Stormbolter Sister of Battle by hou_jae04

Both my MCs!

Insidious Gaunt and Sherry Stormbolt

In the same pic!!! 💚🐍🐍💚

They look so good together!

Huge shoutout to @deathlysallows for the tutorial post! Thanks so much, you’re the best for sharing that info!

💚🐍💚

I should give Aurien the Death Clutch spell when I do their WotR run. It’d be really funny.

to celebrate my new lights coming in, i decided to finish up Brother Maxim, wisest amongst the White Talons chapter. As one of the original surviving founders of the chapter, many head his words as if they were said by the Emperor himself. Many times has his frame been modified, both in the field and off, to the point where several techpriests have listed Maxim as one of the main infractions, alongside a land raider modification, when they accused the chapter of tech heresy, though the charges were dropped shortly after said techpriests disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Armed with a pod each of krak missiles and frag missiles, a multimetla, stormbolter, and a pair of heavy stubbers, there is little that Brother Maxim cannot kill.

Headcanuary Challenge - One Headcanon per Day

Day 2: Weather

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Wind is the defining force shaping Utapau's topside landscape. While most of the planet's surface is covered with grassland-type ecosystems differentiated by temperature, altitude, and soil type, there are some areas where rock and sand predominates the landscape.

From these areas, massive hyperwind storms form. The fine sand and ancient seabed silts are blown up into a static-charged front that sweeps across the planet. Hot air fronts rise underneath denser, cooler fronts from the poles, causing instability in the vertical air current.

Cyclones, sometimes kilometers wide, spin off. They are known to be so violent and frequent, that permanent settlement of the surface has been deemed impossible. That said, the natives of Utapau have adapted to the weather conditions of their planet.

Most of the population lives in sinkhole cities, powered by wind turbines and kept sheltered from the violent storms above.

Some live outside the cities, in areas not carved by the receding Great Ocean, but by the wind itself. In the canyon regions, shear winds are common, but they rarely form into the more destructive storms that plague the flatter landscapes. Similarly, the Dactillion clan makes their winter home atop a massive plateau, kept safe above the areas where storms sweep through.

Others have their own ways of dealing with the storms. Utai shepherds, tending to their animal charges, will never stray far from a sinkhole or cave system. Most surface clans of Pau'an Plainsmen use their sensitive hearing and word of mouth to track the storms, constantly moving their homes to stay abreast of the weather. The Stormbolt clan makes their livelihood sticking close to the margins of the fronts, serving as a last warning system for other Plainsmen while reaping the benefits of the percipitation coming off the edge of the storms.

After all, while these hyperwind storms are destructive, they are essential to the planet's ecology. As mentioned in yesterday's entry, there is no standing surface freshwater, so the storms keep the dense inland prairies hydrated as they pass. Lightning-enduced fires and wind keep the sparse blba trees from taking over the landscape. Minerals locked in stone made from ancient seabed are blown over the fields, introduced back into the soil to nourish rich plant biodiversity (and subsequently, animal biodiversity). Reptavians flourish, riding the air currents to the farthest reaches of the planet, often drawing Pau'an and Utai close behind.

End of Entry.

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@oh-three @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius

Modron, Quarton

Image © @tredlocity​

[In the original Monster Manual 2, quartons have absolutely no unique abilities whatsoever. Which allowed them to be a blank slate for me. So I gave them powers of crafting and construction, and also a bunch of references to the spells and magic items of original AD&D that assumed that high level characters would settle down and build their own dungeons. On a related note, is the lyre of building a joke about Nero? Or is there some myth or story about construction sped up by playing a lyre that I don’t know?]

Modron, Quarton CR 18 LN Outsider (extraplanar) This humanoid giant has four arms, two enormous and two small. It has fan-like wings growing from its back, and a head like a helmet. A symbol of a diamond sits on the center of its forehead.

Quartons are the modron hierarchs that represent Primus’ mastery over artifice. They are engineers and builders of incredible skill, mixing magical and mundane techniques to create buildings and tools that are unparalleled throughout the planes. They often act as architects and supervisors, coordinating the efforts of lesser modrons to perform the bulk of the labor, and then adding the finishing touches to optimize efficiency. As such, a single quarton may oversee construction projects throughout Regulus, delegating to a team of decatons for most of the day-to-day affairs.

