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The Choral City

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17K views 126 replies 11 participants last post by  Asamodai 
#1 · (Edited)
All:

The Choral City, Capital of Isstvan III. A beautiful place, despite the circumstances, with incredible stone and marble roads, organic shaped structures, and fantastical artwork. Statues and monuments everywhere one looked. Floral colors pristinely dashed upon the cityscape. It was also immense in size.

This morning, all of you landed in the Choral City, your squads by your side. Your men, your brothers, by your side.

With the sunrise, came the answer to rebellion, shot through the atmosphere in a hailstorm of drop pods. Those in pale green toward the heretical, massive religious site called the Siren Hold, to silence the enemy’s spirit. Those in elegant purple, towards the Precentors Palace, to cut the head from the snake.

The World Eaters landed in the city’s center, to wipe out its heart: the citizens themselves. The Death Guard were sent to the city’s western edge, to crush the massed defensive strength of the Isstvanian military.

The city’s defenders were much better prepared than you all had thought. All of you lost brothers during the fight. Forces were scattered, many landing off target, and having to fight through ground they had been given no specifics about. A shameful amount of factors were not going according to plan. Yet, despite these downfalls, it took the combined effort of Astartes from four different Legions only a few hours to achieve all of their goals and objectives, and take the city in victory. None of them would have expected any less.

None of them, none of you, expected the vox in your helmets to speak of an Isstvanian bio-weapon, a last ditch effort, a suicide bombing. All of you, for one reason or another, found yourselves Southwest of the Palace, somewhere far between it and the western edge of the City. You all scrambled to find shelter.

Within minutes, the entire world died and burned. You waited in cover, while massed screams sounded all around you, Astartes even, screaming in terror. Your shelter was superheated to scorching levels, and you waited while until it had barely cooled enough for you to finally open the barricade and step outside.

Nothing is recognizable. Nothing but ash fills the sky. Dying fires still burn throughout the ruins, sending heavy smoke trails into the air. A storm-like wind, though dry and hot, ceaselessly races through the area you stand.

It is now clear to you. The Isstvanians did not do this.

Vultus:

Your drop pod landed far from its designated target. Unsure of which direction the rest of Second Company had landed, you and the group of Marines you landed with made their way through the city the best they could by themselves. Captain Torgaddon and the other command elements with him did their best to guide you toward them, but they were bogged down by rebel forces had little time to spare in helping you reach them.

Stumbling upon one fortification after another, the squad began to dwindle in number until you came to one of many smaller religious shrines where a trio of warsingers took the rest of your squad before your plasma pistol seared away the last one’s existence. Shortly afterwards, another vox from your Captain, who told all who heard to find sealed shelter immediately. Your intuition brought you inside the shrine where you found an arched doorway opening to a long dark passageway. Never once letting go of the Company Standard, you slammed the doors shut, just before the entire city started screaming.

When you emerge, your vox unit will crackle back to life, but that is the only thing crackling back to life in the hellish landscape that is now the Choral City before you. This was Horus’s doing. There was no doubt.

Krateron:

Your drop pod had landed off course as well, never reaching the Siren Hold. You had ridden down in a squad alongside your friend and brother-in-arms, Nal Verustan.

You received little vox communication, the commanding officers of the first wave not being from your group’s Company. Their attentions were clearly already divided too many ways. Your squad did the best they could traversing the city streets, coming across several rebel strongpoints and defensive battlements. After a couple of hours had passed, only you and one other Sons of Horus legionary remained alive, your friend Nal amongst those that had fallen.

After hearing the warning message of an incoming bio-weapon attack, you ran full speed toward an Isstvanian bunker that looked like it was still intact, likely abandoned during a retreat from the World Eaters carnage-making. The other Marine who had been with you hadn’t reacted nearly as fast. You pushed the thin doorway shut before your comrade could make it in, and listened to his fists pounding on the door, and his screams as the Life Eater virus turned him to sludge inside of his armor.

When you step outside into the ash filled, firescape wasteland, your eye catches on to the only bit of color thats not gray, black, or orange. Three specks of purple in the distance emerging from their own, apparently successful, hiding spot.

You also hear your vox unit crackle back to life.

Loculus, Aurellian, and Gratus:

It did not take long for you and the rest of 10th Company to figure out that Captain Tarvitz had not traveled to the surface, Ancient Rylanor descending in his stead. Perhaps begrudgingly, you followed 13th Company’s lead into the Precentors Palace.

First, shortly after Captain Lucius had taken the head of Praal, you received word of your Captain landing in the Choral City. He moved quickly throughout the ranks of Emperor Children still in the Palace, and before you could catch sight of him, you received word that Tarvitz was on his way to warn the World Eaters of the same news he had brought to Lucius. News about an incoming viral bombardment.
Both Decurions agreed they would rather go after their Captain than risk having him die alone amongst the ranks of World Eaters.

Taking several Sergeants and their squads with you away from the palace, the Decurions sealed the fate of all but one of them. Before catching up to Tarvitz, the distant pops high up in the sky told you that you were out of time. Already able to see the smoke trails of the viral payload dropping toward the surface, the band of Emperors Children darted to the best shelter they could find. Between the virus and the firestorm, only the bunker shelter the three of you found together proved resilient enough.

When you exit the bunker, which was in the basement of a civilian building, you walk back into the street. Moments later, your vox units all crackle back to life. If there had been any lingering doubt with Tarvtiz’s news of betrayal, there was none left now.

Tharr and Straeson:

The two of you, like most of the World Eaters who had landed near the city’s center, had run rampant in your killing sprees. As long as another World Eater was still in sight, you had all kept going, butchering the rebellious populace without mercy. There was no way to tell where exactly you had ended up when you received a sudden and surprising vox communication from Captain Ehrlen warning you of an incoming bio-weapon attack from the Isstvanians and to find shelter. They were going to bomb their own city rather than let the Imperium have it back.

