ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞 𝔇𝔞𝔪𝔫𝔞𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔲𝔪 — Anarchia and Nazgul

[Nazgul]

In the dark chamber of a half-destroyed cathedral, lit only by the few remaining candles flickering in the shaking shrines of Ophelia IV, a lone inquisitor flanked by a set of four Sisters of Battle kneeled before a likely ancient hand-painted mural, depicting the God-Emperor, whose blinding radiance and shining light pushes away his enemies. Despite the overwhelming power of the God-Emperor, present even in the mural, it appeared cracked and half-faded. In the deafening sounds of artillery cracking the earth around them, the Inquisitor and his escorts appeared to be entirely unbothered by the fact that the very planet they were on was slowly suffocating in a smog of daemons and heretics. The inquisitor clasped a rosary in his hands, his knuckles white hot from his grip on the beads, hidden by his leather gloves. The sound of a nearby crack, crash and boom was drowned out only by the soft, calm whispers of his prayers. "O Immortal Emperor: have mercy on us, miserable unworthies that we are." Smoke filled the air. Through holes in the roof of the cathedral, one could make out the vague, foggy contrasts of lasgun shots flying into the sky before the smog swallowed them whole. "O Master of the Galaxy: protect your flock from the alien. O Keeper of Light: guide our darkened path with your radiance." The siege had begun some hours ago, but one glance at the city and one could've been led to believe that it had been weeks, if not months. The streets were deserted, shrines unattended, cogitators stuck in loops or expired. Ramshackle barricades broke up the monotony of the destroyed streets, showing heavy signs of battle all over the city. Ophelia IV had been a stronghold prepared to fight off any siege -- it was, after all, home to many Sisters of Battle. But while the Sisters of Battle would prove a foe too hard to fight for outside sources, the true threat came from within. It always came from within, as far as the Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus was concerned, but it pained him that he had arrived too late. Ophelia IV had not fallen yet, but it was evident that they were in the final hours of the planets life before it would be lost to Chaos. Only a miracle could save the planet - a miracle that he intended to put into motion. "We are your Warriors and we are servants of Thee. We stand free from Blindness of heart, free from hypocrisy, vainglory and deceits, but captive to hatred, malice and anger, to the filth, the alien, the heretic." The Inquisitors whispered prayer became louder, as he was whipped into a dogmatic fury the likes of which could only be seen in true believers of the God-Emperor. The soft murmur of his voice was strengthened also by the Sisters of Battle, who had now audibly joined him in prayer, heads bowed to the mural. A distant cry, followed by a guttural scream and the unnatural sounds of the entities that had begun flooding the streets interrupted their prayer, though neither the Sisters nor the Inquisitors appeared dissuaded. Whispers turned to spoken prayer, not one but many, as they finished their prayer to the God-Emperor together, steeled in their resolve, and aware of their doomed mission. Death was ahead. Suffering was their prayer. "By Thy agony and bloody sweat; by thy Golden Throne and Thy death, By thy destruction and re-emergence as the God of Men, keep and strengthen us, we who fight for Thee." The Inquisitor rose, the Sisters followed. As he stood, he turned round to face his escort, though they were more under his charge at the moment than he theirs. His face was rugged, not only from the relatively short siege they had endured so far, but from trials and tribulations of the past as well. Scars littered his face, a short beard gave him grit. The rest of his face was hidden underneath