of Japes.
…It was very obviously some sort of trap, Lorgar mused. Someone was attempting to bait him.
Unfortunately for them, it had worked. They had gained the Primarchs attention, and would soon suffer the wages of their ego in taunting a demigod.
(((())))
It was not often that Lorgar had reason to leave his tower, even in spirit. His sons were doing exactly as he wished them to, and whenever he deigned to intervene in mortal affairs personally he typically preferred a much more subtle touch these days such as manipulating the dreams of those with sufficient potential into doing the Gods will. He was vaguely aware that Corvus was waiting for the opportunity to strike, but he was not, on the whole, particularly concerned about the notion coming to fruition.
After all, he was fairly certain that his brother’s idea amounted to ‘become ever better at killing things’, something that historically been less than effective at stopping the designs of Chaos. Even if Corax did succeed in murdering him, Lorgar had well transcended any concept of mortality that would allow this to inconvenience him. It would hurt, but in the end it would merely be empty, impotent violence.
Even so, the situation that existed did not require Lorgar’s physical presence, and so he opted instead for projecting his spirit through the astral expanse: sitting cross-legged, the Primarch had lit around him eight hundred and eighty eight candles, each the product of countless hundreds of slaves being rendered down into a single such stick of black and greasy tower of wax. Sitting in the center, the Primarch closed their eyes and called upon a particular piece of fel sorcery they had created, casting their mind from their tower and into the great and endless sea of souls.
While their body was still physically on Sicarius, their vision was taken by a maelstrom of colors, of bruised blues and bloody scarlets mixed with gangrenous shades and whorls of yellow-viridian, with occasional starbursts in the edge of his vision. And yet even as the howls of the trillions upon trillions of damned sounded in his ears, the pain-screams of the infinite unworthy damned rising to a cacophony that would render a mortal deafened and dead from their organs liquified, Lorgar remained serene. It was not part of this spell he enjoyed, admittedly, but it was a minor peeve of sorts compared to handful of centuries it would take to recover from being murdered.
His destination was the Forge of Souls itself, the empyrean mirror to the Imperiums own Mars, created by the congealed faith of the Adeptus Mechanicus in a holy land of pure artifice, unrestrained by the weakness of empathy, compassion, doubt, or any of the other frailties of flesh. Surrounding it were fields of ash, an eternal battleground in which daemons vied for the right to be reforged into an engine of annihilation: as he passed over it, Lorgar saw something curious, an army of daemonic creatures he didn’t recognize but very clearly belonging to the same genus, ogres assembled from ramshackle machinery that almost resembled robotic orks, the creatures hooting and screaming as they rampaged joyously against the daemonic legions, creating what appeared to be a swath of wrecked scraplands. Occasionally among their number he would see even stranger creatures, such as larger examples of these tech-ogres whose proportions were even more distorted and bestial comparatively, or what appeared to be shattered soul-grinders whose bodies were being puppeted by colonies of small, giggling mechanical imps and monkey-shaped sorcerers whose head consisted of a glass screen embedded into a box shaped structure.
Soon, however, he had entered the heart of the warp-realm, a labyrinthine tangle of dark manufactorums in which countless semi-mechanical pseudo-sentient constructs laboured to create horrific weapons, abomination laboratories that were filled with the most curious and intelligent members of daemon-kind constantly competing to create ever more horrific designs, soul-furnaces that incinerated billions of spirits that the Adeptus Mechanicus unwittingly offered up every day (that didn’t wind up in the gullet of one of the forges inhabitants or working the assembly lines) through their unknowing sacrifice of menials to the fires of industry helping to power this vast hell-complex.
Occasionally, one such resident of this realm would turn their gaze upon the passing primarch, only to look away: even if their Master was not one who had given the Urizen their favor like the true lords of chaos, they recognized the futility of attempting to harangue or threaten the passing demi-god, and unlike the inhabitants of other realms of chaos, those who served the Arkifane were loathe to do something that did not benefit them.
Eventually, the Primarch found their way to the very core of the facility, and he found himself blinking in surprise. He had expected some dark and terrible place of chaotic beauty, one where the flesh and spirit were remade by the Arkifane into his image using Fel rituals.
Instead, he found what appeared to be a surgical theater of sorts: nine rings each, filled by throngs of watching daemons intent on observing their master at work, some having with them wretched scribes, mortals converted into infernal servitor-souls in death forced to act as recording instruments for their master: chaos androids.
