Arks of Omen: Herald of Misery part 5+6

The End Game:



The loyalists broke up their forces into a spearhead led by the Librarians Rhalion and Bhakir and a rear guard that covered their advance. The Librarians were wreathed with psychic energy as they slew the traitors even as they chanted the Rite of Echoes. The rear guard maintained the loyalists fighting retreat at the cost of their own lives. A cost that grew as the traitors intensified their attempts to stop and entrap the loyalists.



Meanwhile, on the surface of Lume IV, the victorious Iron Warriors began to consolidate their positions in the Uranic Lumensprawl. Led by the Slaved Psykers, the Iron Warriors and their Dark Mech allies used excavator engines to breach into the catacombs beneath the sprawl toward the suspected location of the key fragment. As the traitors closed on their target, a fresh wave of vengeful Imperials fell on them. A lance of Imperial Knights led by a Reaver Titan smashed into traitor lines. The war machines were supported by the Sisters of Battle. The Iron Warriors' tanks moved, grounding both rubble and corpses, to confront the Imperial charge. The tread of the Imperial machines and the fire of both sides began to collapse the catacombs and chambers beneath the sprawl, crushing more and more of the increasingly desperate search parties. It seemed for a moment that Czagra might fail in delivering to the Despoiler his prize.



However, as the lines of the Iron Warriors started to crumble, one of the search parties located the key fragment. It was an ancient scorched cogitator with a winged sword icon on its flank. The key fragment was teleported board the Herald of Misery, finally freeing Czagra to unleash his full wrath on the loyalist scum. Czagra ordered all Iron Warrior warbands whom he deemed worthy to fall back to the extraction zones. The warbands whom he considered to be incompetent or underperforming were ordered to engage in a sacrificial rear-guard action. Only if they proved themselves against the overwhelming loyalist numbers would they be allowed to rejoin his armies. As the Iron Warriors reached the extraction zones, Czagra ordered the Herald of Misery and his fleet to fire upon the Lume IV. The thunderous impacts heralded the death of the world.



Czagra took a band of his elite chosen and the sorcerer Mekranteer with him as he boarded an ancient Stormbird. The Stormbird blazed from the world’s surface toward the Ark. Czagra chose a hazardous yet fast approach for the flight. The Stormbird weaved through the chasms of the Ark, risking crashing into the strange and shifting terrain of the Ark’s hull. Czagra deemed the danger acceptable. He did not become the Grandmarshal of Ruin by cringing away from risks. After landing on an embarkment deck and linking up with the Key Fragment escort, Czagra made his way to the Portal chamber. He was determined to beat the loyalists to it and greet them there himself.



Meanwhile, the Strike Force was still fighting their way to the Portal Chamber. Their advance slowed when packs of Chaos spawn burst out of the corridors to engulf them. Some Blood Angels surrendered to the Red Thirst and threw themselves at the enemy. Rhalion and Bhakir used their combined psychic might to fight off the Iron Warrior, attempting to encircle them. Pinpoint psychic attacks boiled the brains of Iron Warrior legionaries, and psychic illusions bewildered the cultist hordes. Yet, for all of this, it seemed that the loyalists would soon be surrounded and overrun. Acting with selfless haste, the loyalist rear guard collapsed the ceiling. The avalanche of twisted metal trapped the rear guard with the attacking Iron Warriors, where they would trapped with the Iron Warrior hunting bands; their sacrifice freed Rhalion’s and Bhakir’s spearhead to proceed to the Portal. Rhalion vowed that their sacrifice would not be in vain.



The diminished loyalist strike force reached the Portal chamber at the same time as Czagra and his band. The traitors opened fire immediately but their fire was blocked by the shields of the surviving Bladeguard. The remainder of the strike force surged forth to buy the Librarian the time needed to finish casting the rite. Some of the exchanged fire brushed against the Warp Portal, transforming the bolter rounds into protean sludge, crystals, or even sounds and flares of light that agonized even the senses of the marines.



Czagra was unaware of the loyalists' true objective. Had he known it, he would have directed the battle differently. Assuming the loyalists sought to seal the portal, he directed his warriors to protect and convey the key fragment to the portal. He prioritized safeguarding Abaddon’s prize. Only once this task was done would he turn to eliminate the loyalist scum. The key fragment was carried by an unholy monstrous reliquary that was once a tech priest. The abomination skittered across the chamber protected by the terminator armor-clad bodies of the Iron Warrior elite. The reliquary threw itself into the Warp Portal at the same time as the Rite of Echoes of was fully cast. As it traveled across space and time, the energies of the Rites of Echoes trailed it.



Finally free to punish the loyalists, Czagra smashed his way toward the chanting Librarians. Just as he was about to end them, the sorcerer Mekranteer shouted a warning and attempted to halt what was racing from the Portal.