a hood, the trim lined with inscribed and stitched lines of scripture. His identification as an Inquisitor - the Inquisitorial rosette - was a simple, functional symbol of the Inquisition, fastened to the flap of his great coat, whose collar was peaked and covered his neck. All in all he made for a suitably mysterious, yet intimidating appearance to all those who had something to fear. "We must get to the dungeons below," the Inquisitor informed his escort. "This filth comes from somewhere, and we must root it out at the source. There's no sense or purpose in fighting the heretic in the street if for every heretic we kill, there's twenty more deep below the surface of the streets calling more daemonspawn to our world." He turned halfway around, and glanced through the broken lead in glass windows, where once had been a beautiful image of a saint or perhaps the God-Emperor himself, or one of his Angels performing miracles, and now had made way for smoke, death and heresy. There were others here, he knew, working towards similar goals. There had to be. A world like this, full of the God-Emperors most devout, and unfortunately also dungeons full of those most vulnerable to the corruption of heresy, brought here to repent. These heretics had to have been watched by something, someone, and who better to watch them than the Ordo Hereticus and the Adepta Sororitas. They had gotten overconfident, brought the enemy into their midst, seeking to punish them for their misdeeds, he thought. There was no kindness in these thoughts, only the righteous fury of the Emperor, for indeed they should have slain these heretics when they were discovered, and not brought them onto one of the holiest shrine worlds. A mistake they would pay for dearly, but one that also provided some comfort: Inquisitors and Sisters would be plentiful. "We know the way, Inquisitor," the foremost Sister spoke, her voice calm and in control, despite the chaos around them. "Though the dungeons are deep and stretch far and were inhabited mostly by those brought here to repent. I cannot begin to imagine what manner of filth roams the-" "You need not imagine, you need only bring me there so that we can seek to end this." A brief pause, before she obliged. "Yes, Inquisitor." The two shared a brief moment of eye contact, before the Sister turned and began leading the group out of the destroyed cathedral. It was best not to mull on the what-could-be's of the dungeons. It would be bad for morale. Morale that, frankly, wasn't there. The Inquisitor turned back even further to give the God-Emperors mural one final glance. For a second, he thought he saw the halo around the God-Emperors head light up with real light, not paint... "Inquisitor? We have to move," the female voice came again. "Is everything.. alright?" Startled, the Inquisitor turned around. "No..- yes, everything is alright. I just thought I saw.." his voice trailed off, caught in his thoughts. A miracle? A sign? Here, on Ophelia IV, amidst all this chaos and heresy.. or a reflection of the candlelight off the walls? "Saw what, Inquisitor?" "Nothing. I thought I saw a person through the window, but it was just the smoke. Let's go." With a steady gait he moved through the now-destroyed row of pews that had once given space to many of the God-Emperors faithful to pray as his flock, for him to shepherd from atop his Golden Throne. The presence of such symbols of worship, destroyed or intact, steeled his resolve. At the end of the long corridor lined with pews, the Sisters guided him left down a sharp winding set of spiral stairs, made of dark brick, that would bring them deeper underground, into a city beneath the surface. Shrine world or otherwise, it was hard to escape the inevitable filth that came with housing repentants. He could smell them. Instinctively, he touched the hilt of his power-maul and the pistol grip of his bolter. Heresy was surely not far away. ​ ​ ‎‎​