And on the lowest level was the Arkifane, laboring over some new terror the master of all machinekind was attempting to bring into existence: a towering and blade-winged humanoid, an angel of mechanism, comprised entirely of fel technology and metal, the pair of limbs jutting out of their back long and skeletal, scythelike. Descending, Lorgar noted the drop in temperatures, the space growing colder and colder with each ring descended, until his spirit was in the final layer.
“...Greetings, Primarch,” Vashtorr spoke in a voice that sounded like the whirring of gears, the blast of a firing piston, each R the low gravely growl of a running engine, each S akin to the hiss of a boiler, not even bothering to turn its face, skull-like and possessed of large, curved forward brass horns, towards the primarch. “For what reason have you decided to intrude upon my realm?”
“Greetings, lord of the forge and demilord of chaos,” Lorgar said, mildly irked at the ability of the almost-gods ability to sense him, though he maintained a respectful tone. It was not a wise idea to offend a near sovereign in their place of power. “I come seeking answers for a most curious set of events: a handful of months ago, a strange series of events occurred, concurrent with a great streak of amber across the sky: a Night of Japes, so to speak.”
The Arkifane paused, finally deigning to stare at Lorgar. “I know of the event you speak of,” They said disdainfully. “I received a tiny ceramic bearded man in a red pointy hat. If you see it, please kill it for me.”
Lorgar gave an incline of his head. “Ah, so you too received a gift,” He confirmed. “Was yours as well given by an A. Wake?” He enquired, causing the daemonic demigod to give a shake of the head, followed by a tilt of their head.
“The name on the packaging said it was sent by the House of Devils. Unfortunately, I was not the only recipient,” They said slowly, voice grinding in annoyance. “As a result of their ‘gifts’, those invaders managed to enter the Forge itself.”
“I assume you mean the strange ogres I passed on the way here: not a creation of yours, I presume,” Lorgar commented, raising a single chiseled brow. “Though I must admit, it is rather concerning that the master of mechanism is having problems with spirits of technology.”
“Those things are not technology despite their appearance. If anything, they’re the antithesis to technology, daemons of obsolescence, mechanical breakdown, and the destruction of devices,” The almost-god explained, returning to his work. “I do not know from what shore they come from, but they have become a persistent pest to my work, especially when-”
A loud klaxon would begin blaring. “...The Cathedral of Ruin,” The Daemon spoke, voice concealing barely hidden hatred beneath the still unnaturally calm mechanical cadence, rising from their subject, now complete: it resembled an organic blade covered in patches of techno-organic circuitry, a single yellow caprine eye in the pommel, edge covered in shadowy, venom-dripping aura emitted by the arcane power-field generators in the weapons internal structure. “Come, Primarch: you shall see what I have seen and learn what I have learned. In exchange, should you learn their origin, I expect the favor be returned.”
“Very well, Oh Arkifane of the Forge,” Lorgar conceded. “Show me what you wish to show me.”
(((())))
Lorgar stared, impressed on some level as it saw the machine. It was one he recognized: a model of mechanic moving church that had once been the province of a particular forge-world that no longer existed, destroyed during the Heresy by the Sons of Horus. Thirty seven stories in height, each of its massive segmented legs stepped forward, one at a time, it was obvious the millenia had changed it.
The stained polyglass had been broken, replaced by wooden planks painted with uncouth slogans. The great spires and arches had begun to collapse, replaced with scrap-welded scaffolding. Each of its joints were rusted over, the machine moving in-spite of its mechanism, not because of it. Hanging off it were a great mass of the ogres, its crew, each of them carrying crude clubs made from uncut unpolished glowing purple crystals, many of them leaping off to join the great fray that was occurring as the titanic structure bulldozed its way through the armies assembled before it, the daemonic legions either breaking and running or standing their ground and being overwhelmed or stepped on by the behemoth thing as it marched towards the Forge.
“Is that a daemon engine?” Lorgar said, and yet the moment he said it he knew the answer.
“No. It is something else: a spirit of wreckage and entropy,” The Arkifane responded, watching silently as it approached them in the distance. “The creatures…the Boo’ug as they seem to call themselves…They found it, somewhere, and have bound it to their will, using its nature to help them CONSTANTLY. INVADE. MY REALM,” He ground out, voice rising to something as a roar, that of an angry, gutteral generator, gripping the railing that stood between the two as the great anti-machine reached the Forge.