A feedback shockwave of unholy energy burst from Warp Portal, knocking everyone in the chamber off their feet. Tendrils emerged from the portal to clasp some of the marines from both sides and drag them into the depths of the Warp. Mekranteer howled and thrashed as he struggled against an unleashed entity that sought to possess his body. Rhalion and Bhakir endured the unleashed energies of the Warp Portal, but they paid a price for it. Rhalion's psychic hood had burned out and burst from the tremendous effort of saving his mind, body, and soul from the clutches of the Warp. Both Liberians survived but were wounded mentally by the ordeal. Bhakir’s wounds were grievous enough to cast him into the sus-an coma.



Rhalion stood to his feet, bleeding, shaken, and dangerously close to plummeting to the madness of the Black Rage. The pulse that emerged from the Warp Portal carried more with it than the evils of the Warp. With it came the knowledge of where all the Arks' Warp portals led. It was the Somnium Stars. The Idolatros System.



All that remains now was for the loyalists to escape the Ark with this vital information.



The Warp pulse allowed the loyalist survivors to disengage from the heretics and make their way to the savior pods that their tech marine secured. They carried the comatose Bhakir with them. When they neared the extraction location, a bloody, ravaged figure burst from the shadows. It was Mandrex, the Iron Warrior Master of Executions. A marine sent shots at their maddened assailant, but they bounced off his ancient armor. Mandrex swung his axe with incredible speed and beheaded the loyalist marine.



Mandrex directed his next swing at Rhalion’s face. Rhalion’s was too slowed by mental trauma to evade the strike however, he was saved when a blade guard blocked the swing with his shield. Rhalion used the opening to deliver a deep wound to Mandrex’s chest with his sword. This did nothing to slow down the murderous traitor. Mandrex smashed the blade guard’s shield aside and then beheaded him on the backswing. Enraged at the death of another of his brothers, Rhalion harnessed all the psychic power remaining in him and cast it at Mandrex. The psychic blast burned Mandrex and threw him off his feet to smash against a platform guard rail. Mandrex swiftly recovered from the psychic attack and lunged back at Rhalion. The exhausted Librarian was now on his knees, defenseless. It seemed this was the end for him when a figure surged past him to catch the heft of Mandrex’s axe before it fell down on Rhalion. It was Blood Angel Aggressor sergeant. The sergeant delivered a devastating headbutt to Mandrex’s face, sending him smashing back into the guard railing. Then the sergeant drew back his huge gauntlet and punched traitor hard enough to send him plummeting through the sundered railing to the darkness below.



Rhalion, in and out of consciousness, was carried by the last survivors of the Strike Force to the savior pods. The pods thrones were sized for baseline humans, making for an uncomfortable fit, but beggars can’t be choosers. The Marines engaged the pods and escaped into the hectic void outside the Ark.



The Void Battle Station Leonus Stellarium had successfully managed to fend off the traitor fleet attacks, albeit at a great cost. The sentiment aboard the station was hopeful after getting word that loyalist fleets were making their way to break the traitor’s siege of the system. The station received the distress signals of the marine’s savior pods. The distress message carried the signature of loyalist marines and spoke of vital intelligence. Driven by a sense of holy purpose, the station’s personnel sent recovery craft and escorts to save the marines before the Iron Warriors' craft could close on them.



The Iron Crusade:



The loyalist forces were few in number, but the damage caused by their ritual was substantial. The energy pulse that emerged from the portal collapsed the Portal chamber and caused an outbreak of possession among the Iron Warrior elite within the chamber. The Warp pulse went on to ripple across the entire Ark, unleashing myriad strange phenomena such as releasing a host of murderous ghosts from a funeral barge melded deep in the Ark. Also, the Warp pulse caused structural mutations in sections of the Ark. In one example, the ripple mutated miles of cables and wires aboard the Ark into serpentine creatures that burst from the walls to hunt prey.



Great indeed was Czagra's wrath at the damage the loyalists caused aboard his precious Ark; he made horrific examples of whom he considered responsible for the loyalists' escape. He ordered bands of hunters to go forth and not return until they hunted down the loyalists and exacted his vengeance upon them. A being of supreme and methodical pragmatism, Czagra suppressed his rage and turned his merciless attention to the slaughtering system.



Lume IV was the first to die, and the traitor forces too slow to reach the extraction points died alongside it. Having achieved total and complete orbital supremacy, Czagra had the Ark and every ship in the Balefleet open fire on the world. Rains of lance fire, kinetic spears, and bombs obliterated hive sprawl after another. There was no hope of escape for the Imperials, but many tried anyway. Futiley Imperial evac craft attempted to escape the world. Nearly all were destroyed by the pitiless fire of the Iron Warriors' fleet gunnery.



