And so it was written in the Scroll‘s of Zalthar, that in the 3rd Age, in the last dying moments of the Second Great Incursion did Be'lakor, First Daemon Prince of Chaos and his strongest Lieutenants’ combined the sum of all their Unholy Powers to maintain the Warp gate the victorious Inquisition were attempting to close, and thus allow the remains of their Demonic Horde to escape destruction upon the Lorelei Crystal Plains !
Upon learning of Be'lakor’s intentions, raising Arias, the slayer of Daemons aloft, Lord Inquisitor Hector-Rex plunged back into the fray to battle the First Daemon Prince of Chaos in single combat. The Lord of Torment drew forth his great sword, “The Blade of Shadows“, and did call upon the Lore of the Master of Change, the powers of the Great Tzeentch himself !
Some say it was the Great Tzeentch himself that created Zalthar,* or Zal’tchzr as it was first known, taking Crystal’s from his own Great Crystal Labyrinth and placing them in the void so that he may grow upon them a world with undistilled raw magic at it‘s heart !
*On Zalthar, the Power of Tzeentch is strong ! Therefore no spell from the Lore of Tzeentch can never be miscast, such results are ignored. Also any unsuccessful casting attempts may have a re-roll !
It may have been this power into which Be'lakor tapped, or the amplification of the Crystal’s themselves that twisted and fed his magic, increasing it’s power tenfold, rolling back the folds of reality itself, turning the Warp-gate into a Warp-hole, pulling into it’s unholy depths almost all that stood before it !
Be'lakor, First Daemon Prince of Chaos, his strongest Lieutenants’ and the remains of their Demonic Horde vanished in an instant, as did Ulraka, a Daemon Prince, and Khorne‘s Executioner , along with his Daemonic War Host.
All across Zalthar, untold numbers of Necron’s had stood motionless in the same precise, pristine ranks they had held for millennia, the only motion small, discrete scuttling in the shadows. There had been generation after generation of Scarabs, able to a-sexually reproduce on demand, never too many, always enough. Thorough, driven with a singular purpose for a cycle, every cycle ! There was no down-time, even recharging was opportunity to inspect and if need be repair thy neighbour ! If it was broken, they fixed it, dented, they straightened, dirty, they cleaned, stiff they lubricated and as Jed and Carolynn found out, if it were infected, they purged ! And when you could not be efficiently repaired, you were recycled, intelligence module separated and re-fitted in another function unit. Fast, efficient and no childhood or instructions required, the only problem had been to narrow the parameters of thought, to save having to carry out awkward routine dumps of Giga Byte’s of superfluous memory. No intrinsic value, no purpose, no allocation. Reverse engineered AI, they redesigned the Net, so the holes were so big it only caught the largest pieces of information necessary
But the energies of the Warp-hole were such that even behind their Logic Engines, safe in their Mechanical Skin, the Necron’s were still not immune. As it folded space, so it folded time also, and a Glorious event so long in the coming, so eagerly anticipated, was condemned to a foot note in the history of what was to become known as the “Great Zaltharian-Rift”.
The Silent King came home. Not to pomp and ceremony, or such an approximation as Necron’s could manage. Not even the orderly transfer of power and information from the two remainingPhaerons of the Triarch. It was just an ignominious pretext. For as the first green lights glowed and sentience registered, their forms simply disappeared at the precise moment of their reawakening, their huge Monolith’s and all manner of tools and machineries’ of War gone in an instant !
Also lost to the Maw of the Primordial Annihilator were the bitter rival Chapter’s of the Astarte’s, the Terra Templar’s under Captain Krieg of the 1st Company and the war weary surviving Dragon-kin, with their now legendary commander of a long and bloody campaign, Chapter Master Azus Drake-son. Men, Machines, Transports and Supplies all disappearing in the blink of an eye !
Even though themselves still only on the approach to Zalthar, the Flagship “Darkening Light”, and the entire Word Bearers 19th Coven’s Fleet suffered the same fate, Malidus laughing madly “You see, you see !” as one by one his ships dropped of the Sensors.
It was as if the Warp recognised those with War on their minds, or with a Darkness in their hearts, and took them for its own !”
