Terra: The Enlightening

[Light of Terra]

And now-for something different

>I'm human again

...depending on whether I retain my mental processing/peak human condition/martial arts/willpower and emotion based powers, this may or may not be completely hopeless. No matter, this isn't the first gauntlet and I'd be a sad excuse of a god if a mere thing like "being deprived of my actual godhood" is going to make me give up. Ah well, I suppose it can't be helped and I'll somehow have to find a way to stay not completely insane .

The sheer, stifling agony of being trapped as a singular, human personality in a mere human vessel will be utterly maddening after spending such a long time as a shapeshifting energy being. To say nothing of having to actually deal with actual human emotions and pain and whatnot. While trapped in a setting I know be, well, 40K.

Why /not/ destroy the orb? The truth is-I simply don't know enough about the consequences, and 2000+ years of experience have taught me not to take such things lightly. It would be utterly in Tzeentch's MO to set up this thing in the hope some sucker would break it, re-unleashing the warp. Even in my current mental state I'm not about to jump into yet another ruse.

>part 1

Complications: Xenos Horrificus, Damaged Systems, Atmospherics, Pale Sons, Redeemers (1000).

Ally: Kin of Iron

Cue immediate screaming, and beating my head against a wall. This is actually part of my plan, because my /other/ ally is a

Necron Tomb Spyder (1600) and I desperately wish to damage myself enough to become a space skeleton, it would feel far more like my true self.

Mk II Mars Pattern Plasma Gun (1400)
Masque's Grace (1200). I MUSN'T RUN AWAY
Total Recall (1050)
Warp Tamer (900)
Armour of Contempt (600)
Melta Gun (400)
The Flesh Is Weak (100)
Binary Chatter (0)

Once I've finally calmed down, eons of willpower, charisma and leadership will hopefully reassert themselves. First order of business will be to let my new allies know that THE SHIP IS FAILING and we need to fix it once and for all.

Anyway, since neither of us need air we can go about fixing the ship with a minimum of fuss, and a maximum of collateral damage. All the while I'll be whistling the following song while working

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

>part 2

"So anon, how was your day?"
"HA HA HA I hate that fucking orb"

On the plus side-Necron army get! And also a Destroyer!

Terrain-Barren (3). Fuck everyone here that isn't me or my companions
Atmosphere-Gaia Class (0). N-not that I want my companions to be able to breath right or anything, baka
Flora and Fauna-Deathworld (3). Oh shit, we space australia now
Natives-Zoats (0). Hopefully I can spin this as a mutual defence pact against the /other/ native xeno pact, while getting my new allies to provide the best of their tech for reverse engineering purposes in future jumps. When the Dark Eldar attack, they might even pitch in with extra vigor given their own escape from capricious xeno masters, who knows

I'm not sure how Gaia Class and Deathworld interact, so I'm assuming it's sort of like a nerfed Toriko Jump-where everything is deadly but DELICIOUS and NUTRITIOUS as fuck if properly prepared. I'm also counting for the featureless wasteland to reduce the Eldar's ability to hide or otherwise exploit environmental factors, and maybe end up wandering off to fight the local wildlife. I've got solid military training down for the LoT crew, so they should hopefully be able to hold their own with defence warfare spec'ing and salvaged firearms from the ship.

I won't lie-I trust absolutely NO ONE with weapons here except for my Necron cohorts, my companions and myself wait shit. Mandatory complication.

Complication: Dark Eldar, Ork Warparty, Imperial Guard, Tyranid Splinter Fleet (3600)

Catastrophe Recovery (3400). It's /40K/ and this is an absolute must
Unwavering Belief (3300). It's /me/ in charge of a colony and this is an absolute must
Healthcare (3100). If I'm stuck with these assholes, I might as well get some use out of them
Literacy program (2800). Mainly to conduct research in how to create automatons to augment my Necon forces, but still
Draft (2600). All shall obey me or get BLAM'd
Military Modernization (2300). Ugh.

