Post by Illithid on Jan 18, 2014 0:24:04 GMT
The Tears of the Sorrow Stones
Craftworld Spartor knew the enemy well. They had faced them once, a battle of epic proportions which saw the unforgivable loss and sacrifice of many Eldar in the fight to stem the spread of Hive Fleet Illithid, or as Spartor called the ravenous horde, Uli’tharid.
Spartor chose the dying stages of Thalassa as their platform of battle, the Eldar wishing to save the six Gemstones of Sai lon’os instead of eradicating the world and denying the Tyranid's precious biomass. The Sai Ion’os Stones were said to perhaps aid Spartor in hiding their presence from Sai’lanthresh. Each stone, infused with both warp energy and the souls of six Spirit Seers in the wake of The Fall had been hunted by Spartor for millennia, each beautiful gemstone was said to be made from the swirling chaotic vermilion material known to the Eldar as Kaus’unha, a gemstone so rare, only one in ten thousand planets were said to hold this precious material.
The Eldar of Craftworld Spartor would not hold back in their pursuit of this invaluable treasure. Unleashing two squadrons of Wave Serpents, their energy field projectors rippling in the spore infested landscape as they raced towards the coordinates. In the wake of their anti-grav engines followed a squadron of Fire Prism, its pilots focusing on the sickly landscape, watching the land heave and throe as if trying to fight a violent disease.
Rippers poured across the landscape, their razor sharp teeth devouring everything in their paths, as millions of hungry mouths snapped with voracious hunger.
Striding ahead, looming over the world, the war machine known as a Wraithknight, its arcane weaponry began bringing oblivion to anything that moved with its vengeful Suncannon. The landscape ahead was soon roiling in fierce plasma that left smoking craters in the toxic landscape.
The site where the gemstones were kept was not far ahead and Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as waited near an otherworldly runestone, the voices of the dead spirits inside the Sai Ion’os Stones guiding him to this point for over several hundred years. Hunkered down in what remained of one of the mammal’s buildings were his escorts, the Dire Avengers kept a watchful eye to the south, their avenger shuriken catapults aimed out, their keen eyes ever vigilant.
As the Wraithknight Garuith’as strode forward past Kai Kaedr’as, the horizon became a hive of activity. Lithe, agile hormagaunts bound forth from the rotting ground, springing forth with amazing speed. They were followed by two lumbering carnifex, their scything talons carving a swath of destruction as their unbridled rage hungered to be fed.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as looked on in horror as another beast, this one dwarfing the carnifex shook the ground, the Exocrine’s massive symbiotic cannon. All this was hard to make out as toxic spores filled the air and he could just make out the shapes of gangrel creatures with whip-like tentacles. Worse still was the winged beast known to Craftworld Spartor as, Hae’harro Uli’tharid.
The Wave Serpents unleashed scatter laser and shruiken cannons into the advancing waves of hormagaunts, but the monomolecular bladed discs exploded into the spore cloud, veering high, only dropping a few of the foul creatures.
The Wraithknight Garuith’as, the veteran of countless battles against tyranids, daemons and even the Mon-keigh upstarts, unleashed blasting plasma waves into the front lines. Again, this exploded into the toxic spores, missing the advancing waves of Uli’tharid.
The Sai Ion’os Stones had to be gathered no matter the cost, and the Dire Avengers uncovered one, its fiery light bathing their red and golden armour with unnatural light. But even as they did this, a flying monstrosity veered to the east, unleashing two clutches of parasitic tentaclids into the squadron of Fire Prisms. The living missiles veered into the grav-tanks, emitting massive bursts of bioelectrical pulses. Two Fire Prisms veered into the ground, leaving one that weaved back to the north behind a ruin.
The Hae’harro Uli’tharid then took flight, swooping high above the battlefield to the west, unleashing barrages of voracious devourer worms into the Wave Serpents. One of their energy field’s died as the parasitic worms shattered through the armoured hull and found living flesh to eat, its smoking anti-grav engines exploding in a shower of resplendent flares.
As the rest of Uli’tharid’s creatures swarmed forward, a squadron of Crimson Hunters penetrated the spore-choked sky, at breakneck velocity, they let fly pulse lasers and bright lancers, the deadly light of their blasts and the combined might of focus of the nearby Wave Serpent inflicting heavy wounds on Hae’harro Uli’tharid.