​

 

[Anarchia]

The sky was bleeding…​ That was the only word Valtria's mind could use to describe the sky of Ophelia IV that morning, a scar of incomprehensible iridescence that gouged it's way through the planets crimson sky, her eyes had only glimpsed it once; that brief moment after she awoke of staring up into the tear in reality had been enough to cause rivulets of blood to stream from her crimson eyes and down her pale cheeks, while the screams of a billion, billion damned souls echoed in her mind as the sun rose over her now besieged homeworld. The thudding of her boots could be heard echoing against the damp walls of the city's catacombs as she descended into its murky depths, a string of prayer beads shifted through the armoured fingers of her left hand, clinking against one another as they passed through her grip. Each bead representing a hundred perceived sins that stained her soul, each one paid for with killing, flagellation, and blood. She had already committed seven notable sins in the opening hours of the siege. The first was slumbering when the rift tore itself across the sky… the other six were for lacking the strength to save her sisters, to save her family. Her murmurs echoed back at her with each step. "My Emperor… Deliver our souls from heresy… Deliver us to you when we cross that line into martyrdom."​ Sister Eugenia had been the youngest of their squad, barely out of the scholar progenium, assigned to Ophelia IV for training in preparation to be shipped to battlefields abroad in the near-endless expanse that was the Imperium; A group of imperial citizens, driven mad by the rifts influence dragged her down and ripped her limb from limb, her screams died on her lips but they still rung clearly in Valtria's mind… The second and third, Oh-Qu and Hastia were struck down by a horde of jibbering monstrosities that flooded the streets in an ambush. Warpfire had melted their flesh from their bones, and they died in crumpled, burning messes on the streets. ​ "Grant me a shard of your courage, of your might… and I will burn away your enemies."​ The fourth, Miriya, Valtria hadn't witnessed, although she listened to the thudding of heavy bolter shells crashing against cathedral walls until they fell silent, Miriya's final sacrifice was to purchase a few fleeting minutes for the others to banish a greater demon of Slaanesh back into the warp, she had succeeded in her purpose, and Valtria had succeeded in hers… At the loss of Gertrude and Arialyn… Gertrude had been a veteran of a dozen holy wars, the eldest of the squad… Although in the end her age had shown, and she hadn't been swift enough to dance around the swings of the monstrosity that had been summoned within the Sanctum Martyris. ​ "I am your wrath, your sword…"​ The last to fall, Arialyn… Of all her sisters, Arialyn had felt like a true sister, not one of duty or familiarity, but of blood… Valtria was only a sister of battle because she had been found by Arialyn, when she was nothing more than a tiny, terrified soul begging on the streets of Ophelia VII after her parents had passed enforcing the Imperium's rule… Her memories of clawing at the gates of the Convent Sanctorum were vague, but Arialyn's kindness was always there, almost from her earliest memory… and she was gone. Her final gift to Valtria was her sword, a finely balanced longsword that was far, far older than its wielder, like most power swords, it sliced through flesh and daemonic sinew alike without resistance.. Even now, Valtria was turning it over idly within her grip, hoping something would leap from the dark just so she could have something to occupy her mind other than the deaths of sisters. ​ "I am the hand of the emperor, allow me to drag into the light, your enemies, both from within and without."​ The entire system of Ophelia was a place of worship, but Ophelia IV was a graveyard reserved for saints, they were, of course, cities upon it's surface, but almost all of these were built to maintain the graves of the honoured dead… The sisters stationed upon Ophelia IV had come to call the catacombs, dungeons and tunnels that winded their way down into the planets crust as 'The Shadows' the steps down to it were seemingly endless, Valtria had been descending for almost an hour now, leaving behind the screams and gunshots that haunted the surface only to be replaced with the occasional wet drip against stonework, or the groaning of ancient mechanisms shifting in the darkness. Finally reaching the bottom of the vast staircase, Valtria's helmet struggled to adjust to the absoluteness of the dark ahead. Valtria didn't pause at the all-encompassing blackness of the catacombs. Although her steps were tentative, not out of fear for the arch enemy that she knew was taking refuge somewhere