>part 2.25

>deadlight intact

How long has it been? A year? Ten months? Time passes strangely, in the grip of frenzied withdraw from divinity. But I remember: Before the Choir and that...incident at the races, there was one other.

>Gained temporary companion: Magnus the Red

A few token comments about disgusting furfags and some genuinely curious questions about the choices we'd made (Magnus got VERY interested when he learned about Stands, Origins and our magical contract lore) and a partnership of sorts was formed. W-I recall his specific words were "I have already acquired what I needed from your long and bizarre adventures. Consider this alliance ironclad so long as your employment entertains me". And besides, I wasn't going to turn down a quest leading to archaeotech treasures after having survived this long.

>Worlds: Jerazol, Grace, Zayth, Burnscour, Undred-Undred Teeth (4300)
>Nemeses: Magos Vathek, The Burning Princess, Myrchella Sinderfell, Ferran Ghast, Tobias Belasco

The opposition was either numerous, powerful or both. The only advantages I held were that none of them fielded Necron forces, finding a balance between numbers and power. Battles were picked wisely; the Princess was lured to Grace where her energy signature was disrupted long enough for a few well-aimed shots to decorporalise her. On Zayth Magnus' foresight and clout won the day, enraging the natives against the heretic and recruiting her cultist followers with promises of Tzeentchean favor. Alas, Vathek and Ghast's alliance proved almost lethal until we mired them in a war of attrition on Burnscour. Suffice to say I might have died of disembowelment by bolter had I not replaced most of my flesh with necrodermis.

>Rewards: Psychic Awakening, Veteran of the Psychic Wars: Fire, Psychic Supremacy, Molten Warrior, Grav Repulsers, Gravity Sails, Grav-Flux Harness, Psychic Vampirism, Graviton Flare, Dark Cannon, Runecaster, Pharmacia, Psychic Spite, Open Wounds, Time Slip (500)

>Final reward: Elsewhere Coil

And last but not least, there was the burden of carrying and retrofitting all the loot on board the ship. For THAT, I was doubly grateful for the necron footsoldiers who had stuck with us thick and thin (and who I swear were starting to give me funny looks on the last legs of the journey). I'd laughed off Magnus' promise that he would use forbidden lore and Warp knowledge to restore a measure of my severed divinity-only for him to, somehow, set our soul on fire until we lurched around like an unholy Stand trying to rip free of its user. After the initial screaming, I had to agree it was technically an improvement over being trapped in a metal endoskeleton. And so the mundanities of the journey were made just slightly more welcoming. It took a long time for it to sink in: I could FINALLY bend reality, just a tad, like I used to. It felt...right. Perhaps it was then that our powers rekindled (no pun intended) a passion for fire I hadn't felt sense all those centuries ago in Raildex.

Magnus strode off without a second glance when we reached the final salvage site. Looking back, I- no, WE wondered just how much of our past he'd read, and whether he saw an echo of his good intentions turned sour in our survival after Ravenloft. Working with him was certainly less traumatic than working with a Daemon Prince had any right to be. But for whatever the reason, the Elsewhere Coil had a note attached that simply read:

"You can escape from reality. Perhaps even the Immaterium can be escaped, with time. But you can never escape your origins"

We'll have to go back, one day. We're honestly curious whether he ever did find a way out with what he learned from our memories.

>Part WAKE ME UP INSIDE

It had been a scarce few months since that harrowing revelation from Magnus. There was no victory in this. By now, I was starting to think I was going insane from the utter deprivation of my transcendant nature given I had a compulsion to only use my newly developed psychic vampirism on ten criminals positioned at equidistant points in a circle, as opposed to lining them up and draining them one by one like a normal person. Surely, the constant spontaneous events were driving me mad with a desperate need for order in my life.

And so when the Moon abruptly morphed into some sort of titanic gunslinging meatball I was overwhelmed with bleak exhaustion more than anything. I wearily wished I had some cyclonic torpedoes on hand.

