Into the Black

(Bridge, Chaos Brigade dreadnought Vengeful Spirit, I’thari Space)

Warmaster of Chaos, leader of the Chaos Brigade, Abaddon Horusson smiled as the Vengeful Spirit and his other ships slipped out of Hellspace. Between his people’s work stealing information from the xeno ships and stations, and the help they’d gotten from Black Star making sense of it all, they’d managed to put a name on these not-X’thari. They called themselves the I’thari.

It turned out that the scientists had been correct. The X’thari were the devolved, degenerate descendants of a species called the A’thari, that had lived alongside the Gatebuilders, known only as the Old Ones in I’thari texts. What happened to the Old Ones wasn’t put down in the information he’d been able to acquire, but what happened to the A’thari was. And it wasn’t pretty.

In the height of their power, decadence consumed a portion of the population. They began to hunger for more and more, without end. Soon, it became clear that an outside hand was guiding these A’thari. An outside hand coming from the depths of Hellspace. A god’s hand.

The Hungerers had begun to multiply. Soon, there was civil war amongst the A’thari, as the Hungerers began to think about how good their fellows would taste, among other things. Two factions formed, the X’thari and the I’thari.

The X’thari, who had been the Hungerers, were eventually forced out of I’thari space. They lost everything, except for the biomechanical ships they used. And still they hungered. Eventually, hunger became all they were, and their minds and bodies warped, becoming the X’thari as they were known to the galaxy at large today.

The I’thari, however, had not pushed out the X’thari without great cost to themselves, however. Beyond the physical damage, which was far from inconsequential, as entire star systems had been devastated, and left to rubble, much of their knowledge was lost, as their best and brightest either turned to the X’thari, hungering for more knowledge, or burned themselves out fighting the good fight. Others were simply executed once they showed signs of turning.

The I’thari had retreated towards the galactic core, where most of their oldest systems still lay intact, and had cut off all contact with the rest of the world. Apparently, they devoted themselves to a life of asceticism, consuming only that which was necessary to preserve their lives, hoping to stave off the Great Hungerer. And perhaps it had worked, since they were still here, untold millennia after the split, but they had stagnated, and even regressed in many areas. They were helpless against him.

Scouring the databanks that his Chaos Brigade had looted, they found this world. He did not bother to learn its name in I’thari, for that would not matter, soon. This planet was the heart of what remained of their civilization, but the defenses were weak, and easily pushed aside, even with just his three ships, for they were designed to fight against the X’thari, and the X’thari alone. More fools, they.

“Ready the weapon.”

“As you command, Warmaster.”

Abaddon watched as his bridge crew scurried about. He had struck more than one deal with the Black Stars, and they had all proven to be profitable for both parties. Oh, that canny bastard usually got a better deal, but he had a way of making sure that both of them came away winners. Probably because they deliberately acted in different arenas. No reason to work against him, after all.

This latest deal, to help strike at the X’thari, and their I’thari cousins, was another of that sort. The weapons he was testing for Black Star was designed to work against X’thari biology, including their biomechanical ships. But he was not so foolish as to ignore the fact that the virus bombs could be altered, to take on biology of other species.

Unlike the Greenwave weapons, or the Starbolts, the Gift of Nurgle had a single characteristic that made it a cut above when it came to exterminating an entire world. Simply put, it was discriminatory. While Starbolts destroyed everything, and Greenwave rendered a planet unusable for any spaceborne species until the nanites eventually died decades later, the Gift of Nurgle only targeted a certain kind of DNA.

The benefits of that could not be understated. Before, if there was a planet you wanted to make use of, then you had to either force the people to surrender, or physically invade, and take it over. Neither were particularly quick, and could easily be prohibitively expensive.

Say you had a planet filled with Ihm, and they were refusing to surrender, even if you held the orbitals. Before, your only options were to begin orbital bombardment, ruining all that lovely industry and infrastructure you had likely come there to acquire, or put enough troops on the ground that they could undertake extermination efforts. But, in theory, with Nurgle’s Gift, you just had to drop a few bombs, and the locals would just melt away (perhaps literally), leaving all their crops, machinery, and other such things behind, ready for new colonists to come and take up residence. The only holdouts would be those in sealed bunkers, and those could be easily dealt with.

In theory.

Such weapons needed testing, but one couldn’t just drop bioweapons in Known Space, as there were treaties and other such things in place to stop that. But none of those treaties applied outside of Known Space, and they certainly didn’t include the X’thari. That made them the perfect test subjects to test the initial versions of the Gift.

Unfortunately, finding significant numbers of X’thari was a problem. No one had ever found whatever passed for a homeworld for them, and the information from the databanks indicated that the A’thari home system was one of those left in ruins. It was likely that the X’thari were now wholly nomadic, especially now that their Harvester was destroyed.

But the weapon still needed testing.

Enter the I’thari, and this world, the center of their stagnant civilization. There had been some genetic drift over the thousands of years of separation, but not enough to say that the two groups were different species. They would still serve as the perfect test subjects.