The second squadron of Wave Serpents now transported Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as’ trump card to the centre of the battlefield, unloading the robotic bodies of fifteen wraith-constructs, the Wraithguard of Mi’muith ith. Their D-scythes collapsing the material universe around the advancing Hormagaunts and Carnifex. Almost one hundred hormagaunts were instantly swept into the Immaterium while the violet force tore large chunks off the advancing Carnifex, which cocked its head skyward and let out an earth-shattering roar of pain.
Wraithknight Garuith’as again directed its Suncannon, this time with deadly intent at the carnifex, but the plasma rolled off the armoured hide, leaving seared flesh but not felling the living creature of destruction.
The Eldar had inflicted heavy casualties, but also over-extended themselves. With unimaginable speed and dexterity, around three hundred of the Scythed Hormagaunts leapt onto the remaining two Wave Serpents that had unloaded the Wraithguard of Mi’muith ith, their talons leaving savage dents in the weaponry and anti-grav engines, pulling the vehicles to the ground with sheer weight of numbers. The remaining hundred odd that had survived the brutal force that was unleashed on them by the Wraithguard of Mi’muith ith, charged headlong into the wraith constructs. Again, a wall of death erupted, leaving just forty of the wretched creatures, but through the rift, lumbered the towering carnifex, battering into the Wraithguard and trampling twenty of their number with sheer destructive force. The remaining thirty constructs struck back, failing to fell any of the lithe hormagaunts before the Carnifex tore the dead guardians apart with scythe-shaped talons.
The Hive Crone also did not fail to pursue the Fire Prism, zooming over the dilapidated structures, tearing into the squadron with bladed spurs and then sending the last one spiraling into the corrupted landscape below with another tentaclid.
The same fate occurred down the western flank, as the Hae’harro Uli’tharid crashed headlong into the Crimson Hunter, tearing long vents down its side before unleashing more parasitic worms into the rear armour of the agile, not even the preternatural reactions of its pilot could avoid the deadly grace of the winged Hive Tyrant.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as surveyed the battlefield. The precious spirit stones of his ancestors were being lost to the unstoppable swarm of scything. The visions could not be wrong, he must get the gemstones and thwart Sai’lanthresh.
The second squadron of Wave Serpents unloaded a second squad of Wraithguard who immediately unleashed dispersed another torrent of distortion into the fabric of reality, as Wraithknight Garuith’as also incinerated around 100 hormagaunts with a gale of plasma. Bones, talons and flesh were vapourised in the sheer amount of energy that was unleashed, but it was still not enough to stop the hordes of beasts.
Howling a vicious cry into the spore-choked sky, Hae’harro Uli’tharid vented its anger on the Wave Serpent Squadron, sending all but the very last careening to the surface. The Exocrine, hunkering down into the soft earth, let out streams of roaring bio-plasma energy into the fifteen Wraithguard, before the remaining hormagaunts leapt, talon and claw into the constructs, again tearing and shredding large holes in their flowing organic armour.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as shrunk back from the furious onslaught and tears streamed down his ancient face. He had gambled the spirit stones of his brethren in the dire time of need and now they would be lost for all eternally. Not only that, it appeared that escape might be impossible and that the six Gemstones of Sai lon’os would also be lost to his people.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as was suddenly startled out of his grief by a horrific shriek from the skies. Spinning in its direction, a flying monstrosity swooped low towards him. Psychic energy flared around his rune armour, but the beast simply shattered through the elegant defense, its bladed spurs cleaving Kai kaedr’as in two, his body splitting open from shoulder to hip and life fluid poured out of him like a waterfall and blood exploded from his eyes and mouth.
With nowhere left to turn, Wraithknight Garuith’as strode towards the Carnifex, the living twin Eldar within its contoured shell prepared to sell their lives and destroy as much of Uli’tharid.
Garuith’as leapt gracefully atop a shattered fortification and unleashed searing energy at the Hive Tyrant, as the vile creature soared across the battlefield at him, the tide again opened up and the Carnifex bulldozed into the heroic constructs left flank, shattering the constructs elegant left leg. The second roared as its shoulder cracked open the organic armour, the chest plate imploding inwards and the Suncannon snapping like a twig.
As the Wraithknight collapsed to the surface of Thalassa, its sensors fleeting, Hae’harro Uli’tharid plunged down from its short aerial dive, driving its biomorphic weapons through the head of the proud War Construct.
Spartor Craftworld had paid dearly a second time for attempting to retrieve the six Gemstones of Sai lon’os.
And, somewhere in the galactic void of the Warp, magnificent and terrible, its flesh, so perfect, running like fluid, molding and remolding as though an invisible sculptor pressed and worked upon it, allowed itself a satisfied smile.