The fact that it actually turned out to be a healthy, filling source of nutrition only deepened my depression. Surely it meant something even worse was cresting over the horizon. Belatedly we decided to sell some the excess biomass to our Zoat allies, and use the rest for building crude shelters for dependants and vagrants.

Gaining actually tradeable goods from the fungal bloom only grimly confirmed our suspicions that events were conspiring to send us upon an adventure. So I surrendered to the inevitable.

I was expecting to be shot on sight due to arriving with in the company of a Tomb Spyder, a Destroyer a battalion of regular Necron troops along with the Sisters of Battle but for some reason Customs waved us on in. As I did not have the presence of mind to psychically mask their perception, I can only assume the officials' faith in the Emperor was so strong their brains automatically filtered the Necrons as very oddly shaped Techpriests.

The Hive was...suspiciously well-managed and staffed. The fact that there seemed to be some sort of Chaos plague infesting the local populace confirmed the natural order was still in place, though.

As instructed, we set off to find a Major House with which to ally-

>Somewhere outside of space and time, Orikan laughs as he waves his aeonstave. He remembers what is yet to happen during Anon's day at the races

-and somehow I ended up stranded in space and time, talking to some sort of techno-barbarian. Apparently I was the messianic figure of some sort of cargo cult, which in any other circumstances may have cheered me up.

>Rolled Phase-Iron Plating

It was fortunate my Pariahesque surgeries prevented any facial expression, but my ocular sensors still widened when my contact casually mentioned that his people would also gift me with a vast cache of phase-iron in exchange for the food bards. Apparently the mystic status of my ship rendered the cargo a holy sacrament to them.

The Ratskins treated me and mine to a feast of-well, it was definitely meat and most of it was roasted. And that's all I dare speculate. I remember feeling grateful I had learned to subsist off psychic emanations after some of the meet tried to bite me. It was during the feast that I finally learned what misfortune the universe had planned for me.

I accepted my fate with only a little hesitation. At least there were no unmarried Guild bachellerttes to divert our attention.

I swear the spyder laughed me, just once.

On the upside, the shamans offered to sweeten the deal with some psychic-boosting recreational substances and stolen knowledge in admiration of our (perceived) daring.

>Karloth Valois, The Zombie Lord (+500 CP)

>Medic (1000)

>Armourer (700)

>Inventor (400)

>Spook (200)

>Spur (50)

>Blindsnake Pouch (0)

The man I was supposed to kill was ultimately a desperate addict. Was he what I could have become, had I lacked an entourage and a regular supply of sustenance?

>Rolled Pitch Black, Sludgy Surface, Sump Rat Pack, All Clear (+800 CP)

The journey below was as ominous as I'd feared a tense creep through pitch darkness in hazardous terrain. Attempting to illuminate it only alerted the vermin's presence, and while I was grateful for their meagre psychic faire their scorched remains only made the ground more slippery.

Mercifully towards the end we found firmer footing-in the form of an apparently abandoned cache of schemas-and an intact information dessimation system.

Someone had also left behind a drill. I hesitated, before reasoning we needed every advantage.

>part 2.5

>mfw we-I mean, I won't need eyes for where I'm going

...well. Lets. Let's see where this bizarre adventure takes us

Tempus Class Frigate. Whoever I'm dealing with, whatever I'm dealing with, it sounds like boarding will be required at some point. And this is the ship for the job

>Skirmish with the Hollow Men (900 CP)

Oh, I'm sorry-you were expecting vulnerable fleshy targets? TOO BAD, IT'S JUST NECRONS. Well, mostly Necrons. Including a Destroyer-I WILL find a way to fit the big lug into one of these transport ships just so's I can shoot down these fuckers with impunity. As for myself, that plasma weapon will be put to good use.

>exit jumper, bonked on the head
>end scene
>enter jumper, sisters of battle, and lewd

I would like to remind everyone I am like 99% Necron at this point, of our own volition. This must be both the most tolerant and also sexually repressed group of sororitas in the galaxy.