All around it, machinery fell to wreck and ruin: daemon-engines rushed out, only to begin rusting and corroding, their wheels and mechanisms jamming and coming to a halt, their infernal helltronics breaking down and causing their bodies to jerk and glitch. Soul-Furnaces would glow red hot, beginning to twist and deform even as Boo’ug came and ripped the machines from their frames, looting the twisting devices and bringing them back to the still rampaging machine, labs and foundries being flattened and wrecked. Machinery and assembly-lines would wreck themselves, malfunctioning as they began to go faster and faster causing themselves to break more and more until they were but moving mangles of machinery, or sputtering to a twitching stop entirely. Some went berzerk, rampaging.
“You see how they pillage? How they raze?” Vashtorr growled as the machine began to retreat, its raiding party being forced back through sheer forced and ranged weaponry such as daemon-cannons, along with more organic daemons armed with simple weaponry, crude and barbarous creatures holding what appeared to be stone clubs, bone-tipped spears and simple metal hammers. “My antithesis. A thorn in my side. I have been forced to resort to cruder and cruder means to drive them back.”
“I confess, I never pictured you as the type to to have minions armed with mere bone and stone,” Lorgar admitted. “They seem a little out of nature for you, Forgelord.”
“Fool,” Vashtorr accused, turning to face the Primarch. “Do you think the realm of artifice is strictly that of metal? Mankind did not crawl from the dirt with the knowledge of mechanism and metallurgy. I am the soon to be god of ALL technology, the imprint of the first hand making the first tool reflected into the warp, the urge to know and create at its most basest expanded to all-encompassment. And remember, Primarch, that the first tool man ever used was mere ‘bone and stone’ as you label it.”
“True enough,” Lorgar responded graciously, though noting to not forget the insult. This however was the time for diplomacy. “Where do these spirits come from, perchance?”
“I don’t know. There are whispers: a growing hole in Segmentum Ultima, an ever spreading sphere where prophecy and fate have been broken,” It rumbled, eyes narrowing as it decided to humor the daemon primarch.
“Impossible,” Said primarch responded, frowning. “Such a thing does not exist, cannot exist: the Changer of Ways and Architect of Fate would not allow it.”
“Believe it or do not, Primarch, but the facts do not care about your dogmas,” Retorted the Demilord of the Forge, who turned and began to walk, likely making their way back to their sanctum. “It does not change the fact that there is a hole. It is expanding, year by year, even as we come closer to the end of the age of man. These Boo’ug are from there. I believe my gift was also from that location. Perhaps yours is as well, little Primarch.”
(((())))
Lorgar would leave troubled.
Sending his spirit to the vast library of the Changer of Ways, he found himself confirming what Vashtorr had told him: though Tzeench himself could no doubt see past it, as no future or past was truely beyond their vision.
But lesser sorcerers were unable to piece the veil: the exact edge couldn’t even be determined: at times it seemed like the sphere was thousands of light years across: other times it seemed a mere collection of Sectors. Its borders were hazy and undefined, a shifting darkness. And as one grew closer and closer, the more one heard of strange and troubling things, unrecognized pseudo-daemons, inexplicable real-space phenomena such as time unwinding, xenos wielding weapons capable of inflicting True Wounds on even the hardiest of daemons.
And once more he would hear of the mysterious House of Devils, learning of a member of this organization operating upon the Daemon World of Inferno as an info-broker. Seeking answers, Lorgar would once more project his spirit…
(((())))
Lorgars spirit opened its eyes. Inferno: a sprawling hive-world of the Sector Sinister, the sixth Crownworld of the Carrion King of Sheol that had been brought halfway to the warp by its owner.
And then, once it had been given to the Dark Gods, the Carrion King had taken it back, breaking the daemons and servants of the four that were warring with each other for its ownership, killing every single Astartes who contested them.
Lorgar had been following their career with moderate interest. It was rare that a soul not only withstood chaos, but outright overcame and overtook it. The planet itself was a titanic mobius loop, a single-sided metropolis circling in realspace a distant, dying star, a red sun that blazed dimly in the sky despite its massive size. In the center of the loop was the true source of light for the daemon world, Sheols Eye, a singular, blazing piece of dark warp-craft that resembled a burning orb of wrought pig iron with fel fiery runes carved across each metal bone. Inside, Lorgar could see the outline of people, wailing, bodies translucent, hard to make out: ghosts burning in the bonfire cage. And at the very center, a dark singularity, a black orb whose event horizon glowed an uncanny electric yellow: the pupil.