within the murky, ever-shifting shadows… She was well aware of the passage of time that had ravaged the catacombs, many of which were millennia old; a false step could send one plummeting down an unseen abyss to join the dead that slumbered here. The thoughts of ancient Terran myths crossed through Valtria's mind as her prayer beads were released from her grip, those that entered into ancient underworld and innfernal domains of demons and damnation.. It wasn't the first time she had ventured into the shadows, but being here alone reminded her of why almost all depictions of hell were presented as large caverns of lava and rock. The thought also reminded her that in almost all myths of the underworld, no one escaped without a guide. Valtria made her peace with that fate quickly. The source of the Arch-Enemy's strength lied somewhere in this maze of bones and rock, she would destroy it; escape afterwards was optional. Pausing at a junction of tombs, Valtria glanced at a stack of femurs which formed a rough arrow pointing into the darkness, she knelt for a moment to examine them, fearing she may have just been seeing signs where they were none.. But bones defiled like this… The remains of multiple people used to form a crude sign was unmistakable, she continued onwards. Finding more and more of these horrific signs of bone stacked up and nailed into the aging stonework. The stonework of the corridor eventually gave way to the heavy darkness, for a moment all Valtria could see before her was an endless abyss… Of course it was not so… Merely a massive expanse, some kind of lost temple or tomb complex that was shrouded from her gaze… She hesitated at it's precipice before ghost sounds emanated from the breathing dark, the fleeting whispers of men and women scuttering in the darkness. For a moment, she thought it may have been a trick of her mind. Then she saw one, a man, hunched over and rushing as fast as his malnourished legs could carry him… The sister was an unmoving statue in the darkness, and the man clearly hadn't recognised her murky form. Instead of calling out, she merely followed after him, following at such a distance that her bootsteps could be dismissed as the groaning of the old catacombs and the lights of her visor could be consumed by the shadows. Stalking him through the inky darkness, her unknowing guide led her onto a catwalk that overlooked the vast room… the levels below her were bathed in light: thousands of candles, fluorescent lights, and loitering servo-skulls bathed the expansive tomb in golden light… It must have been fifty stories tall, perhaps more… But darkness engulfed any hope of seeing where the ceiling ended… The floor, though… She realised that the walkway she was standing on circled the edge of the room, and multiple staircases branched off it, all ending at the center of the chamber, which was filled with a dark liquid that shimmered in the candlelight. it was akin to a small underground lake… Perhaps some kind of aquifer that was breached when constructing the catacombs all those years ago, at the lakes center was an arch, well… It must've been an arch at one point, although most of the corner stones that had made up the stonework had eroded and fallen away… leaving two ancient pillars standing within the water… Almost like a gateway, surely a metaphorical one to represent the dead passing into the emperor's embrace... Surely. In her curiosity, Valtria's unwitting guide had slunk back into the murky darkness of the chamber. The sister seemed far more concerned with exploring the room… The candles, the desecrated remains of saints… The lake of pitch blackness… All signs of a cult dedicated to the primordial annihilator, the arch-enemy… She descended one of the staircases leading down to the 'lake' before she paused at the sounds of murmured prayers on the far side of the room. Sliding her sword into it's sheathe, Valtria pulled her bolter by it's sling hanging from her shoulder as the group entered the room… A group of sisters with a man at their centre. "Stop!" Valtria's booming voice carried across the chamber, slightly distorted by the vox transmitter within her helmet… It took her a moment to speak again after glancing between the sisters, they were the same order as her… Of the Martyred lady, she spoke a challenge in high Gothic. "Noli timere." One of the sisters within the inquisitors' retinue called back, her bolter raised on Valtria's form. "Feruntur Lucem."​ Valtria seemed to relax, if only slightly, before she made her way further down the steps, calling out to the group on the other side of the room as she did. "Who is the man you escort…? A priest, or a lost soul?" None of the sisters seemed intent on answering her question, not willing to speak for the inquisitor.