Craftworld Spartor knew the enemy well. They had faced them once, a battle of epic proportions which saw the unforgivable loss and sacrifice of many Eldar in the fight to stem the spread of Hive Fleet Illithid, or as Spartor called the ravenous horde, Uli’tharid.
Spartor chose the dying stages of Thalassa as their platform of battle, the Eldar wishing to save the six Gemstones of Sai lon’os instead of eradicating the world and denying the Tyranid's precious biomass. The Sai Ion’os Stones were said to perhaps aid Spartor in hiding their presence from Sai’lanthresh. Each stone, infused with both warp energy and the souls of six Spirit Seers in the wake of The Fall had been hunted by Spartor for millennia, each beautiful gemstone was said to be made from the swirling chaotic vermilion material known to the Eldar as Kaus’unha, a gemstone so rare, only one in ten thousand planets were said to hold this precious material.
The Eldar of Craftworld Spartor would not hold back in their pursuit of this invaluable treasure. Unleashing two squadrons of Wave Serpents, their energy field projectors rippling in the spore infested landscape as they raced towards the coordinates. In the wake of their anti-grav engines followed a squadron of Fire Prism, its pilots focusing on the sickly landscape, watching the land heave and throe as if trying to fight a violent disease.
Rippers poured across the landscape, their razor sharp teeth devouring everything in their paths, as millions of hungry mouths snapped with voracious hunger.
Striding ahead, looming over the world, the war machine known as a Wraithknight, its arcane weaponry began bringing oblivion to anything that moved with its vengeful Suncannon. The landscape ahead was soon roiling in fierce plasma that left smoking craters in the toxic landscape.
The site where the gemstones were kept was not far ahead and Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as waited near an otherworldly runestone, the voices of the dead spirits inside the Sai Ion’os Stones guiding him to this point for over several hundred years. Hunkered down in what remained of one of the mammal’s buildings were his escorts, the Dire Avengers kept a watchful eye to the south, their avenger shuriken catapults aimed out, their keen eyes ever vigilant.
As the Wraithknight Garuith’as strode forward past Kai Kaedr’as, the horizon became a hive of activity. Lithe, agile hormagaunts bound forth from the rotting ground, springing forth with amazing speed. They were followed by two lumbering carnifex, their scything talons carving a swath of destruction as their unbridled rage hungered to be fed.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as looked on in horror as another beast, this one dwarfing the carnifex shook the ground, the Exocrine’s massive symbiotic cannon. All this was hard to make out as toxic spores filled the air and he could just make out the shapes of gangrel creatures with whip-like tentacles. Worse still was the winged beast known to Craftworld Spartor as, Hae’harro Uli’tharid.
The Wave Serpents unleashed scatter laser and shruiken cannons into the advancing waves of hormagaunts, but the monomolecular bladed discs exploded into the spore cloud, veering high, only dropping a few of the foul creatures.
The Wraithknight Garuith’as, the veteran of countless battles against tyranids, daemons and even the Mon-keigh upstarts, unleashed blasting plasma waves into the front lines. Again, this exploded into the toxic spores, missing the advancing waves of Uli’tharid.
The Sai Ion’os Stones had to be gathered no matter the cost, and the Dire Avengers uncovered one, its fiery light bathing their red and golden armour with unnatural light. But even as they did this, a flying monstrosity veered to the east, unleashing two clutches of parasitic tentaclids into the squadron of Fire Prisms. The living missiles veered into the grav-tanks, emitting massive bursts of bioelectrical pulses. Two Fire Prisms veered into the ground, leaving one that weaved back to the north behind a ruin.
The Hae’harro Uli’tharid then took flight, swooping high above the battlefield to the west, unleashing barrages of voracious devourer worms into the Wave Serpents. One of their energy field’s died as the parasitic worms shattered through the armoured hull and found living flesh to eat, its smoking anti-grav engines exploding in a shower of resplendent flares.
As the rest of Uli’tharid’s creatures swarmed forward, a squadron of Crimson Hunters penetrated the spore-choked sky, at breakneck velocity, they let fly pulse lasers and bright lancers, the deadly light of their blasts and the combined might of focus of the nearby Wave Serpent inflicting heavy wounds on Hae’harro Uli’tharid.
The second squadron of Wave Serpents now transported Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as’ trump card to the centre of the battlefield, unloading the robotic bodies of fifteen wraith-constructs, the Wraithguard of Mi’muith ith. Their D-scythes collapsing the material universe around the advancing Hormagaunts and Carnifex. Almost one hundred hormagaunts were instantly swept into the Immaterium while the violet force tore large chunks off the advancing Carnifex, which cocked its head skyward and let out an earth-shattering roar of pain.