The moment Lorgars spirit manifested, the great gloriana sized psy-gate turned, its fiery pupil contracting as it focused upon him. The sovereign of this world knew he was here…and yet, other than the shift of eye to acknowledge Lorgar, no other reaction followed.
Good. Respect, yet discretion. Giving a wry smile, the Primarch continued forward, cloaked against the sight of the bustling masses of the daemon-world, the myriad slaves and citizens of the Inferno, all some degree of mutant due to the gene-changing nature of the daemon-world. Blackened, sootstained rock-crete buildings surrounded the bustling street, and the air was thick with the choke of ash. Walking upon the tar-paved roads, the Primarch took the time to take in the sights of the hive-planet.
Comparatively, it wasn’t wholly unpleasant: the Carrion King made sure that his roads and highways were safe, especially those under his direct sight, its denizens held to strict laws regarding the acceptable locations for violence: Daemons who violated this rule (and were caught, for, Lorgar noted, no matter how wide the eye of a tyrant, only the gods could see all) lined the roads, strapped to pillars, their bodies and spirits bound and pierced by dozen of power spear-tipped cables, alongside all manner of mortal and astartes transgressor, the latter two typically having various pain augments or torture implants placed in their bodies, their wails, screams, and roars serving to make a stark example of what the Carrion King was willing to do to those.
Occasionally, large, insectoid towering creatures would pass through, building stick legged mantids with parts of their bodies replaced with mechanical augments: they would scoop up screaming passerbies, either dragging them to be ground up in the mechanical maws of the machines to be rendered into sustenance, or placed in large sacks of burlap alongside dozens of others.
Lorgar wasn’t entirely sure if such was typical to this world or not, but judging by the fact that no one seemed to react over-much to the creatures unless they were selected, he would err on the side of assuming this was not unexpected as an event. For this road, at least.
Eventually, his spirit passed into his destination. Red Lantern Street, denoted by the sign covered in flowing golden calligraphy and the titular red paper lanterns hanging on cords above him. Supposedly, the information broker he sought was here.
Passing through the area, Lorgar noted how the tenor of the place changed. The back of the primarchs neck hairs pricked up as he found the citizens and slaves replaced with crowds of entertainers such as coal eating mortals and spirits entrancing their audience with strange silverbrass stringed instruments, vendor carts selling bowls of what appeared to be noodles, and interspersed with the daemons and mortals were other spirits, masked ones that came in all manner of shape and size. Lorgar could sense within them the power of chaos, but these entities, which manned the stalls, served in the troupes that were entertaining, occasionally attempting to hawk off wares to passerbies, did not quite resemble any of the servants of the true powers he was familiar with. The masks resembled various substances: stone, metal, gem, glass, wood: there seemed to be a pattern, but what it was he couldn’t recognize.
It was almost festive.
These were the Devils he had heard about then, he supposed: it was rare that a new power clawed its way out of the depths of the warp. He would have to investigate them more when this was over and done.
The building he was searching for was a small hut in the middle of a garden, up a winding cobbled path lined with blackened, thorny plants with blooms the same colors as bruises and infected wounds. Passing through a gate, Lorgar shivered as he felt something: the influence of some sort of arcanic field over the grounds. Defensive warp-craft, likely triggered by the gate: by passing through it, should he attempt to harm the owner, his mystical abilities would likely be weakened.
Curious and curiouser. Ascending the stairs of the path, Lorgar passed by a small water pond, in which he could see various glitterscaled fish, not native to the world: likely imported by the gardens denizen from some far unknown land. Passing around the reservoir, the Primarch came upon the door to the hut that belonged to his proverbial quarry.
Wishing to maintain his continued discretion, Lorgar would amend his ritual, using his innate sorcerous abilities to alter the form his spirit took, trading his invisibility for instead the guise of a mortal in a shimmering cloak formed from the mixing of every single shade of the chaos rainbow into a brilliant, unbroken white. Raising a hand to the knocker that rested to the side of the sliding paper door, Lorgar raised the ring and brought it down one, twice, thrice.