​

 

[Nazgul]

The Sisters guided him down the lengthy stairs that twisted and turned. Small crevices in the wall of the stairwell held skulls with candles on them, perhaps belonging to some saint of the Adepta Sororitas, whose deeds were memorized by those who would frequent these stairwells. Sometimes the stairwell would taper off, and the Sisters and the Inquisitor had to continue down a dark hallway before finding another set of stairs. There was logic to the madness, the Inquisitor found, as he tried to memorize the path they'd taken just in case he needed to return to the surface alone, but the madness far exceeded the logic. Eventually they wound up in a large, circular chamber that appeared to be some sort of prayer room, lit by the same candles on skulls that lit the many passageways that led them here. "What is this room?" the Inquisitor asked as they passed through, approaching a large statue of some patron saint in the middle of the chamber. He reached out his hand to the statue momentarily before the quick but soft grasp of a Sister stopped him. Curiously he looked at the woman who had dared touch him - his eyes betrayed confusion more than anger. "Forgive me, Inquisitor," the woman said with a hushed voice, almost whispering at him, "this is Lucielle, one of our Saints. It would be... better if you didn't touch the statue." After a brief moment of silent shared eye contact, the Inquisitor nodded and lowered his hand, at which point the Sister let go of his wrist. "Thank you." Giving the statue one more glance, it was apparent that whoever had made it had poured a lot of hours into the creation of it, as the details were well crafted, eternalized in the stone. The booming voice of the lead Sister drew his attention away from the statue moments after. "This is the meditation room. Or, one of them. Usually it is reserved for quiet contemplation of the God-Emperors will," she answered his question, though marching steadily onward and leading them out of the chamber, "though at the moment it is simply a chamber worth defending." One of the other Sisters mumbled a quick prayer, adding, "thank the Emperor their filth hasn't spread this deep yet." The Inquisitor glanced around one last time before he too delved deeper. "I would not be so certain, Sister. I believe their rot starts at the root of this planet, not the fruit. That they have not yet desecrated the chamber of your most esteemed saint does not mean they haven't spread here yet - merely that they have other priorities." This was the witch-hunters working theory for now, at least - the heretics brought here to repent almost assuredly were behind this, and thus where ever this all started was deep beneath the surface of this shrineworld. Admittedly, the appearance of the giant rift had been ill-timed, and likely was related to the siege, but it was undeniable that there had to be inside elements on the planet that... allowed them to enter onto this world. And, crawling into the mind of heretical filth, he likely too would have sown as much discord as they had in the initial stages of the siege. That meant spreading heresy, corruption, filth throughout the lower levels before storming the surface. This was the easy part. The hard part would be rooting out the pockets of resistance that would doubtlessly begin to form afterwards. "Do you truly believe so, Inquisitor?" the Sister returned, "then we truly are lost." Her words were defeatist, and the Inquisitor knew Commissars that had shot troops for less, but the way she spoke her words betrayed that she did not feel any emotion when considering the fact that they were likely to die here. Merely resignation. "Our convictions are the strongest weapons of the Adepta Sororitas, and if our enemy can afford to prioritize other matters, then surely..." "... they have the upper hand, Sister," the Inquisitor finished her thought for her. "The planet is not lost yet," the lead Sister suddenly spoke, the first words she'd spoken that weren't simply commands, orders, suggestions. "Ophelia IV yet stands. We have won tougher fights, and beaten more severe odds." The Inquisitor mulled her words some, though his face did not betray this. He doubted she spoke truth. But it was impossible to tell from her voice, her tone, her emotions... she was in control. No, her words were not meant to be a lie. They were meant to instill some discipline and desire to fight among her troop. The fact of the matter was that veteran Sisters had been sent away to fight, and what remained here were those so dedicated to their religious duties that they had stayed on a shrineworld, and those fresh Sisters who were not yet ready for the duties that came with service to the God-Emperor in full. The Adepta Sororitas had fought tougher battles, beaten more severe odds, but not these Sisters. A smile crawled onto his lips, masked by the dark. "Right you are, Sister." They carried on their route, going down yet another set of twisting stairs before arriving in yet another chamber. The lead Sister slowed her gait, something appearing amiss, until the sudden voice of a woman called out to them. A brief exchange followed, where both sides appeared ready to open fire, and the Inquisitor himself also found his hand drifting to the bolter in the holster, until finally the tension disappeared and the woman came closer. Despite meeting her Sisters in these trying times, the woman appeared to be more focused on the odd one out in the group, the Inquisitor himself. "Inquisitor Hadrian Vercix, of the Ordo Hereticus," he told her, stepping forward into a slimmer of light. The Inquisitorial rosette gave off a slight reflection in the candle light, before it seemed to dull in the darkness. "We are here to stop this madness - or at least play our part in it. I had expected to find more of your Sisters here, but it appears you are here alone. And for as long as we've walked, we've not found any others either. Complete, total silence. Compared to the surface, it is a welcome change but..." His voice trailed off while his eyes peered off into the distance, studying the room they were in. First he looked at the water, before his eyes caught the pillars in the center of the room. "... it appears that the silence does not mean total safety. And your presence in this room alone, bearing arms against us, does not inspire great confidence, Sister," he then followed up, and while he had let his hand slip from the holster of his weapon, he once again found his hand moving towards it. "Would you explain to us what you were doing here, in this strange water?" The fact that the Inquisitors suspicion had fallen on this Sister of Battle had not eluded the other Sisters, who appeared more tense for it. He had not uttered an accusation yet, but it was rather obvious that he did not truly believe she was here by accident, even if there was very little to base the suspicion off of. "It was my understanding that most of the Sisters would join the fighting surface-side, with their squads, if they were able. Yet here you are, deep underground, in some sort of... antechamber of corruption. Cowardice at best..." he paused briefly, his eyes trailing up and down the Sisters body, scanning for a hint of any type of betrayal of the truth, "heresy at worst."

 

[Anarchia]