Although quartons have four arms, they are decidedly uneven in size. The smaller pair is used for spellcasting, while the larger pair is used for combat and manual labor. A quarton typically carries a massive two-handed hammer as a badge of office, and blows with this hammer can shatter inanimate objects and clear earth and stone with ease. A quarton often focuses its strikes in combat on enemy gear rather than on their flesh, hoping to demoralize foes and persuade them of the wisdom of surrender. If this fails, or if fighting chaotic enemies, the quarton instead fights with maximum lethal efficiency.

As quartons rarely leave the bustle of Regulus, they provide tools in order for other modrons to fulfill the will of Primus on other planes or planets. Their workshops build the vast majority of the weapons wielded by modrons, and they also provide hierarchs on the Great Modron March with tools for securing and defending territory. Instant fortresses, lyres of building, and simple scrolls of stone shape and move earth are provided to expeditionary forces. On the rare occasions where a quarton leaves Regulus, it is usually to inspect a site captured by modrons to determine if it is suitable for long-term occupation, and to design fortifications to spec if it is.

Quarton                 CR 18 XP 153,600 LN Large outsider (extraplanar, law, modron) Init 27 (fixed); Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +32 Aura shield of law (DC 25) Defense AC 33, touch 20, flat-footed 26 (-1 size, +7 Dex, +4 deflection, +13 natural) hp 300 (20d10+160 plus 30); regeneration 5 (chaotic, force) Fort +18, Ref +23, Will +25 DR 15/chaotic; Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10; SR 28 Defensive Abilities constructed, freedom of movement Offense Speed 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (average) Melee +3 adamantine earth breaker +31/+26/+21/+16 (2d8+16/19-20x3) or 2 slams +29 (2d8+9) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Attacks infuse arms and armor (7/day), titanic strikes Spell-like Abilities CL 19th, concentration +26 (+30 casting defensively) Constant—detect chaos, freedom of movement, shield of law (DC 25, self only) At will—clairaudience/clairvoyance, crafter’s fortune,  greater command (DC 22), greater teleport, order’s wrath (DC 21), protection from chaos (DC 18) 3/day—dispel chaos (DC 22), fabricate, greater dispel magic, move earth, wall of force, ward the faithful 1/day—dictum (DC 24), guards and wards, sequester Spells CL 18th, concentration +28 (+32 casting defensively) 9th—etherealness, mass heal (DC 28), prismatic sphere, quickened righteous might 8th—dimensional lock, quickened divine power, earthquake, statue, stormbolts (DC 27) 7th—mass cure serious wounds (DC 26), quickened prayer, quickened protection from energy, symbol of stunning (DC 26), wall of iron 6th—blade barrier (DC 25), forbiddance, greater dispel magic, heal (DC 25), major creation, true seeing 5th—breath of life (DC 24), dispel chaos (DC 24), quickened divine favor, fabricate, pillar of life, plane shift (DC 23), scrying (DC 24) 4th—blessing of fervor, dimensional anchor, discern lies (DC 23), dismissal (DC 23), minor creation, spiritual ally, tongues 3rd—cure serious wounds (x2, DC 22), locate object, magic vestment, stone shape (x2), wrathful mantle 2nd—find traps, grace, sound burst (x2, DC 21), spiritual weapon (x2), wood shape 1st—animate rope, ant haul, bless, cure light wounds (x3, DC 20), entropic shield, shield of faith 0th—detect magic, guidance, read magic, virtue Domain—Artifice Statistics Str 28, Dex 24, Con 26, Int 25, Wis 29, Cha 25 Base Atk +20; CMB +30 (+34 sunder); CMD 51 (53 vs. sunder) Feats Combat Reflexes, Craft Magic Arms and Armor (B), Craft Rod (B), Craft Wondrous Item (B), Critical Focus, Greater Sunder, Improved Critical (earth breaker) Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Scribe Scroll (B), Shield of Swings, Stand Still, Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical Skills Craft (armorsmithing, masonry, weaponsmithing) +36, Diplomacy +15, Disable Device +28, Fly +26, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, religion) +25, Knowledge (engineering, planes) +28, Perception +32, Perform (strings) +28, Sense Motive +30, Spellcraft +28; Racial Modifiers +8 Craft, +2 Perception Languages Celestial, Infernal, Modron, telepathy 100 ft (49 miles with modrons) SQ coordinated ally, fixed initiative, ultimate craftsman Ecology Environment any land or underground (Regulus) Organization solitary or pair Treasure double standard (+3 Large adamantine earth breaker, other treasure) Special Abilities Infuse Arms and Armor (Su) As a standard action, a quarton can touch a set of armor, a weapon or fifty pieces of ammunition and make them magical. This ability can confer a +4 enhancement bonus, or weapon or armor special qualities equivalent to a +4 enhancement bonus, or a mixture. The abilities granted must be appropriate for the type of weapon or armor, and the quarton cannot confer any ability with an alignment other than lawful. A quarton cannot use this ability on the same piece of equipment multiple times at once, but can use it to increase the enhancement of already magical weapons or armor. A bonus conferred in this way lasts for 20 minutes. A quarton can use this ability a number of times per day equal to its Charisma modifier. Spells A quarton casts spells as an 18th level cleric with access to the Artifice domain. Titanic Strikes (Su) A quarton deals double damage to inanimate objects with its weapon attacks, and can use any tool to clear earth or stone as per a mattock of the titans. Ultimate Craftsman (Ex) A quarton gains a +8 racial bonus to all Craft skills, and gains four item creation feats as bonus feats. A quarton can create non-magical items in ¼ the time as normal. By meditating for eight hours, a quarton can change one or more of the Craft skills it is trained in to another Craft skill.