A moment later, the door to the hut slid open and revealed the interior. It was larger on the inside: the floor was made of simple wood. Walking inside, Lorgar noted the room was covered up with paper talismans, some unknown sigil of power written on them, all attached to the walls or ceiling. A handful of slowly rotating braziers hung from the ceiling, bathing the huts interior in the reddish light of their embers. Two small cushions were placed on the ground, a small table placed between them. One cushion was empty, presumably for guests. The other…
The spirit was green and shaggy haired, with long, lanky limbs. Each of its arms ended in sharp claws, which it used to hold a small cup to sip from, its lower face covered in a long orange beard beard that stretched to the floor, while its upper-face was obscured by a white mask shaped in the image of a dragon, and on its crown it wore a wide-brimmed pink colored hat. “Ah, a visitor,” The Devil said, massive mouth, easily big enough to swallow a human whole, split into a slow grin full of pearly, tombstone shaped teeth. “What is your name, Pilgrim, and why have you come to seek out Dr. Teeth?”
“I am Urizen the Chosen, and I have come seeking information,” Lorgar answered, causing the devil, Mr. Teeth, to give a slow nod.
“Urizen, eh?” The creature commented, pensively stroking their beard. “A very auspicious name: was it given or chosen?”
“Given,” Lorgar answered, honestly, slightly confused by the disappointed look the Devil gave him. Had he answered wrongly? Was this some sort of test? “Earned,” He corrected himself. “Through many years of toil and service to the dark gods.”
“Hmm. Better perhaps than to have it forced upon you,” Dr. Teeth grumbled, before gesturing for the disguised primarch to sit. Doing so, Lorgar found himself carefully examining every aspect of the space. It reminded him- somewhat- of Jagatai, though mostly that was owing to the table and floor cushions, admittedly. “What have you come seeking, Urizen the Chosen?”
“Many things,” Lorgar answered again from across the table. “I have heard whispers of the House of Devils while pursuing my own investigation,” He admitted. “And I must admit, my interest was piqued: when I learned there existed an information trader from the House, I decided to come investigate.”
“Mmm,” The devil rumbled, snapping a finger: a moment later, from seemingly nowhere emerged a relatively diminutive spirit that seemed to consist of a vaguely humanoid shade entrapted in a metal mask emerging with a cup and a kettle, handing the disguised Lorgar the former and pouring him a cup of hot, steaming liquid. Then, the spirit retreated, fading into the darkness and leaving Lorgar with his cup, which he sniffed experimentally before sipping, surprised to realize he was drinking tea of all things, albeit an unknown (if superb quality) blend. “Is the tea to your preference, Urizen the Chosen?”
“Extremely,” Lorgar admitted. “I might also add in learning where you source it to my questions.”
The devil gave a low, rumbling laugh. “Mangroves. I will keep the name of the planet my secret, but the tea comes from the flowers and fruit of the place where water meets land, tended to by the Ferrymen, spirits of rivers and streams.” He took another sip. “Now, the price. Just as mortals must slake their thirst with the waters of matter, if you wish to learn of the House of Devils, you must profer forth the waters of life.”
“Blood?” Lorgar inquired, noting that if such was the price, it would make things…complicated.
“Nnnn,” Dr. Teeth rumbled. “Blood, no. Blood is a medium, a catalyst, but of itself it is merely water and iron matter. I talk of something deeper: the blood of the soul. Your lifeforce. Your quintessence.”
Lorgar raised an eyebrow. “And how much of my vital energy would I have to offer?” He asked, immediately noting the obvious trap here.
“Worried about being drained dry, eh?” The devil said, grinning. “You have little to worry about, Urizen the Chosen: I swear upon my mask and name I shall only take a little, and nothing that cannot be replenished with time. A fourth, I think.”
Setting their cup down, the devil slowly stretched its arm out, palm open, each talon tipped finger uncurling. “Shall we shake on it?”
…Hmm. Lorgar was uncertain: the devil was, seemingly, asking for a single payment of, according to it, something that would not permanently diminish him. A daemon attempting to make a deal was always suspect, and one offering a seemingly honest deal even more untrustworthy.
“And there will be no long term consequences?”
The devil shrugged. “From the price, no. The knowledge, perhaps: there is no such thing as truly incidental knowledge. Mortals are the sum of their facts, shaped by the millions of bytes of information that comprise their understanding of the world.”
