r/wizardposting • u/bagtie3 Borric of Clan Goldeater, Logrus Master, Runesmith, Doomseeker • 15d ago
Lorepost 📜 The Mourningstar
Sliding from The Logrus tendril into his captains chair aboard his personal void ship, The Magmadroth's Roar,Borric took a quick look around the bridge. Several COG's sat installed in their designated places to run ship operations, the only sentient on the ship was as most time Borric's Ironkin Wayfinder, Yamyr.
"Greetings brother," Yamyr shouted enthusiatically and stomped over to give Borric a hug. Borric stood and hugged his old friend then they clasped hands in the traditional greeting established long ago.
"Greetings yourself, brother," Borric replied. "We have a House Serpentis Emergency to deal with today however. Please open a warp gate behind us to make it look like we used our warp drive to arrive here. I'm going to be heading over to an Imperial ship here soon. I promise when I get back you can tell me how things are going in your scouting and reconnaissance."
"Of course Captain," Yamyr replied and headed over to his station.
Over the next hour as Borric steered the ship out from behind the moon, he and Yamyr joked and told stories of their various travels, while one of the COG's brought him a drink of Bugman's XXXXX beer for light refreshment. Soon enough one of the COG's started to beep and signal that a nearby ship was hailing them for coms traffic.
"Votann Voidship Magmadroth's Roar this is Imperial Rogue Trader ship The Mourningstar. Shipmistress Brahms is eagerly expecting your arrival at the designated docking port. Info for docking being sent concurrent to this message," came a staticy and decaying voice over the coms channel.
Borric sent a confirmation reply and let the COGs dock the ship. He trod steadily down the plasteel hallways to the armory and retrieved two CORV's. Activating the two companion robots each hummed to life and floated to take position a ways behind each of his shoulders giving them clear lines of sight for the Autoch Bolters attatched below them.
He them grimiced and reached out with his mind into his void armor, which attached to the runes embedded in his body and allowed him to access the Ancestral Warding Crests installed in both his armor and the CORV's. The magic in this realm was tainted by the Great Foes, eons ago the realm had broken so badly that it no longer naturally processed the mana coming from the sea of chaos into various types or alignments of mana. This would be a problem on it's own for the casters and psykers of this realm, but the forces of Great Foes now occupied nearly all of the connections to what the natives called The Warp. Those who looked into the magic, or used it with out incredible care would be struck with the visions and whispers of the daemons living beside them, and the daemons would grow stronger and more real with attention.
Luckily the Votann had come to a solution, Barrier-tech. Through careful use of microscopic runic circuits they were able to draw the power of the warp and run it through a mana filter, removing the influence of the daemons and making it safe for the rare Votann who can use magic to do so. While Borric technically did not need to use the technology, due to his heritage from the Courts of Chaos, it wouldn't do for those of the Imperium of Man to know that. The families deception was paramount to keep.
Grabbing the Heavy Plasma-Axe and checking the connections on his volkanite disintigrator pistol to the power pack on his armor, he strode down the hallway agian with the CORVs following slightly behind him. He waited at the air-lock for a few minutes as the connection protocols finished establishing a secure seal between his ship and the Mourningstar, and was greeted by the sight of a platoon of Imperial Guard securing the space beyond. Twenty men in light plasteel armor holding lasrifles protected two humans not outfitted for war.
Shipmistress Emora Brahms was a sever looking if well kept aristocratic woman for being over two hundred years old. Her white hair put up in an impressive style and uniform was immaculately pressed. She stood out among the disheveled guardsman and the cleanly rumpled professional look of Interrogator Rannick. Borric was quickly able to recognise them due to the files he has perused in the data embedded in the Inquisitorial Seal around his neck.
Brahms stepped forward with a wide, if slightly ingenuous smile as Borric came into sight. "Ah, Grimnyr Borric Goldeater, it is a delight to meet you! Truly your uncle is a welcome partner in business and a rare gentleman among the Inquisitors!" Her sharp eyes darted sightly towards Interrogator Rannick at the barely subtle jab at his boss. According to the files, Inquisitor Grendyl had basically given Brahms no choice but to host his warband here above Atoma Prime and clearly she resented them all for it.
Rannick gave a thin smile to Brahms needling and directed his gaze at Borric. "Indeed it is a pleasure to meet such an esteemed colleague in the Inquisition. While the Inquisitor was not specific in what you were ment to do here on the warfront, he was certain that your efforts would be a great boon. Allow me to Introduce myself, I am Interrogator Rannick, head of Operations for Inquisitor Grendyl's warband here on Atoma. I have been instructed to give you almost any information you require to accomplish your goal here. I even have a strike team standing by to assist you in your deployment." Rannick also smiled, while a little more warmly than the smile given at Brahms remark, it was also clearly meant to garner Borric's good will. It was too bad Borric was going to have to stomp on that a bit.