StormBolts (Design Trade)

With an Irish Shamrock (1827)

From the region of zephyrs, the Emerald isle,      The land of thy birth, in my freshness I come, To waken this long-cherished morn with a smile,      And breathe o’er thy spirit the whispers of home. O welcome the stranger from Erin’s green sod;   I sprang where the bones of thy fathers repose, I grew where thy free step in infancy trod,   Ere the world threw around thee its wiles and its woes.          But sprightlier themes          Enliven the dreams, My dew-dropping leaflets unfold to impart:          To loftiest emotion          Of patriot devotion, I wake the full chord of an Irishman’s heart. The rose is expanding her petals of pride,      And points to the laurels o’erarching her tree; And the hardy Bur-thistle stands rooted beside,      And sternly demands;—Who dare meddle wi’ me? And bright are the garlands they jointly display,      In death-fields of victory gallantly got; But let the fair sisters their trophies array,      And show us the wreath where the shamrock is not!              By sea and by land,              With bullet and brand, My sons have directed the stormbolt of war;              The banners ye boast,              Ne’er waved o’er our host, Unfanned by the accents of Erin-go-bragh! Erin mavourneen! dark is thy night;      Deep thy forebodings and gloomy thy fears; And O, there are bosoms with savage delight      Who laugh at thy plainings and scoff at thy tears! But, Erin mavourneen, bright are the names      Who twine with the heart-vein thy fate in their breast; And scorned be the lot of the dastard, who shames      To plant, as a trophy, this leaf on his crest!              Thrice trebled disgrace              His honours deface, Who shrinks from proclaiming the isle of his birth!              Though lowly its stem,              This emerald gem Mates with the proudest that shadow the earth!

-Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1790–1846)

Beat Boltgun.

It’s a little short, but it’s also like 1/3 the cost of most games.  Keyword little.  It just makes me want a sequel

Boltgun 2: Stormbolter

Sorcerer talks a big talk when I killed his Lord of Change and Great Unclean One, but the moment the battlefield seems a bit less crowded, for some reason the little bitch is no longer walking exposed on the upper catwalks.

Still wonderful that they managed to out-Doom, DOOM.

To be fair, it's basically the same thing. Using an armed to the teeth mobile fortress to ride on just to get into melee.

.....