» [Uprising] « 0:00 〇────── 2:44 ⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻ The all-seeing Eye.​ That was what Valtria had been told of the inquisition, an army of agents that lurked in the shadows of the Imperium, ensuring that no free thoughts lingered for too long… that no indepedent spirit would be allowed to stray too far from the emperors light without meeting a gruesome, bloody end at the end of one of the Inquisitions agents. Idle thoughts were the origins of heresy, after all. Valtria rolled her eyes under her helmet, a heretical act in itself, and one she would have to confess at some point after this madness was contained… The idea that a single man, inquisition or not… Could help in some way that a squad of sisters could not was laughable. Murky water splashed around her boots as she approached the group, sheathing her power sword before letting her bolter hang by its sling at her side. Her gauntlets curled into tightly balled fists at the accusation that she was a coward, or worse… A heretic. By the Emperor, she had heard that accusation spat from far too many mouths since the rift had opened up over the planet she was sworn to protect… The priests of the city above had slaughtered just as many loyal imperium citizens that were supposed 'heretics' as the cultists and demons that spewed forth from the lower levels… The fools within the ecclesiarchy had grown so paranoid with the arrival of the great rift… It was akin to watching a snake devour its own tail. After the last of her sisters had fallen, after making her way past the streets that ran red with loyalist blood… To be accused of a heretic herself was an insult that had to be answered… "I am Sister Valtria… I was fighting alongside my sisters… They fell defending the Sanctum Martyris when the hordes descended upon its sacred halls… I descended the depths to find the source of the corruption… Emperor knows the priests above have no idea of the true cause… They seem intent on turning on his servants… If you are looking for cowards and heretics, Inquisitor… There are plenty within the walls that still stand above our heads." The sister's armour still reflected the wounds from the battle above, the usual cloth sleeves and tabbard that adorned her armour had been burned away, with only crimson scraps remaining; deep gouges had been carved into her breast plate by something inhuman, and one of her cauldrons had melted in places from demonic warp-fire… The only piece of her armour that seemed unscathed was her helm, its crimson lenses whirring in the dark as she approached the group, only for the sister superior to block her path to the inquisitor. "The inquisitor asked what you were doing here, sister Valtria…"​ A grating static left Valtria's helm, which could have been interpreted as a sigh through the vocoded interference of her helmet. Taking a reluctant step backwards, she bowed her head in obedience… "My superior is dead… I only wished to avenge her, and my sisters… I knew I would find the root of the corruption here… I've already seen one ashen man in the darkness… I followed him here and then-" Valtria suddenly fell silent before she half-turned away from the group. The air shifted, it was subtle, almost imperceivable, but the sensory deprivation of the catacombs made any change more pronounced… For a moment, Valtria thought she might have imagined it, her eyes scanned the room, tilting upwards to look at the cobblestone walkways and balconies that overlooked the small lake. A crack in the air, and the sound of gurgling emanated from behind the group… The sister in the rear, a young sister… looked to the rest with a stunned expression on her face, wide-eyed and pale… She was gurgling on her own blood through a fresh wound to her neck... Then her body fell, lifeless and crumpled to the floor. There was another crack, this time something pinged off Valtria's helmet and tumbled to the floor. Her gaze shifted to the source of the sound, a human knuckle bone… half-shattered from the impact to her armour. "Heretics…" she hissed out before she pushed past the sister superior to shield the inquisitor moments before more bone shards were catapaulted from the darkness above, they pinged across Valtria's armour, which only served to rise a low growl from the sister… as she glanced over her shoulder, her visors switched to thermals, which picked out bright white figures of cultists draped in long robes lurking in the walkways above them, they were flinging bones at them with slingshots, hardly a real threat to any sister that had her helmet on, with a growl Valtria turned, keeping the inquisitor at her back before she raised the barrel of her bolter to aim upwards… What followed was a symphony of bolter fire from the squad of sisters who had all seemed to realise the threat at the same time, a reflection of their training… The stillness of the chamber was suddenly broken by the sounds of bolter fire, explosions and the screams of cultists. The barrage of bone shards lessened and then ceased completely as the final bone-slinger was sliced down by a bolt-shell ripping through his chest, bursting against the stonework behind him after ripping straight through his emaciated form. There was a moment of silence before the sounds of hundreds of footsteps echoed in the darkness, circling the group of sisters, one by one, the lights of the chamber were extinguished… Valtria's visor switched back to night vision, although much like before, it was barely able to reveal more than a few meters ahead of her. "Now you can see my cowardice up close, My lord." Her words were laced with barely veiled frustration as her power sword slid from its sheath, lightning arcing from its tip to the stonework beneath her boots. The first cultists lunged from the darkness, armed only with a bones sharpened to a point, Valtria smashed the first spear stabbed in her direction to the side with a blow from her gauntlet before her off-hand lashed out and caught the man by the throat, there he kicked and screamed as he was lifted from his feet, defiantly lashing out at the sister even as she cut down one of his fellow worshippers in a flurry of blood and split bone. She turned her attention to the cultist for a moment; his face was adorned with scars that took on the symbols of Slaanesh on his cheeks, and the unmistakable eight-pointed star upon his forehead. With a growl, her fingers tightened, crushing his throat to cease his incessant prayers to the dark gods… She tossed him aside with a growl, letting him clutch at his neck as he suffocated. "I hope the inquisition trained you well, Lord Vercix..."​