“Very well.” Lorgar agreed, deciding that even if there was a trap hidden in the deal, he could likely break it if it truely inconvenienced him, grasping the hand of the devil and accepting his deal. A moment later, both of their entwined hands were covered in a ghastly green flame. It was cold, cold as the grave, Lorgar thought, a chill crawling up his spine as he felt, slowly, his energy drain, the quintessence sucked out of his soul.
It lasted one minute exactly, and when Dr. Teeth pulled his hand back, the primarch felt more exhausted than he had felt in millenia, like he had spent several months toiling without rest. Dr. Teeth’s brow was raised. “Hmm. You have strange life-force, Urizen the Chosen,” The devil noted as Lorgar attempted to catch his breath. “And very much of it. Had I known that, I would have offered better terms,” Teeth admitted, before placing both his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers together and using them to prop his head up.
“I…probably…would have requested better…” Lorgar noted, breath slowly catching up to him.
“As you should have,” Dr. Teeth agreed. “Some advice, Urizen the Chosen: never underestimate your worth. Your enemies will do that for you more than enough.”
Lorgar actually laughed at that. “True enough,” He responded. “Now, perhaps my questions might be answered?”
“Mmm. The House of Devils is an organization of spirits united for mutual benefit,” Dr. Teeth spoke agreeably. “Denizens of the realm of Chaos who differ in motive, ideology, and origin, but are bound together by deeper ties, those of purpose.”
“And that purpose would be?”
Teeth grinned, and Lorgar briefly wondered if the gesture was actually signifying humor, or if, like certain species of ape, it was merely the baring of teeth done in such a way to mistake humor from wrath. Lorgar noted that he couldn’t tell. “To act as the infernal hand of the New Gods.”
New Gods…A name he had not heard of. “Who are the New Gods?”
“The New Gods are an answer waiting for a question. They are fractal repeating and rebirthing itself. They are the shadow from out of time, the color from outer space. And they are the womb of that most wretched curse, mercy.”
“Mercy?” Lorgar asked, raising an eyebrow. That mercy COULD be a curse was something the primarch was all too well aware of: he was familiar with the act of leaving a man alive to destroy everything they held dear, or allowing them to witness while alive the ultimate decay of everything they had built. It was not something much of Chaos had capacity for, however, except for the servants of the plague-father.
“Yes, mercy,” The devil said, voice growing more somber. “The New Gods are merciful: merciful enough that you will not die. Merciful to shatter your conception of the world and yourself. Merciful enough to destroy the facts that make up the soul, leaving those who encounter them unable to return to who they once were. Mortals. Daemons. Even other gods, those far more ancient than either of us can fathom, uncountable millions of aeons old. And unable to be who they once were, each who encounter them must endure the pain of unmaking themselves and the fear and terrors of building themself once again, forced to assemble new facts into a new shape in the shadow of new gods.”
Another throne, perhaps? While doubtless the gods of chaos were stronger, there did exist numerous smaller sovereigns of chaos: some of them (but not many) were unknown even to him, so vast was the endless sea of the primordial ocean that not even the great scholar of the greatest of its powers could claim absolute knowledge of its total breadth. “In a sense,” The Devil said agreeably, clearly deciding that they had given as much information on that topic as they were willing to. “Pray you never meet them, Urizen the Chosen. There are reasons I live outside their shadow.”
Lorgar nodded, continuing to memorize and analyze the information given: then the House of Devils was a subordinate power of these unknown monarchs. “And those reasons are?”
The devil continued to barr its teeth. “Because the House has decided it’s in its interests to help cultivate relations with more amenable factions within Chaos and support those who act more in line with our ideological and material interests,” Dr. Teeth non-answered, changing topic, unsteepling their hands and stroking their beard. “The Carrion King is a monomaniacal murderous malicious monarch, but he’s also a neutral arbiter in the Great Game and a stabilizing factor for the mortal servants of Chaos in real space, forcing several smaller warlords to cooperate in the war against the corpse-emperor instead of wasting resources eating each other alive.”
…Which was an interesting bit of information itself: he had been aware of the warlords military might and force of will, but his political and diplomatic career was something that he had missed entirely. “And thus, the House wishes to court his favor so he can more oft RULE in their favor, and to empower his ability to do so more broadly,” He intuited, still puzzling over the notion.
“We bring to his planet those who wish for knowledge and take from them information and quintessence of which he receives a tax, and- when we can- profer other favors, such as hosting feasts to keep the mortals fed, loan mercenaries to fight in battles we don’t consider an affront to our interests, and playing our accursed fiddles in his many ceremonies.” Dr. Teeth gave a low grumble. “You are beginning to reach the end of my charity, and thus the amount I am willing to answer without another deal.”