But Yarrick was different, he also (some how) used a Stormbolter single handed.

Return to Tarkir entries 16-19

Silumgar Collaborateurs by @sparkyyoungupstart

Temur Loyalist by @bread-into-toast

Dragonhunter's Net by @just--a--penguin

Kolaghan Stormbolt by @curiooftheheart

Insidious Gaunt and Sherry Stormbolt

With some editing, thanks to the Ominis Fig replacer mod, I was able to make it look like both my MCs are fighting Ranrok! My MCs look great together!

💚🖤🐍🖤💚

Entry 19

We headed out first thing in the morning, and made a beeline for the camp. We didn’t bother with stealth—they knew we were coming.

Maybe we should have tried being a little more stealthy.

As we made our way around the parameter of the camp, aiming to go after one of the corner guard towers we hadn’t yet cleared out, the clouds over us began to roil, and form a shape.

The shape of a man—a familiar man. Gregorio Rasputin. He taunted us about how little we could do—Aenland tried to shoot him and it passed through his form as he wasn’t really there and he laughed about us believing he’d really come to this plane to see us. I called him out on his cowardice, and he claimed it just meant he was smarter than me. According to him even Elvana knew he was smarter than me.

Right, because the queen wasn’t just appeasing her idiot brother to keep him working happily and quietly.

He declared he would show me how much smarter he was, before calling down several bolts of lightning. Stormbolt. A very powerful spell.

Rasputin left, laughing at us, but my brain was working on something too much to listen to that shithead.

His power, the way he cast it, the way he received power, the spells he used…

Rasputin was like me.

His magic came from the same kind of place. Only instead of being in some way close to undeath, his soul was stitched to his body so he couldn’t die.

Stupid bastard hit the jackpot. Got immortality without even trying. I have to actually work for it.

I made the terrible executive decision of telling the others about this revelation, and they realized he was also a necromancer like me. Aenland started off that he was a ‘boner’, which I agreed to because it was calling him a boner instead of me. Then Edeya went and added ‘you were both boners together’, and I had the realization that I almost certainly fucked him, and then no one was having fun anymore.

In my defense, he would have easily been the most powerful person in the room barring Elvana—who was obviously off limits if I wanted to live—and he’s not a bad looking man. He’s just a total prat.

The worst part is we probably got along when I was the Grim Rider. I can easily imagine a time where I would have enjoyed the presence of someone like him. It’s not like Nazhena and Pavril, who knowing I’d been friends with them made my skin crawl. Rasputin is at least as terrible as them, and I want to make it quite clear that I hate him in current day. Yet I can see where in another life I’d have found the way he’s toying with his enemies amusing, and his tactics and use of necromancy very much to my style.

It annoys me to think about. Besides, knowing me, it was still all a ploy for more power or just because he’d be a fun lay. The Grim Rider didn’t care about Rasputin. And I won’t care about cutting his life short.

After we healed up from getting electricity dropped on us by a stupidly powerful spell, using up a nice chunk of our resources first thing in the morning, we made for the tranches. We made a parameter around the camp, clearing out all of the trenches and towers one after another—only avoiding the one that was covered in that miscolored poisonous smoke coming from the back of the camp.

Around the back of the camp, we came upon the graveyard—and the Tombstone Fairy we’d been told to meet. Paulina, who was busy digging up skeletons. She waved a shovel in our direction and asked if we were Rasputin’s goons. I told her, quite the opposite in fact, we were here to save his dear mother.

That got her attention. She would speak to those working for Baba Yaga. She told us about a man whose name started with an M—a hunchback with a metal leg—who had helped to build the towers Rasputin was using to control the lightning. He was apparently going to be the key to getting into the real cathedral in the center, as shining the four lights on it to see it wasn’t going to be enough to actually enter the First World where the cathedral was actually located. But Paulina told us where to find M’s body and soul, and even said she would resurrect him for us if we brought him back here with his soul free.

