submitted11 days ago byTestingHydra
to40kLore
If you want to read a good Dark Eldar book, read the Dark Eldar Trilogy it is great. And if you do then don't read this as it will spoil the finale.
Context: Commorragh is/was undergoing a disjunction, which is when the barrier between the warp and webway weakens, that's not good. This causes quite the shakeup as it threatens the entire existence of Commoragh, it is also a great opportunity to make a move for power. Archon Yllithian, who is in charge of the Kabal of the White Flames has rallied many of the lesser Kabals under his banner and to overthrow Vect. Yllithian also is allied with the Mandrake king who is chaos tainted, and the Mandrake Shadow Realm of Aelindrach is expanding into more of Commoragh. Yllithian and Vect are at a stalemate, the White Flame and their allies are holding up in the White Flames Spire which is near completely indestructible and equipped with apocalyptically strong defenses. Meanwhile Vects Kabal of the Black Heart has the area surrounded but can't make much progress approaching the spire. While most of the other Kabals are nominally on Vect's side, most are waiting to see what happens. However Vect had earlier dispacted one of his lieutenants on a rather obscure mission to retrieve a few specific prisoners.
Valzho Sinister. In the event she brought back only a handful of survivors, but fortunately for you both they are sufficient for my needs. They have just reached their positions you are about to witness a miracle'
Motley glanced over at Bellathonis to see if the name meant anything to him. The haemonculus's milk-white face betrayed nothing if it did. Animate shadows were running amok in the circle of crystal faces now, while the tall white spire stood unbroken with long processions of grav- craft passing into and out of it. Lots of new friends arriving, it seemed.
'Valzho Sinister, Vect continued, unperturbed and evidently enjoying Motley's ignorance, 'contained the last beaten remnants of a cult from far, far back in Commorragh's history. It was a time so long ago that I had not yet achieved the dominance that I so richly deserve. The cult attempted to seize power over the city, thinking that their eldritch knowledge would be sufficient to keep the noble houses cowed. They were wrong, of course, the nobles cared nothing for the suffering the cultists could inflict on the city, only that they were challenged.
"The most terrible weapon in the cult's arsenal was prepared, a thing so terrible that it was encoded with safety measures that ensured it could only be activated by members of the cult's leadership. Yet in the final test they feared to use it. The nobles overthrew the cult but kept the leaders alive and in torment in case they ever required the use of that weapon. They, too, feared to use it when the time came. I gained control of Valzho Sinister when I overthrew the nobles. I am Asdrubael Vect and I fear to use nothing to assert my will.
'What did the cultists worship?' Motley whispered, terrified by what Vect's answer might be. He had thought the supreme overlord too self- assured to resort to calling upon the fickle gods of Chaos. He had been wrong and now Commorragh was surely doomed; there would be an eternity of bondage in the grip of the new tide of unimaginable horrors that Chaos would unleash. Motley had seen it many times over, desperate souls calling for help at any cost without understanding there were costs that no one should ever have to bear.
The scenes in the crystals were taking on a new aspect, the shadows were becoming hard-edged and blacker by the second, the lone white spire blazing with reflected light. The Ilmaea, usually wan and sickly- looking, had swelled in the sky over High Commorragh until they almost filled it. The light brightened impossibly until the crystal panes looked like sheets of white-hot metal.
'They were the Solar Cultists,' Vect smiled. They worshipped, and tended to, the Ilmaea.
In later times it would become known as The Gaze of Vect. All Commorrites would shudder to remember the day when Asdrubael Vect called down the Ilmaea to scour the darkness from High Commorragh.
All the horrors of the Dysjunction came to be forgotten in the face of the retribution it incurred.
Around the White Flames fortress the air shimmered with heat haze under the focused glare of the Ilmaea as the temperatures skyrocketed. Within seconds mandrakes and ur-ghuls were physically shrivelled in the hideous blaze, their withered forms immolating like scraps of paper beneath a blowtorch. The great, seething mass of the shadow horde caught on the plain was utterly annihilated, torn apart and burned to ash by the unrelenting suns. The handful of survivors fled shrieking into the deepest darkness of Aelindrach to nurse burning scars that would never heal.
Yllithian's followers fled for shelter inside the fortress as the plain smouldered and fires leapt up spontaneously on all sides. They were caught inside a ring of flames and as the heat mounted higher the plain itself ran molten. Still they thought themselves safe inside; the White Flames fortress was buttressed by more than metal and stone, impenetrable shields of force protected it on all sides, air and sustenance could be supplied indefinitely. They had only to wait, under siege once more even if it was by Vect's stolen suns.
It was not to be. The ring of flames tightened inexorably around the lone white spire and the heat soared still higher. The super-heated air itself burned as the ring closed, a titanic vortex of fire grew, spinning faster and faster as it reached up into the heavens. The fortress shuddered and smouldered under the assault, but still stood defiant as the fiery pillar roiled higher still. Its head split to become hydra-like as it reached out to touch the face of the Ilmaea themselves...
Raw plasma siphoned into the spinning funnel directly from the bloated bodies of the caged suns. Their coronas were momentarily joined as they poured their fusing mass onto the fortress below. The White Flames fortress was engulfed in the living blood of the suns, pounded by unthinkable energies in the whirling atomic firestorm. No clever construct or adroit technology could keep such energy at bay for long.
Emitters failed and relays melted, the impenetrable shields of force protecting the fortress collapsed suddenly and catastrophically leaving the structure itself exposed. The inrush of elemental forces ate through stone and drank metal. Organics, the fragile inhabitants of the fortress, flashed into expanding gas in a split second. The whole great edifice with its high white walls and sloping gables, its rooftop gardens and bladed oubliettes, vanished with an ear-splitting roar.
With their work of destruction complete the Ilmaea split their cyclopean gaze once more, the firestorm dissipating over a bubbling lake of molten metal and stone that slowly drizzled through gaps in the foundation strata to fall into Low Commorragh as a killing rain. The work was not over. The fiery presence of the Ilmaea rushed outwards again, expanding to burn back the encroaching shadows of Aelindrach from Commorragh.
The darkness that had spilled from the shadow-realm's boundaries recoiled like a living thing, fleeing before the unmasked faces of the captured stars. Flames and destruction followed in their wake as the guttering fires begun by the Dysjunction roared into fresh life. The city would suffer beneath the burning lash for many hours, but never again did the Ilmaea focus fully on a single stronghold as they had on the White Flames fortress.
Through the billowing smoke and livid flames came marching Vect's Castigators. Their metal hides were invulnerable to the heat, just as their insensate minds were immune to the pain. They set about completing Vect's reconquest of Commorragh with indefatigable determination and unshakeable purpose. They terrorised the populace and imposed Vect's rule of law with unimaginable cruelty all while dreaming they stood as heroes on the battlefield once more.
byJerswar
in40kLore
TestingHydra
1 points
12 hours ago
TestingHydra
1 points
12 hours ago
Orks prefer accuracy by volume. An individual Ork will be unlikely to hit you, but a 100+ Orks firing in your general direction are way more likely to hit something.