As the world died beneath his gaze, Czagaa directed the Ark's weapon systems to carve a thousands miles Iron Warrior’s skull symbol on the corpse of the world. Elsewhere in the system, the Iron Warrior forces inflicted equally cataclysmic ends on the system’s world. On Lume II, insurgents that had embraced the Ferrocractic Creed of the Iron Warriors shattered the thermos-reflective domes that protected the Imperial cities from the killing heat of the system’s star. Miles-wide storms of tumbling glass fell on the cities, followed by lethal solar energies.



With the entire system worlds dead or dying, Czagra marshaled the remainder of his forces. Imperial resistance in the Lume system had proved stubborn, and they had greatly diminished Czagra’s forces. He would need some time to replenish and rebuild his forces to wage war at this scale again. But for now, Czagra resolved to use his surviving forces to crush the Void Fort Leonus Stellarium. The fort drove back the initial Iron Warrior assault. For this insult, the Grandmarshal of Ruin would annihilate the fort and its reinforcing fleet with all the strength left in his armada.



It took some time for Czagra to gather his strength, and the Imperials used this time well. The fort’s astropaths forwarded the Space Marines' message using encrypted channels. They boarded the space marines on a light cruiser alongside Imperial officials deemed too important to die on the fort and then covered the escape of the light cruiser as it fled the system. With this duty complete, all that remained for the Imperials was to vow to wreak terrible vengeance for the murder of Imperial worlds.



Soon, the battle was joined. Imperial and traitor ships burned in the void. The Imperials fought hard and well. Their hatred and faith gave them strength. However, it was nothing against Czagra’s wrath. The Imperials drove back the Iron Warriors' assaults no less than three times. When Czagra saw that the loyalists were weakened enough, he closed in the fort with his Ark and let fly its super weapons. Czgara himself delivered the final blow, teleporting into the strategium decks of the fort to slaughter the last of the Imperial defenders. Thus, the war for the Lume system ended with total Imperial extinction.



Misery to All:

Czagra fulfilled his bargain with Warmaster Abaddon, and now the Ark was rightfully his to do as he wished. Czagra used the tremendous strength at his command to unleash unspeakable amounts of destruction and woe upon any unfortunate world that crossed his path. Here are a few examples of the galactic ravages of Czgara’s Iron Crusade:



-Czagra’s Iron Warrior forces crushed the Hive Cities of the Imperial world Chae’lhu III. Afterward, he ordered his typical planetary annihilation procedures. During the ferocious orbital bombardment, flashes of emerald light erupted from the planet’s canyons. Several Iron Warrior warships were hit by the green energy beams crippling some, and others were destroyed outright. It was revealed that a Necron tomb was awakened by the Iron Warriors and was now fighting back. Czagra was not the sort of a warlord that would leave a job unfinished. So, the order was given for a second planetary invasion. Czgara would grind these Xenos beneath his iron heel.



-Seeking to acquire resources to repair his damaged Balefleet, Czgara leaves his fleet behind in anchor and goes forth with his Ark to claim the mineral bounty of the Imperial Mining World of Grendael. Czagra is outraged when he finds that the Imperial population was already exterminated by a force of the Ymyr Conglomerate Kin, who are now in the process of stealing Czgara's prize by harvesting the planet’s molten core. Czagra attacks the Kin immediately. The Kin were forewarned by their advanced scanners. Realizing they don’t have the numbers and firepower to engage the Ark without suffering heavy casualties, the Kin order a retreat. They fight long enough against the Iron Warriors to evacuate their personnel and machines before leaving the remainder of the planet’s mineral wealth to Czagra’s parasite mining engines.



-Czagra’s leads his Balefleet into the Duskfall cluster to harvest the magical megaliths dotting the worlds there. He is met with stiff resistance when Aeldari hosts appear out of nowhere to strike at the Iron Warriors. The fighting divides Czagra’s forces across several worlds. A warband within Czagra’s forces exploits this to stage a coup against Czagra. They board the Ark and besiege him in his own sanctum. Czgara wages a war of unbreakable defense and unrelenting attack against the (double)traitors. Ultimately, the turncoats are crushed, and they meet gruesome ends.



-Led by the datavisions of the sorcerer Mekranteer, Czgara uncovers a secret base of the Red Corsairs. Czagra gives the Red Corsairs a choice. Join him or be utterly annihilated. Cowed by the might of the Herald of Misery, almost half of the Corsairs bow before Czagra. This allowed Czgara to capture the base virtually intact. After the battle, Czgara claims every piece of wargear, machine, and ship in the base. The Red Corsair turncoats were then folded into his forces.