I dread to think how much of my mechanical chassis has been lubricated.

I can already see my companions' reactions: Odin is bent over trying to contain his sides, Elodie facepalming, Natasha silently raising an eyebrow, Killer and Kirsty giving me the thumbs up wearing shit-eating grins as Frost and L-Mo take the oppurtunity to volunteer for assistance in...oiling...and Morathi shamelessly laughing her ass off. That bitch.

>Choir of Righteous Fury joined the party
>Complications: Kheradruakh, the Decapitator, Wrath's Carrion, Hollow Men, Genesteeler Infestation, Void Kraken, Sensor Ghosts, The Broodlord (4200)

>Ship upgrades
Gravity Wave Projector (3800)
Neuroweb System Jammer (3300)
Ashens IV Reactor (3000)
Fleshmetal (2400)
Necrodermis (Free)
>Weapons and equipment
Kakophoni (2100)
The Pleican Tome (1600)
Black Death (1300)
The Atomiser (900)
Wild Snake (700)
Star Engine (500)
Hellfire Reactor (200)


ANYWAY how I plan to not immediately die to various factors:

>Wrath's Carrion
At the end of the day, they're men with human frailties. Locating that base is a priority, via good old fashioned scouting. Specific order /not/ to engage; I intend to use the frigate to blast the shit out of their life support systems from the outside in. By boarding if necessary.

>Hollow Men
This will be trickier, without them having a fixed base. Keep the ships moving-away from derelict wrecks. Maintain constant communication; never split up the main party to ensure the ships can cover each other. If boarding needs to occur-this is where the Inferno Rounds, Kakophoni and Necron troops shine. Engaging at a distance is of course preferable.

>Kheradruakh
Well-lit corridors. Constant cross-examination of myself and associates, via in-jokes for the companions, key words for the Sororitas. Again-do not split the party. Keep the Black Death near our person at all times.

Oh, and stick near the Necron Destroyer. After ensuring its detection abilities are buffed as highly as possible. In fact-use this to set a trap: The rare occasion when the Destroyer moves away from me is also the occasion where I am in a small, confined room or corridor, with only one entrance, armed with the Black Death and kakophoni.

>Genesteelers
Every relic ship we meet will be preemptively fired on, and preemptively retreated from. All excursions will be accompanied by the weapons mentioned above.

>Part 2.75

Having recently conducted led a daring raiding party into the hellish Carrion Depths all the while inwardly bemoaning my loss of divinity, I was understandably near ballistic upon being teleported into the midst of several orks.

A complete necron overhaul shuts out inconvenient things like pain and survival instincts, leaving me only capable of feeling loathing at biological life. I inadvisably started a fight by attempting to beat the pimp ork to death with his own cane. Four enemy casualties, a choppa lodged in my back, a crumpled hat and being bodily thrown out the door later, I reluctantly discover a racing crew known as the

>Slagshifta Brothers

Normally my reaction to Mektown would involve nuking it from orbit. Alas, for now I have neither access to ordinance on that level or powers that can emulate it. Carrying a bag of (miraculously unspilled) orkish teeth I'd been saddled with, I set out to make a series of purchases including

>A full tank (2950)
>Red paint (2900)
>Big sails (painted red (2850)
>"Bigga" fuel tank (2775)
>Dozer Blade (2700)
>'Omin Squig+scent bombs (2600)
>Proper "suspenshun" (2500)
>"Armerd" fuel tank (2400)
>Grot Bomb LauncherX2 (2100)
>Tellyport Blasta (1700)
>WartrakkX2 (1500)
>Wartrakk SorchX2 (1300)
>Burna BoyX2 (1100)
>Light Recce Vehicle (600)
>Tankbusta (400)
>MekboyX2 (100)
>Painboy

I initially attempted to pick candidates from the best and brightest, and acquire tech which would minimise the chance of spontaneous vehicular combustion. These being orks, I quickly settled for whoever survived when haggling and arguments about basic physics inevitably devolved into a brawl. Fortunately I was able to acquire some Imperium tech as well as some choice Ork technology from a nearby crippled mekboy, who seemed amused at the commotion my attempts at negotiation caused.

