Herald of Misery part 1

Chapter 1:



-Abaddon's message spread far and wide, carried by the tides of the Warp and the daemons that moved through its depths. spurred by fear, ambition, or loyalty, the warlords of Chaos hastened to be at the Despoiler's side. Among those that answered the call was Warsmith Czagra, the Grandmarshal of ruin, a mighty lord of the Iron Warriors.



-Czagra spent long years ravaging the strongholds of both Imperials and Xenos within Vorlishk sub-sector. Whereas other Chaos warlord erected blasphemous idols in honor of the Dark Gods or made grisly displays out of their enemies, Czagra's obsession with methodical destruction saw him make examples of the works and structures of his enemies. Even when the edifices of his enemies are reduced to mountains of rubble, he keeps his forces firing until the deepest foundations shatter, and everything is swallowed by the molten lava released by the splitting tectonic plates. Only once these acts of excessive destruction are done would he bestow on the conquered worlds his mark in the form of an immense skull sigil seared into the worlds by the lance strikes of his fleet. A challenge for his enemies and a warning for his future victims.



-Abaddon's message reached Czagra as he was visiting such a fate on the Imperial fortress world of Narrotor. Czagra's forces were already mighty, but the possession of a weaponized Space Hulk meant the scale of the destruction he would wreak would be greater. He envisioned a fortress the size of a planetoid besieging entire worlds and raining down oblivion.



-The warsmith forces were made up of CSM warbands, dozens of ships, Chaos titans, Dark Mech allies, and most numerous of all were the Riven Reforged cults, mortal cults of mechanistic obsessives that worshiped the Iron Warriors and sought to emulate them by adorning their bodies with machine parts or implanting them via crude surgery until some were bent heavy with the weight of the useless metal. They were centered around Czagra's own Iron Warrior warband called the Effacers of Medregand. For thousands of years, this warband of cold-hearted veterans of the Long War had helped their lord bring destruction to the galaxy. Each and every one of the warband bore arcane cybernetic augmentations.



-Few of Czagra's warriors worshipped the Chaos Gods openly. Devotees to single powers, however, were not unknown. Most of which were the followers of Khorne who were ever eager to be the first into the fray. While Czagra accepted the use of the daemonic power of Chaos, he was resolved to make the Chaos entities know their place as nothing more than his tools. Thus he did not allow possessed marines in his ranks. Those who fell to the thrall of daemons were gunned down and made examples to others of the consequences of abandoning his authority for the service of a Warp spawn entity.



-Czagra rarely took to the field in the opening stages of battle. Instead, he directed his forces from his flagship, the Forgemaul. When the timing is right or when, rarely, his battle plans suffer failures that mandate his personal intervention, the shadow of his massive warped terminator armor will grace the battlefield. In one arm, he held a combi-bolter that fired bolts that each caged tormented souls. His other arm ended with a bronze claw of barbed servo-talons and daemon chitin.



Chapter 2:



-When Czagra's fleet arrived at the Black Legion mustering point, his men were awed and disturbed by the sight that met them. Scores of Traitor fleets circled and sailed between the immense forms of Space Hulks, and the hulks themselves were surrounded by impossibly vast gantries crawling with Vashtorr's daemon laborers.



-The area was more than a site of dark wonder and daemonic industry. It was an active warzone. Battle raged around and within the Space Hulks as traitor fleets contended against their rivals, or the would-be-masters of the hulks fought against whatever horrors and threats dwelled within them. Czagra's fleet thrust itself into this anarchy and smashed its way through lesser fleets leaving burning wrecks in their wake. It did not take long before a signal reached the Forgemaul. High above the mustering point stood the Vengeful Spirit, and it noted Czagra's arrival.



-Abaddon's image appeared on Czagra's pict-screen. Czagra knelt before Abaddon and swore a binding oath to the Despoiler. When this was done, Abaddon granted the Warsmith permission to proceed to his assigned Ark. Before cutting the feed, Abaddon informed Czagra that the Ark had consumed two of its eager would-be conquerors. Let us see if he will be the third.





The Herald of Misery:



The Space Hulk that would be dubbed the Ark Herald of Despair was personally plucked by Vashtorr from the depths of the Warp through sorcerous means, and it was shaped by his hands and that of his daemon thralls to fit its new purpose. The Space Hulk was made from thousands of fused ships. Mile-long ship parts and monolithic asteroid rocks jetted from its body like barnacles. To gaze at the Space Hulk from a distance would make it appear as a colossal blunt-nosed arrowhead. To add to its power, Vashtorr carved baleful mechanistic runes into the Ark, empowering it with the energy of the Warp and turning it into a siege ram capable of smashing into Imperial Space forts and fracturing them to pieces.