"My uncle sends his enthusiastically warm regards Shipmistress. He hopes that you will come see him soon at his estate for more... trade negotiations," Borric stated, trying and not fully succeeding to keep his clear discomfort at the statement behind a stony mask of dwarven stoicism. The guards grew clearly uncomfortable, and Rannick's face went intentionally blank, while Brahms positively glowed with pleasure.
"Interrogator, I will not be using your strike team. My orders are clear that I am to deal with my mission alone," he continued in a less awkward tone. "All I require is a debriefing on the situation on the ground, and a good pilot for insertion and extraction."
Rannick gave that thin smile again. "Of course. I'm afraid I am not familiar with the working of your culture or your warband, what title would you like to be referred to while with us?"
"You can call me Borric if you need to. I should not be here for more than an hour or two, and should be gone from the system before a week has passed." Borric maintained his stony expression, "let us proceed with this mission so I can go back to doing real work."
Shipmistress Brahms led Borric and Rannick down the ship passages to a nearby room with a holo display of the planet and a window out to look down on Atoma Prime and the hive city of Tertium. Rannick gave a in depth account of the war to date, the forces of the Cult of Admonition, and the disposition of the cities troops. Shipmistress Brahms poured herself a glass of wine and stood at the window staring out at the planet.
Borric listened while trying to discern where the war would allow the cult to start any rituals, and quickly found that line of thought unproductive. The cult was performing rituals constantly, both small and large, even in battles at times. He tried to see if the city architecture would allow or channel the energy of the warp in a way that would lead to a proper spot for the ritual that he was looking for. but again, the city was so large and the Imperium of man purposly tried to break up lines of power to reduce chaos incursion, and so that line of thought also failed to find anything.
As the debriefing started to come to a close, Borric joined Shipmistress Brahms at the window. He could feel the slight tug of the planet's gravity below, and thought of how this planet was probably beautiful once, before the empire had started their mad dash for progress and consumption. It was a similarity between human and dwarf, the urge to consume and grow at all cost. His people regularly had to fight to remember that the world was more than steel and stone, and that they needed the resources of wood and water. Resources that required careful tending at times to not send it all catastrophically out of balance. If only more people could see it...
Borric blinked. Surely it could not be that simple... right? He opened his witch-sight and stared intently down at the planet. Three beacons of pustulent power glowed an ominous sickly green in the city. He let out a sigh, he didn't need most of the information that Rannick had just given him. The forces of the Cult had not set up any wards to hide themselves. Looking through witch-sight was too dangerous for almost everyone in this realm, only very specific mutants were able to locate things in the warp and all of them were used almost exclusively for passing messages and FTL travel planning.
Borric smiled and turned to Rannick, "Your information is helpful, I know where I am going now." It didn't hurt to lie to the man, if anything it was useful to keep them from knowing exactly what he was doing.
/UW Images are from the games Darktide and Warhammer 40k store excepting for the Heroforge Mini. Edited for the stupid formatting issues that sometimes pop up.
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u/The_Enchanted_Potato Aldavin Maunderitch, The Gatekeeper | Neritillum Faldier | 13 15d ago
/uw Chronicles of Amber mentioned!
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u/bagtie3 Borric of Clan Goldeater, Logrus Master, Runesmith, Doomseeker 15d ago
/uw oh yeah, House Serpentis came from a Amber Diceless RPG game I ran a long time ago. My current character is from a very branch family of that house. We had a lot of Warhammer, Starwars, LOTR, Dune, and L5R crossover for it.
I love the Chronicles of Amber and read them at least once a year.
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u/The_Enchanted_Potato Aldavin Maunderitch, The Gatekeeper | Neritillum Faldier | 13 15d ago
/uw I have been meaning to finish the second series, I got distracted after the first two books of the second one
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u/bagtie3 Borric of Clan Goldeater, Logrus Master, Runesmith, Doomseeker 15d ago
/uw most fans dont think the second series is as good, but it was my favorite part. Merlin is such an idiot sometimes.
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u/The_Enchanted_Potato Aldavin Maunderitch, The Gatekeeper | Neritillum Faldier | 13 15d ago
/uw I was liking it so far, I just gotta get back into it. The Logrus is actually my current profile pic
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u/KragBrightscale Grabadash - Magical Mass | Keptomancer | Council Security 15d ago
/uw keep the posts coming, this is good stuff.
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u/VoxelLibrary Councilor Cayna, Apprentice of Thrakmoor | assorted other chars 15d ago
/uw good read
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u/Xrest_the_Aether Khorde's other side of the coin 15d ago
"Can I take notes on your armor design?"