Unfortunately, his body and soul were in two separate places. His body was being held by the Baykoks, and the soul was being held by the ‘weird goat’ we’d heard about. Turns out I was right that it wasn’t Pavril’s familiar. Paulina described the creature in question, a goat with a lantern around its neck that trapped souls, and I recognized it from tales from my childhood. A Lantern Goat. Undead that lead people away into the woods in the guise of a helpful guide, then steal their souls after they’re lost and dying and alone in the frozen wastes.

Paulina offered to resurrect M if we could free his soul and return his body to her. She also told us about a ‘little grandmother’ who she felt we should meet, in one of the other buildings. She was going to offer to revive us if it came to that, but apparently we’re all ‘too pleasant’.

From what I gather about Tombstone Fairies, she means none of us fall in the universe’s arbitrary definition of ‘evil’.

Almost a shame I’m apparently not quite enough of a bastard to have that failsafe—but then, I don’t plan on dying, so with any luck it won’t be a problem.

We left Paulina and finished clearing out the trenches and guard towers. Then we made for the front entrance. Nevra did the honors of busting open the second electrified gate.

And then that rat bastard Rasputin appeared again.

We tried to scatter, knowing we couldn’t fight him and knowing he was going to throw some kind of spell at us.

Unfortunately, Talsune and I weren’t fast enough. My partner got hit by a Destruction spell—probably aimed for me. Rasputin laughed, calling after me that he’d hit my mount. I told him to shove it.

That fucking hurt. Talsune was in bad shape. I’m going to give that bastard as much and more when we finally get onto the same plane of existence as that coward.

And things didn’t end there. Before we could even regroup, lightning fell from the sky, striking Talsune and I, and a few of the others. My partner has always been stoic, and he didn’t outwardly show it, but he was hurting, and he was on his last legs.

Aenland spotted that the lightning had come from a building towards the back of the camp that was supposedly empty according to the map Dimitry had given us. It would seem we had more to investigate there.

For now, however, we saw the last remaining tanks currently powered down and parked at their stations to the side of the gate. We decided to take them out before they could be a future problem.

Nestian threw his necklace of fireballs, and I ignited them with a well placed Screaming Flames. The living tanks awoke—but they didn’t get a chance to react before Nevra and Talsune swooped in and breathed fire and lightning across the constructs’ metal shell, causing it to spark and melt, and finally shut down entirely.

Talsune returned to my side, and I asked Edeya to heal him while we planned our next move.

We decided to start moving more stealthily through the camp—and hopefully not get jumped by Rasputin a third time. We would start in the building inhabited by the Baykoks, and move our way around the parameter.

So it was that we snuck to the building, and kicked down the door into a long building full of Baykoks wielding rifles surrounding a single Meladaemon. The daemon—the personification of death by starvation—was clutching a corpse, about to devour it. It was the corpse we needed, the hunchback with a metal leg.

Fortunately our sudden appearance distracted the outsider from its meal.

And when I took control of one of the Baykoks and made it start shooting the daemon, it was permanently distracted. Although Aenland got the final shot on the gluttonous beast. I don’t mind, I got the real prize here—I’m keeping this Baykok, unlike the one from the fortress in the Dancing Hut that I left behind.

Since I’m keeping him, I named him Roscoe.

We stuffed the corpse into my bag of holding for the time being, and then continued on to the next building—the barracks where the prisoners had been held.

There was no one in this building—no one living. The place was the site of a massacre. Bodies littered the floor, with the tell-tale puncture wounds on their necks of vampire bites. The nosferatu brothers hadn’t conserved their food source very well.

Man, Rasputin couldn’t even have the decency to go and shack up with the sexy kind of vampire. Nosferatu are no fun. Moroi are where it’s at.

They’re antipaladins of the Pallid Princess…they probably won’t be easy to dominate. But man what if I did though? Remind them that Urgathoa gives necromancers superiority over the undead…

Eh, we’ll see how I’m feeling when we fight them.

After we left the slaughter house, we went to check out Rasputin’s old abode—the Abbott House.

When we approached the door I got the deepest sense of dread I’ve ever felt. The Geass in my chest began telling me to leave, and my own instincts were telling me the same. Something about that place was wrong. I’m not an easily frightened person, and that place made me feel like a terrified child, hiding from the monsters lurking around every corner on a stormy night.