Chapter 3:



Czagra positioned his fleet in a cage formation around the Ark. Their orders were simple. Fend off any rival fleets from the Ark and attack any nearby ship to enslave it or scavenge its wreck. As his fleet did its task, Czagra used his dark genius with the aid of his conclave of mechanistic psykers to cycle through thousands of possible plans to tame the Ark. After forming a mental image of the immense vessel and identifying the crucial areas of control, Czagra divided his boarding forces into five large formations. After the first formation secured the Ark's surface and entry points, the other four entered the depths, and communication with them was lost due to the Warp taint interference.



The majority of these forces were comprised of the disposable elements of Czagra's horde, traitor guardsmen, mutants, and cultists. The lives of these dregs would be expended to test the safety of the Ark's passages and bait out whatever horrors and dangers that lurked within. As the horde's dregs spread deeper into the Ark, Czagra's psykers used their soul fires as a means to map the Ark's interior.



It did not take long before the horrors of the Ark took the bait. The boarding parties were beset by savage alien predators such as the Ur-ghuls and tribes of feral beastmen. Other strange threats preyed on the Iron Warrior horde. They were attacked by a semi-sentient predatory rust-colored fungus. And perhaps the most terrifying of all was something unfathomably huge that squirmed and pulled itself through the innards of the Ark, rearranging and crushing the passageways and decks with its bulk. The thing would send its warp-mutated tentacles through the rents to grab both mortal and marine alike and pull them into the darkness.



Yet the greatest threat to the Iron Warriors' efforts to claim the Ark proved to be the Orks. A massive horde of Deathskull Orks under Warboss Grymzag had made the Space Hulk their home and spent many happy years fighting its beasts and horrors and looting its treasures and technology to cobble together into strange weapons and contraptions, emerging as the Hulk's dominant lifeforms in the process before Vashtorr plucked it from the Warp. After discovering the Iron Warriors, the Orks threw themselves gleefully at them, eager to fight the spiky Chaos boyz and steal their weapons and tech. The Orks were a near-omnipresent threat wherever the Iron Warriors ventured aboard the Ark. Despite their anarchic nature; they managed to become a cohesive danger to the Iron Warriors.



Eventually, the Ark's threats proved to be too strong for the four boarding formations. One by one, they were shattered before being forced to retreat to the surface of the Ark. Thousands of mortal followers and Iron Warriors were lost before they managed to make it out. The furious Czagra regrouped the survivors into a single large force and bludgeoned his way into the Ark. Under Czagra's leadership, the force smashed aside the Ork counterattacks and the rampages of the Ark's many horrors. While this was happening, Czagra directed his techno-psykers to unleash cyber-daemonic gheist to cripple any hostile systems within the Ark that might menace his force.



The Orks used all their brutal kunning and kunning brutality, but all they managed to do was slow the Iron Warriors' advance. Ultimately, the majority of the Orks were herded and quarantined into the maze-like decks near the Ark's blunt prow. Not wanting to waste any more time, Czagra sealed the Orks in that section to be dealt with while en route to the key fragment.



Chapter 4:



After months of grueling fighting, the Ark Herlad of Misery remained Xenos and horror infested, and the Orks remained a constant threat with their ceaseless attempts at staging breakouts. However, the Iron Warriors succeeded in imposing their control over Ark. Czagra had armies of servitors and cyber-thralls construct city-sized fortresses armed with mass macro-cannons, vast labyrinthine trench networks large enough to accommodate titans, and other additions to the Ark. Knowing the power of symbols on things tainted by the Warp; he carved his sigils on the Herlad of Misery. By doing so, he expressed to the Ark, his status as its master.



Czagra psykers notified him that their efforts to map the Ark had failed. The passages and chambers of the Ark continued to shift and move to create new configurations; whether this was due to the compact pressure of so much physical matter, the effects of something supernatural, or the actions of something hideously huge and organic remains unknown. Despite this failure, Czagra was secretly pleased. It was a hidden boon that would aid him should his enemies board the Ark.



Czagra ordered the Ark to embark and enter the Warp. Thanks to the Obelyskane, his fleet was following him through the Warp. Czagra resolved to fulfill his bargain with Abaddon as swiftly as possible. He did not want to linger in the debt of the Warmaster for long. However, the journey to the Key fragment was long. It meant there was more than enough time to test out the Ark on the abundance of prey that dwelt en route. More importantly, it means he has time to dream of the untold destruction he would unleash on the galaxy once he delivered Abaddon's prize.