But as I returned to my crew, I couldn't help but notice the race's starting point (mostly because something exploded near it with enough orce to create a small mushroom cloud). Morbidly curious, I resolved to take a closer look at the competition-and if I still had organic bowels, I would have shat them when I saw what was coming.

>Baus (250)
>Doomrider (600)
>The Mystery Racer (???)

Not only was a champion of Slaanesh apparently performing his morning calisthenics atop a burning bike while amicably jabbering about chest waxing with a strange man wearing green paint, but I could swear there was a Necron preparing to race as well. As if aware of my observations the moustached driver suddenly looked in my direction-and I quickly left the premises.

I understood now. There was only one way to fight this insanity: With even more insanity

>Bubblechucka (200)
>Flakka-Dakka Gun (0)

With a little preparation, the race's begining was a bloodbath even by Orkish standards. Specifically, using aeons of sleight-of-hand experience I painted the other racers' bikes with squig scent pheromones, causing other teams' squigs to go berserk and start attacking each other and their drivers. Perhaps the intensity of the WAAAGH in combination with my vehicles' all-red colouring was what gave our vehicles just enough speed to escape the fireball that ensured when the prototype plasma grenades I'd had the mechboys rig up using an experimental design I'd based off my old plasma weapon and covertly distributed near the crowd stands detonated, taking a few more racers' lives.

The actual race was fairly intense; despite our advantages Doomrider held the lead for the most part by virtue of having an actually streamlined vehicle. Until we briefly ended up neck and neck with him-at which point I fired a flakka-dakka gun loaded with a crude narcotic diluted from plants on our deathworld into his face, causing him to veer off the course shrieking about pretty colours

Baus then became our main rival, along with the mysterious necron. At this point, i must have suffered from heat induced hallucinations-because I could sweat I saw said necron flexing a decaying human arm in and out of his own. As we crashed into an ambush party of communist grots which our blind driver gleefully smashed like a private security force, I had the inspired idea to first load our remaining squid pheromones into a small flask, which I hurled into Baus' oddly cadilliac-like vehicle. Then I released our homing squid-the sole survivor, in fact-after it; instinctively reaching up to protect his beautiful face Baus let go of the steering wheel and crashed in flames.

As the finish line dawned it seemed the Necron might just beat us. All seemed lost-until I noticed he seemed to be clutching onto an assortment of human body parts, some of which I swore were wriggling. With less than 20 meters to go, I turned the tellyport blasta on him, firing with centuries of experience, and yet, he somehow dodged all but one of my blasts, effortlessly moving aside as if he knew they were coming.

And then-one blast clipped an outhanging human vertebrae, which reappeared 500 meters back and accelerating. With a curse, the rider promptly turned around and drove the other way.

Overall, I suppose it was a fairly solid victory, considering our main vehicle only exploded once we stepped out. The subsequent victory bar crawl which Medium Dave and Blind 'Arry forced me to attend is less clear cut, but for some reason when I woke up, a grinning ork insisted I keep a set of ornate steel balls.

I suspect they have something to do with the oddly spiral rubble of the bar we visited.

>Reward: Gitfinda
>Gitfinda tellyport (???)
>Bizarre steel balls (probably scrap tho)
>FIN

>Part I WANT TO GET OFF ORIKAN's WILD RIDE

Huh. I...I guess today's just a nice day out at the alien caravan markets? What could possibly go wrong?

>Seven Thousand, four hundred and seventeen Year Old Tenkau-Shen Ice Wine (1100)
>A crate of Squat-Thrust brand power bars (1000)
>Advanced Materials Upgrade Kit (700)
>Lathe-Wrought Armour Plating Kit (300)


The companions have been working hard, they deserve a few treats. Also with any luck we can distract Lina before she tries to chloroform-oh hey, where's everybody going?