Before any of us managed to get up the courage to try to open the door—it seemed that the dread of that place had seeped into all of us—Nestian spotted a woman in the well behind us.

She was a fey woman, a Rusalka. She wanted our help to kill her rival in romance, as Rasputin had dumped her in favor of a daemon of heartbreak—a Erodaemon. Because that’s really smart. Dating a creature who’s the embodiment of death by heartbreak. That can’t end badly at all.

(Yeah we’re going to ignore the fact I’d probably have done the exact same thing in his spot a year ago.)

The Rusalka told us that if we tried to enter the Abbott House, all of the creatures within the poisonous gas fog in the nearby trench would rush out and attack us. So that was good to know to be ready for. Maybe I can even think of some way to clear up that fog to get a look at what we’ll have to deal with ahead of time.

She also told us about a little boy who had ran into the Surgical Theatre. He was apparently usually with his sister, but she hadn’t seen his sister in a while. The Rusalka knew that a Doctor inhabited the Theatre—an outsider with barbed wire strung all around it, that liked experimenting on prisoners.

Obviously, we decided to save the house of horrors for later, and went to try to find the child and keep him from being this Doctor’s next victim.

We snuck our way to the Surgical Theatre. I sent Ivan and Roscoe around back, while we went through the front doors. Within there were horrific creatures—twisted beings of glorified pain. Kytons. Feral Kytons led by this twisted Doctor—another type of Kyton we never identified.

The Feral Kytons leapt at Nestian, who was the first in the door. Chaos broke loose as the back door burst open and Roscoe began firing arrows into the Kytons. Talsune and I worked on cutting down the ones attacking Nestian. Aenland shot half a dozen arrows into the Doctor and felled him before he got a moment to react. Nestian’s axe felled another, followed by Cesseer’s shotel. Aenland finished off the one Roscoe had paralyzed—and all went quiet.

We searched the room, and found a small closet. We figured that must be where the children were hiding. I sent the undead away to guard the doors, and the dragonkin stepped back so as to not crowd or frighten them.

When we opened the door two children stepped out. A young boy, and a teenage girl. The boy introduced himself as Alexei, and the girl was his sister, Anastasia Romanov. The girl was a bit shaky, she seemed not entirely sure of where she was. She told us that she believed they had been taken by the people who had killed their parents. But she was having a hard time remembering things.

Something about her demeanor rang a bell in my head. It wasn’t a common ailment back home, but it was known to happen from time to time. Resurrection sickness.

Whoever this young lady was—she likely hadn’t survived what had been done to her family. The boy may not have either, although he seemed to have faired better if that is the case.

I didn’t inform the girl that she had died—I know from experience that that isn’t exactly easy news to learn, and especially for an already somewhat traumatized young girl. Especially for one who isn’t familiar with magic. It was better to keep it quiet for now. I did telepathically share with the others what I had realized, so that they would be informed incase it turned out to be vital information.

On the way back to the Dancing Hut, we talked to the children about what Anastasia could remember. Her family had been the rulers of this country—which made her and Alexei the equivalent of a prince and princess, although they seemed to use different terms here for their nobility. But there had been a rebellion, and people had come and killed her family. She was pretty sure a servant had rescued her.

Nestian floated the idea that Rasputin had kept the children to keep them safe. I shot that down immediately. I might not remember the man, but I knew enough from what I’d seen of him—and of the Grim Rider—to put two and two together to know that he wasn’t that sort of person. No kindness lurked hidden in his heart. If he’d brought them here at all, he’d done it for his own gain.

Finally, we arrived back to the Dancing Hut. The Hut quick hopping about for the first time since we’d arrived to the prison camp, and walked over to greet us.

Not us—it walked over to greet Anastasia. It *bowed* to the young woman, and suddenly Baba Yaga’s voice rang out from the Hut. The ancient woman’s voice called the young girl granddaughter, and told her to claim her birthright.

Not for the first time, I wonder just what we’ve stumbled into.