The Warmaster knew why Black Star was doing this. The CEO was obsessed with the idea of ensuring that he and those who followed him were safe from hostile action, as much as one could possibly be. Moreover, he was a firm believer in sayings like, “Speak softly, and carry a big stick,” or, “Be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone in the room.” If he was going to stand against all comers, then he needed more and more weapons, to ensure that they could not find a single defense that would render his current weapons impotent. The new shields the Ihm had to stop Starbolts were proof enough of that.

That meant that Black Star needed new weapons, to maintain the balance of terror that was the deadly dance of Mutually Assured Destruction. But he couldn’t be seen testing those weapons, obviously. So, he turned to the Chaos Brigade, and their little conflict with the I’thari. What better test subjects than the cousins of the weapon’s original targets, out of site from the rest of the universe? And the best part was that he could swear in front of anyone who asked that he did not give the order to drop the bombs, or wipe the planet clean of the I’thari. That was all on the Chaos Brigade, if anyone even found out.

Abaddon didn’t blame the Black Star CEO in the slightest. It was what he would have done, if their roles were reversed, after all. But he had his own reasons for engaging in this little slaughter, beyond the simple fact that it would increase his skills, and build up his forces.

In those databases that he had recovered, and turned over to Black Star, the hackers had discovered a name. It had taken some doing, as it was a name that the I’thari feared to write down, much less speak, lest they offer the named being power. But the name had been found, all the same. The name of a God.

The I’thari were complacent. The X’thari had been driven away long ago, finding better hunting grounds amongst the species of Known Space. It was doubtful whether any of the X’thari actually remembered the I’thari. The I’thari certainly did not have much in the way of a military, not even this deep into their territory. Just a few defense platforms, and those were easily overwhelmed by kinetics on ballistic trajectories. They were helpless, and he would not give them the time to remember how to mount a defense. Not this day.

It was time. With a deep voice, he intoned a prayer to the gods of the Eightfold Path. “Oh, Gods of Chaos, hear your Herald. Let all the powers of the Immaterium take heed! I call out to the Great Hungerer, the Forgotten One, the Lord of Feats and Revelry! Let Xanaloth the Engorged One hear the cries of those who forsook him! Let their souls be a sacrifice unto him!”

He took a breath, and said, “Fire.”

Eight torpedoes fired from the launchers of the Vengeful Spirit, followed by eight more, again and again until the eighth volley of eight had been launched. Each volley was timed to different orbits, with the first shots traveling furthest. Sixty-four torpedoes exploded in the air over the planet simultaneously, spread around the entire planet.

All around the globe, the airburst torpedoes unleashed the aptly named Gift of Nurgle. The viruses, bacteria, and nanites that made up the ‘soup’ inside the torpedoes spread. Within minutes, the entire planet was covered. Anything with an I’thari genome, including their semibiological buildings, suffered horribly, dying in pain worse than could possibly be imagined, as their bodies literally melted away into sludge, flesh melting from the carapace.

Within twenty minutes, every I’thari on the surface was dead. Inside an hour, even those in hermetically sealed bunkers were dead, as the walls, made of their biological building processes like most of their technology, melted, allowing the soup in. The entire planet had been cleansed of I’thari life, but the ecosystem was secure, and it would only take a colony ship of non-I’thari origin showing up to make it inhabited once again.

New Title Gained!

Destroyer of Worlds

You have been present for, and actively aided in, an apocalyptic event on a planetary scale. Whether your actions were for good or ill, historians have not yet decided, but this much is clear, nothing will ever be the same, and all shall know that you are the Destroyer of Worlds.

+10 Levels

Custom Weapon

Blade of Drach’nyen

Type

Demon Sword

Rank

Unique – Scaling

Damage

650 – 1000

Damage Type

Psychic / Slashing

This blade is actually formed from the soul of a demon bound into the form of a sword. The actual size and shape of the sword depends on its chosen wielder, changing to suit their mentality, even if only their subconscious mentality. It is said that the demon inhabiting the blade was created from the burst of emotion that arose from the first murder. Whether that is the first murder in all of history, or just a race’s history, or the first murder between races, or any one of a hundred possibilities remains unclear.

Psyblade – This blade is as much made of psychic energy as it is solid matter. Half of the damage done by this blade is psychic in nature, and ignores armor and physical defenses. Creatures immune to psychic damage, as well as constructs and objects, ignore this damage.

Lifebane – Deals 2x damage to living creatures, not including demons.

Soulbreaker – Reduce target’s CON by 5% for each hit. Stacks up to 5 times. Duration: 1 min.

Chaos Blade – Cost 200 PP. Target has 10% chance to act normally, 10% chance to attack wielder, 30% chance to attack nearest creature, 10% chance to flee in a random direction, 10% chance to attack nearest ally, 25% chance to do nothing, and 5% chance to attack themselves. Reroll every 5 seconds. Duration 1 minute. Cannot be affected for 1 hour after duration ends.

Demon Blade – This weapon houses the soul of a demon, and is an intelligent weapon. The effects of this may vary.

Scaling – This is a scaling item. Item improves with character level. Gains abilities every 10 character levels.

Eternal Soulbound – This item is eternally soulbound to you. It cannot be stolen, traded, or lost.

The sword formed in front of him, and he smiled. “Glory be to the Gods, for they reward those who labor in their name.”

A laugh answered him. “Well, child, you have gotten my attention. What is it that you desire?”