Apparently close to the western walls, a set of military bunkers was readily available nearby. The men of your squads ran into adjacent bunkers and battlements, but as fortune would have it, it was only yours that would withstand the full onslaught of the viral payload and subsequent firestorm. When you exit the bunker and your vox units crackle back to life, the only other Astartes you see emerge from any of the other battlements, is a lone Death Guard marine, a plasma cannon clamped to his backside.

You recognize what has happened. This was not the rebels. This was your own, still up in the sky on their space ships.

Gilgumann:

You had pushed, pushed like never before. First through one trench after another. The grinding advance toward the main city wall. Mud caked your lower half, and blood the rest along with it. There had been mines, turret fire, gates, barricades, traps, everything. Your trusted armor and Plasma weapon held true once more, keeping you alive through it all. Somehow, you found that you had pushed further than most of your legionaries. You were the only devastator of the squad left, but you were flanked by a pair of tactical marines that followed the paths you had cleared.

After breaching the main wall, and with no commands coming in to stop your advancement, the three of you simply continued on, destroying and killing what opposition you could find until finally an unnerving vox message hit your ears. There was no time to spare. Even in the distance, you could see the massive form of the Dies Irae stopping dead in its tracks and falling silent.

The two tactical marines separated from you at the last second, forcing you to shut yourself into a battlement alone. Waiting through the next several minutes, you exit the battlement alive, as true as any Death Guard could have dreamt. Hoping your brothers had successfully found cover elsewhere, you see no sign of them. Instead, to your surprise, all you see is a pair of World Eater Sergeants, as drenched in gore as you are.

The bigger surprise mutes all others, at this moment. The reality of the betrayal that just occurred, slowly sinking its dark, sickening blades into your heart. A poison your lungs were never prepared for.


None of you can interact with any of the players from another legion just yet, but you can make the decision to start moving towards any you see. The focus on this post of course, is the realization of the betrayal and its toll on the City.

Most of my posts shouldn't be this long, as this one includes an introduction as well the player pieces. Not to mention everyone is starting out separated. No promises though, as I tend to carried away...Anyway, hope you have fun writing for this beginning. As always PM me if you have any questions.
 
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#127 ·
They were doomed, all of them. That much had been clear ever since the first moments of the betrayal. The Loyalist forces were outnumbered by an enemy that were man for man their equal. They were cut off from all possibility of support or reinforcement and the potential for them to be bombarded from orbit was a constant threat. Everything they did, every treacherous life they had taken was nothing more then a bloody minded act of stubborn defiance. But as the entrance to the catacombs collapsed around them and the rag tag loyalist force withdrew into the relative safety of the underground tunnels, Sebastian felt hope. If all those around them were able to accept the superiority and perfection of the 3rd Legion's strategy, maybe they would survive this after all. With a nod to Decurion Locolus, Sebastian turned and headed into the tunnel.

For all the safety the tunnels offered at this moment, Sebastian did not like it down here. The place unnerved him. Its strange twisted structure felt alien, its sunken statues and religious symbolism even more so. He sighed quietly. It was a shame that this world had turned from the light of Imperial Truth. Sad that this retribution had had to fall upon them and worst of all that the Emperor's Children as he knew them were now denied the glory of the worlds true destruction.

In the large central chamber they found themselves in, the other legion commanders along with the Mechanicus Priest were trying to scan the tunnels with little success. Both a blessing and a curse as it could be assumed that their enemies would have similar trouble using such devices to detect them.

He didn't like the Death Guard and World Eaters taking command. They were off roughly equivalent rank and to his own mind, Sebastian knew he would be the greater leader. He was one of the Emperor's Children after all. He knew though that Lieutenant Morturg especially seemed to know the tunnel system better than he or Tiberius would and for now, he would settle for following his lead. As the thought passed through his mind, the Death Guard Lieutenant started issuing orders, directing detachments of their force down seemingly random corridors. Sebastian saw not obvious system or sense to the deployments but right now felt it best not to start questioning them. Something about Morturg's voice over the vox made Sebastian sure. "Enemies." Morturg said.

Alongside Tiberius, Akkad, Kyros and some others he was less familiar with, Sebastian fell into line behind the World Eater Darr.

"Hands and blades." the Centurion ordered.

Does a World Eater ever use anything else? he thought. Oh of course, he forgot teeth.

Despite hill sarcastic inner monologue Sebastian had no problem with the instruction. He mag locked his bolter to his lower back and carefully withdrew Spectre. He raised it to a high horizontal stance near his right shoulder but kept it deactivated so that its glow would not give them away in the darkness. As the group slowly made their way through the twisting tunnels, darting from cover to cover, shadow to shadow they heard footsteps. It was possible one of the other group had been turned around or their tunnels had somehow linked, but Sebastian had learned by now not to trust anyone left on Isstvan III until he had good reason to do so. Before he could think about it too much more though, Decurion Locolus leapt into action, laying down his plan. With no objections, Sebastian remained quiet and moved to a position hiding beside his fellow 3rd Legionnaire.

As the World Eater traitors came by, eager to assist their supposed ally the trap was sprung. Tiberius a step ahead of him cut down a warrior with a precise blow of his spear to the enemies neck. Sebastian sidestepped his own target lining up in a low stance to the World Eater's right as the traitor raised his bolter. With the perfect opening, Sebastian trust Spectre forward, activating its power field at the last moment so the blade pierced the World Eater's power armour and his lungs and hearts alongside it. The World Eater fell to the ground and Decurion Aurellian stepped forward already aiming for his next target.
 
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