Only Lord Inquisitor Hector-Rex and his retinue’s did remain, possibly their pious Soul’s saved them from the touch of the Warp, or the unseen hand of a Greater Power that had other plans for his Auditorii Imperator, his “favoured - one” ! Certainly a few sections of the Inquisitorial Forces and parts of the PDF were not so fortunate !
Of Lord Samuel, The Dean and Lux, initially there was no trace, the Warp-hole had the same effect upon almost all electronics, especially integrated circuits, as the Electro Magnetic Pulse from a Thermonuclear Explosion, although mercifully it proved temporary.
For the herders of the Lead-Lands, all eyes had turned to the Heavens for the most magnificent pyrotechnics they had, and possibly would ever see. For Carolynn though, it felt as though someone was turning his brain inside out without any form of analgesia. But as they had done in times past, too ancient to have been recorded and long slipped from memory, the Crystal’s held sway for its “Children”. It’s possible they had “other” plans in store for them, but only time would tell, and at this moment, time it would seem was more relative than ever !
But then, as fast as it had expanded, the Warp-hole shrank, it’s vast energies literally collapsing in upon their magic’s expired, leaving no trace of its existence. But before it closed, whilst Psychic Screams Howled and Witch Fires of every imaginable, and several unimaginable colours coruscated the heavens‘, something vast and disquietingly organic slid in unnoticed !
Mk
But the energies of the Warp-hole were such that even behind their Logic Engines, safe in their Mechanical Skin, the Necron’s were still not immune. As it folded space, so it folded time also, and a Glorious event so long in the coming, so eagerly anticipated, was condemned to a foot note in the history of what was to become known as the “Great Zaltharian-Rift”.
The Silent King came home. Not to pomp and ceremony, or such an approximation as Necron’s could manage. Not even the orderly transfer of power and information from the two remainingPhaerons of the Triarch. It was just an ignominious pretext. For as the first green lights glowed and sentience registered, their forms simply disappeared at the precise moment of their reawakening, their huge Monolith’s and all manner of tools and machineries’ of War gone in an instant !
Also lost to the Maw of the Primordial Annihilator were the bitter rival Chapter’s of the Astarte’s, the Terra Templar’s under Captain Krieg of the 1st Company and the war weary surviving Dragon-kin, with their now legendary commander of a long and bloody campaign, Chapter Master Azus Drake-son. Men, Machines, Transports and Supplies all disappearing in the blink of an eye !
Even though themselves still only on the approach to Zalthar, the Flagship “Darkening Light”, and the entire Word Bearers 19th Coven’s Fleet suffered the same fate, Malidus laughing madly “You see, you see !” as one by one his ships dropped of the Sensors.
It was as if the Warp recognised those with War on their minds, or with a Darkness in their hearts, and took them for its own !”
Only Lord Inquisitor Hector-Rex and his retinue’s did remain, possibly their pious Soul’s saved them from the touch of the Warp, or the unseen hand of a Greater Power that had other plans for his Auditorii Imperator, his “favoured - one” ! Certainly a few sections of the Inquisitorial Forces and parts of the PDF were not so fortunate !
Of Lord Samuel, The Dean and Lux, initially there was no trace, the Warp-hole had the same effect upon almost all electronics, especially integrated circuits, as the Electro Magnetic Pulse from a Thermonuclear Explosion, although mercifully it proved temporary.
For the herders of the Lead-Lands, all eyes had turned to the Heavens for the most magnificent pyrotechnics they had, and possibly would ever see. For Carolynn though, it felt as though someone was turning his brain inside out without any form of analgesia. But as they had done in times past, too ancient to have been recorded and long slipped from memory, the Crystal’s held sway for its “Children”. It’s possible they had “other” plans in store for them, but only time would tell, and at this moment, time it would seem was more relative than ever !
But then, as fast as it had expanded, the Warp-hole shrank, it’s vast energies literally collapsing in upon their magic’s expired, leaving no trace of its existence. But before it closed, whilst Psychic Screams Howled and Witch Fires of every imaginable, and several unimaginable colours coruscated the heavens‘, something vast and disquietingly organic slid in unnoticed !
Mk
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