“Very well, one last query then,” Lorgar said, conjuring up using the ritual the book he was investigating. “My master was sent this book: I’m told you might have some notion of who made it.”
The creature took the tome, looking it over, growling. “Rrr. Not ours. This item has been altered: you’ve made an enemy of the Outer Dark.” They said, spinning it around, not even bothering to open it. “Looks like it was originally a Mimic Manuscript: joke item.”
“...Outer Dark?” Lorgar inquired, making the devil frown.
“The world is divided into two realms, Urizen the Chosen, or so they say: the realms of matter and of spirit,” The devil rumbled. “But there is more between earth and hell than is dreamt in our philosophies, poor Yorick: no mind is vast enough to comprehend the entirety of the cosmos except the Never Dead Priest himself, and above and below reality, above and below the warp, there are other, stranger realms, with even stranger spirits. Most, unlike daemons and devils, have no interest in our worlds: your geometries constrain, your thermodynamics blind, and the warp and its eddies are as alien to much of them as it is to us.” They set the book down, sliding it across the table back to Lorgar.
“Not all, however,” The devil continued, as the lights flickered, the temperature turning to a chill. “Are so thoroughly disinterested. And so they come from above and below. Many from below: a universe without heat, without illumination, an infinitely vast and unrelenting darkness so profound photons die within minutes. Can you imagine that, Urizen the Chosen? A world where light doesn’t exist: a realm of infinite cold that not even Chaoskin can survive in. Can you imagine then the creatures that make it home?”
The lights began to dim all around him, and Lorgar’s instincts began to scream, the same instincts that had troubled him in his tower when the book had been changed. Finally, he understood what they were. “These creatures…our world intrigues them, sometimes. And so they congregate: the weaker to look for cracks, fissures, fractures in the space-time continuum or plot-holes in the narrative weft of the warp that they can peer through.” Dr. Teeth grimaced, their fur standing on end as the shadows around them lengthened, and distantly the pair of them heard whispers, indistinct, indistinguishable. “The stronger don’t need that: they can see us just fine.”
The instinct he was feeling was the same one that a mortal might feel when the hairs on the back of their neck stood up on end. The certainty that they were being watched ny something they couldn’t perceive. “Who leads them?” Lorgar inquired hoping he might learn about who leads this unknown faction, causing Dr. Teeth to shrug. “Under what crown do they serve?”
“Who lead the mighty tigers that once lived in the foliages of ancient Terra? What beast holds sovereignty upon the wilds of Catachan? There are no crowns in the jungle, Urizen the Chosen, except for the crown which rides upon that pale rider, death. I know of individual entities that can claim some authority, such as the Black Functionary and his legion of Ambassadors, but there is grand unifying power in the Outer Dark, no great counsel of shadow, no great and terrible thrones upon which rest a quartet of dark gods to rule over the chaotic masses.” This caused Lorgar to give a growl.
“Then by what means can I find whatever entity altered my mimic-book?” Lorgar asked, growing frustrated and unnerved. Most likely the spirit in front of him was just ignorant, the primarch told himself: even in nature, there were creatures that acted as sovereigns and rulers. This caused Dr. Teeth to give a click of his tombstone-like dentures.
“That is the question, isn’t it?” He answered. “I am not all knowing, wanderer- the Outer Dark is as shadowy as it’s name implies, an ocean of which I have only barely viewed the most shallow layer.” The devil gave a humm. “There is a place where you might be able to at least learn of your tormentor: a great library created by scholars of that realm.”
“In the sense of being from there or having learned it’s mysteries?” The primarch inquired.
“Yes,” Dr. Teeth said, and Lorgar supposed that was a fair answer, if one the Primarch noted that annoyed him enough that were he not in disguise, still seeking information, and somewhat unsettled he’d likely annihilate the spirit for the impertinence. “I will warn you, Urizen, that this is no ordinary library-”
They almost never were, in Lorgar’s experience.
“To find it, you will have to locate the city that lies beyond the edge of reality, between dimensions: the capitol of the Never Dead Priest, a creature who has used their knowledge of the warp and the realms of the Outer Dark to achieve immortality. The lost city of R’lyeh.”
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Robert S
Fuck. Yes. Inflict things upon him
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