Wraithknight Garuith’as again directed its Suncannon, this time with deadly intent at the carnifex, but the plasma rolled off the armoured hide, leaving seared flesh but not felling the living creature of destruction.
The Eldar had inflicted heavy casualties, but also over-extended themselves. With unimaginable speed and dexterity, around three hundred of the Scythed Hormagaunts leapt onto the remaining two Wave Serpents that had unloaded the Wraithguard of Mi’muith ith, their talons leaving savage dents in the weaponry and anti-grav engines, pulling the vehicles to the ground with sheer weight of numbers. The remaining hundred odd that had survived the brutal force that was unleashed on them by the Wraithguard of Mi’muith ith, charged headlong into the wraith constructs. Again, a wall of death erupted, leaving just forty of the wretched creatures, but through the rift, lumbered the towering carnifex, battering into the Wraithguard and trampling twenty of their number with sheer destructive force. The remaining thirty constructs struck back, failing to fell any of the lithe hormagaunts before the Carnifex tore the dead guardians apart with scythe-shaped talons.
The Hive Crone also did not fail to pursue the Fire Prism, zooming over the dilapidated structures, tearing into the squadron with bladed spurs and then sending the last one spiraling into the corrupted landscape below with another tentaclid.
The same fate occurred down the western flank, as the Hae’harro Uli’tharid crashed headlong into the Crimson Hunter, tearing long vents down its side before unleashing more parasitic worms into the rear armour of the agile, not even the preternatural reactions of its pilot could avoid the deadly grace of the winged Hive Tyrant.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as surveyed the battlefield. The precious spirit stones of his ancestors were being lost to the unstoppable swarm of scything. The visions could not be wrong, he must get the gemstones and thwart Sai’lanthresh.
The second squadron of Wave Serpents unloaded a second squad of Wraithguard who immediately unleashed dispersed another torrent of distortion into the fabric of reality, as Wraithknight Garuith’as also incinerated around 100 hormagaunts with a gale of plasma. Bones, talons and flesh were vapourised in the sheer amount of energy that was unleashed, but it was still not enough to stop the hordes of beasts.
Howling a vicious cry into the spore-choked sky, Hae’harro Uli’tharid vented its anger on the Wave Serpent Squadron, sending all but the very last careening to the surface. The Exocrine, hunkering down into the soft earth, let out streams of roaring bio-plasma energy into the fifteen Wraithguard, before the remaining hormagaunts leapt, talon and claw into the constructs, again tearing and shredding large holes in their flowing organic armour.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as shrunk back from the furious onslaught and tears streamed down his ancient face. He had gambled the spirit stones of his brethren in the dire time of need and now they would be lost for all eternally. Not only that, it appeared that escape might be impossible and that the six Gemstones of Sai lon’os would also be lost to his people.
Spiritseer Kai kaedr’as was suddenly startled out of his grief by a horrific shriek from the skies. Spinning in its direction, a flying monstrosity swooped low towards him. Psychic energy flared around his rune armour, but the beast simply shattered through the elegant defense, its bladed spurs cleaving Kai kaedr’as in two, his body splitting open from shoulder to hip and life fluid poured out of him like a waterfall and blood exploded from his eyes and mouth.
With nowhere left to turn, Wraithknight Garuith’as strode towards the Carnifex, the living twin Eldar within its contoured shell prepared to sell their lives and destroy as much of Uli’tharid.
Garuith’as leapt gracefully atop a shattered fortification and unleashed searing energy at the Hive Tyrant, as the vile creature soared across the battlefield at him, the tide again opened up and the Carnifex bulldozed into the heroic constructs left flank, shattering the constructs elegant left leg. The second roared as its shoulder cracked open the organic armour, the chest plate imploding inwards and the Suncannon snapping like a twig.
As the Wraithknight collapsed to the surface of Thalassa, its sensors fleeting, Hae’harro Uli’tharid plunged down from its short aerial dive, driving its biomorphic weapons through the head of the proud War Construct.
Spartor Craftworld had paid dearly a second time for attempting to retrieve the six Gemstones of Sai lon’os.
And, somewhere in the galactic void of the Warp, magnificent and terrible, its flesh, so perfect, running like fluid, molding and remolding as though an invisible sculptor pressed and worked upon it, allowed itself a satisfied smile.