FUCK GIANT CANCER SHIP INBOUND OH JUMP-CHAN NO /WHY IS IT ON ITS PERIOD/ THIS IS THE GROSSEST

...oh hey, space dorfs

>Clan Macsweeny

Fortunately thanks to some quick thinking and advertising the place's natural resources, I was able to negotiate a trade agreement, ironically helped by mentioning the possibility of access to an Ork market as well as voicing the possibility of tapping the niche Necron economy

The ensuing legal debriefing WOULD have been exhausting had I retained weak, brittle flesh instead of assuming a carapace of glorious necrodermis and periodically having imprisoned rebels/heretics/general ruffians brought into to be psychically leached for energy. The point being-between myself, my legal advisor and some Orkish fungus brew the entire process took double the expected time, and I was able to negotiate the provision of a cache of squat tech in exchange for accepting the penalties.

Doom Train:
Cyclops
Deus Volt Singularity Engine
Void Shield Array
Supply TrailersX3
Crew Quarters
Hellfire Missile Launcher
Secondary Void Shield Array
Grudgekeeper Artillery Platform

>Cyclops
>14, 23, 42, 54, 26, 51, 22, 63

SO. That was slightly less fun than a dwarf fortress caving on itself from exploding cats. Things could've gotten pretty bad with the Skin Taker-had we not been an Alpha psycher and just sort of blew it up with copious warpfire. Even more fortunately the feral nomads gave us a chance to binge on delicious life force. With the Tide of Flesh and Sinner's Plague march-we personally made like a burning Kool-Aid Man and tackled the bastards in the form of a mini-C'tan, while the crew blindsided them. Also we partied with Ratlings at one point so-that happened.

>Supplies furiously scrounged from any and all encounters
>Supplies delivered by airdrop from LoT settlement
>A Winner is You

In the end, the solution to the meat thing was quite obvious: Dakka. Lots, and lots of dakka. Specifically-I called in a few favours to the now famous slagshifta brothers, fired an Atomiser Cannon at Abak's cronies until they were sufficiently krumped to remember certain debts and instigated a WAAAAGH upon the gigantic flesh monster. This culminated in an entire rok being fired into the side of the damn thing as it tried to retreat, knocking its trajectory into the nearest star while mega-cannons, mega-kannons and also guns hammered into the cosmic cancer from every direction, slowly and painfully steering it into a fiery death.

...in retrospect, that more than anything else was probably why the Living Ancestor was willing to splurge on letting us keep the land train for future deployments.

>End reward: 'Wrath of Grungi' Mega Cannon
>Land Train kept

>Part 3

OH LAWDY LAWD
It really is...happening.

Of all the things I'd thought I'd find on this journey, a surrogate father figure was /not/ on the list, but there you go. I'm definately going to learn more about Necrontyr culture with Oberyn to both curry favor and also not drop my spaghetti with my new dad. In front of all his undead, metallic friends. Some of which are suddenly my crew! Yessss, things are looking up.

Exile Cannon
Eternity Gate
Aeonic Orb

Antax Pattern Void Shieldsx2: Starboard, Aft and Port (1400)
Sulik Warp Drive (800)
Cyclonic Torpedoes (0)
Lance BatteriesX8 (Free)

The Iron Blood

Khorne emphasises direct combat, which is why we-I mean I-won't even try to fight this ship head on. Initially our strategem will involve going another direction at a diagonal flight pattern, strafing and such while building up distance. All the while the ship weaves, ducks and engage from a distance through the magic of inertialess flight-angling until we face its flanks or aft. At which point, I shall fire the Jovian Cannon straight into that stupid ship's plating, again and again.

>ending 1

AH, THAT'S MUCH, MUCH BETTER. After so long in that stifling metal prison we /almost/ imagine this is what it was like for the trapped C'tan to be OH GOD WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW

>close enough to the being

...technically we have to accept that.

...shh, just let it happen

>COSMIC FIRE