-Czagra's slaughters his way into an Imperial Astropathic relay and captures a trio of chainedand abused Astropaths. He promises the terrified psykers freedom in exchange for sending a message to the Black Templar's Tenhelm Crusade. As the message is sent, Czagra's darkly brilliant mind dreams up the trap he will spring on the hated scions of Dorn.m



Path to Glory:



-While concluding his campaign in the Ajarga system, Czagra was contacted by a mechanical daemon acting as an emissary for Vashtorr the Arkifane. The daemon reported the Blackened Tower Ark and its Balefleet were cast into infighting by an infestation of the Enslavers. The Ark could no longer fulfill its objective. In exchange for taking on the mission of the Blackened Tower, Vashtorr offered Czagra a legion of specialized daemon engines fresh out of the Soul Forges. Czgara's greed for daemon engines overrode his caution of daemonic intrigues. The bargain was struck, and the Herald of Misery turned toward its new target, the Imperial world of Yarvos IX. A super planet of thousands of immense chasms. Locating the Key fragment was easier than it was in the Lume system. The psychic scent was clearer and more direct for the Slaved Pskers.



-The key Fragment was located at the northernmost done-complex. This is where the Iron Warriors directed the bulk of their attacking forces. Not wanting to linger long in the service of daemons, Czagra let loose a savage campaign of shock and awe. Waves of Iron Warrior legionaries and tanks smashed one defensive line after another. While from space, the Ark and the Iron Warrior warships fended off Imperial armored formations from aiding the dome with their orbital fire. The Imperials fought on with desperate strength, but there was little a single planet could do against the strength of an entire Balefleet, let alone a single city. The end came when traitor Warlord titan and a flanking force of Iron Warriors smashed the last Imperial defensive line in the dome. Such was the swiftness of the assault that news of the invasion barely reached the other dome cities when Czgara secured the Key fragment.



-Vashtorr was true to his word. A mighty host of Daemon Engines was bestowed on Czagra to command as pleases.



The Hall of the Beast:



While claiming the Ark, Czagra faced ferocious opposition from Deathskullz Orks of Warboss Grymzag. The Xenos leader considered the Space Hulk his own and would not relinquish it to anyone else. Czagra's hold at the time was not firm enough to crush the Orks decisively, so he settled for trapping and isolating the Orks in a section of the Ork that was dubbed the Hall of Beasts. The Orks had staged several breakout attempts, and each time, they were cast back into their prison, albeit at a great cost of lives. Czagra now firmly controls much of the Ark, and after recent victories, Czgara was now motivated to crush the Orks before they reached critical mass.



The Iron Warriors launched a three-pronged attack on the Hall of Beasts. They blew up the fortifications erected to keep the Orks contained and stormed the breaches. The elite of the Iron Warriors intended to steamroll the Orks while they reeled from the explosive shock. They found that the Orks are not easily shaken. The Iron Warriors' assault was met by hordes of Orks that emerged from every nook and cranny. Mobs of Meganobs drove back the Iron Warriors, reducing even their Bronewrought elites into chunks of mutilated flesh and metal with their custom shootas and killsaws. The Iron Warriors were forced to collapse entire sections to prevent the Orks from wholly overruning them. Only where Czagra fought were the Iron Warriors prevailing and making headway into the Hall. The war turned into a bloody grind worse than any of Czagra most pessimistic predictions.



The Orks numbers had swelled during their imprisonment. Their technological level also increased thanks to their looting of the surrounding scrap. Even the Ork ecosystem was running rampant, spreading and infesting even the biomechanical daemonic mutations of the Ark. The Iron Warriors were fighting the Orks in a position of power. The battle went back and forth, the bloodshed attracting Warp predators to join in the slaughter.



The battle reached its turning point when Warboss Grymzag led the charge to shatter the Iron Warriors' lines. The massive Ork's victory cry was cut short when an axe smashed into his face and cleaved his head into two. It was Mandrex the Master of Executions. Mandrex had returned from the depths of the Arks sporting new mutations and more deranged than ever. Whatever unfathomable horrors Mandrex experienced in the depths, none can say, but it was certain that they made him more monstrous. The Iron Warriors rallied around Mandrex and drove and scattered the disorganized Orks before them. Czagra pushed on, purging deck after deck from the Xenos and capturing the Hall of Beasts.



However, the Orls weren't truly exterminated nor truly defeated. The Orks broke into different bands under the leadership of rival nobs and bosses. They fled to other sections of the Ark.. With the greater Orkish threat extinguished, Czagra left the task of hunting down the fractious Ork warbands to his champions. The Orks would act as a means to test and sharpen his warriors as well as fodder for whatever horrors lurked on the Ark.