My Violet run is (theoretically) a Surprise Trade Nuzlocke and we just had a crippling "death". Vaespar misjudged type matchups during the Flying Titan and it cost him Stormbolt the Pikachu 

Palatine Eloise sat on the lip of her rhino’s cupola, letting the hot air blow through her sweaty hair. Left and right were withered and barren fields as her rhino led a cargo-8 to its destination. As ever, Eloise was charged with collecting tithes from within the Order of the Glass Lily’s sphere of influence, a sphere that had been shrinking little by little every year, as more and more sisters were lost to battle with the green skins, thechno-barbarians, or heretics.  Even today, Eloise only had the drivers of the Rhino and cargo-8 and a squad of five battle sisters, where once upon a time the cargo-8 would have its own cupola gunners, and Eloise would have squashed a full 10 sister squad into the back of her rhino. Given the heat, maybe it was better to have only five back there. This summer was hotter than any that Eliose could remember in her thirty years, leading to a draught that the chroniclers in Hive Primus claim hasn’t been seen for a century. That was probably why the outlying communities were behind on their tithes. Either that or they were all killed. Regular patrols rarely go out this far.

As the convoy, if it was even worthy of such a name, approached the first village, Eloise put her helmet back on and activated the magnifiers. There were five people waiting at the entrance to the village, armed with an assortment lasrifles and autoguns, and a dozen others who thought they were doing a decent job at hiding, but weren’t. The villagers were being cautious. Or lay a very clever trap. Were the ‘hidden’ villagers bait to lure the interlopers into a false sense of security? Eliose didn’t think it likely, but wouldn’t rule it out. Better safe than sorry. Others of her kin may have been eager to greet the Emperor, but Eliose was of the opinion that she might as well put that off as long as possible. To continue his work as long as possible, of course, not out of any fear of death or other cowardice. Of course.

Eloise slipped down into the raised gunners seat and preformed a precombat check on the stormbolter, muttering a canticle endurance to the weapon. It was maintained as well as the Order could manage, but, as all things on Desolus, it was getting poorer and poorer. “All hands, be ready for combat,” she ordered into her helmet vox, “but only fire when fired upon. I don’t want any itchy trigger fingers.”

As the convoy came closer, a panic seemed to break out among the villagers. The short woman at the centre of the five not trying to conceal themselves put her laspistol into a deep pocket and began pointing frantically. The others snapped sloppily into motion. Of course. The convoy was trailing a cloud of dust a kilometre long, there was no way for the villagers to know it was the Order of the Glass Lily visiting, and not a band of bandits. Or it’s another feint. Too many dead sisters. Don’t let your guard down, Eloise told herself. Those trying to hide themselves had gathered into some semblance of an honour guard for the short woman. It looked like a couple of them had some form of training.

The village, like many in the region, was made up of a few houses around a town hall, granary, and chapel. It acted as a hub for other farmers in the area to store their produce and come together. This one seemed particularly run down. Traces of a battle were evident, but they were old. A crater here full of dust and weeds, a half-collapsed building covered and bullet holes and las marks. Rudimentary barricades around the village the likely hadn’t seen maintenance in years.

The rhino came to a stop fifteen meters from the villagers, the battle sister disembarked moving away from the rhino in case there were hidden anti-armour weapons somewhere. Just as Eloise had drilled them. A pair of bolters and flamers going to one side, and the storm bolter and a bolter going to the other, so that they could overlap their fields of fire.

The short woman approached, and bowed down on one knee, the laspistol nearly falling out of its pocket before she hastily stuffed it back in there. “Sisters, it is an h-honour.” She was nervous. She wouldn’t look at Eloise, her eyes kept darting everywhere but upon her. Was she up to something?

“I am Palatine Eloise,” Eloise pronounced, “And you are…?”

“I-I am the chief of this village, Festa Mallion. If it would p-please you, w-would you rest in out village? W-we haven’t much, but we can offer tea, and a cool place to rest.”

Would the tea be poisoned? “Stand,” Eloise ordered, and Festa Mallion did so. Eloise lifted her visor. “Look at my eyes.” It too Festa Mallion several tries, but finally she managed to lock eyes with Eloise. Eloise couldn’t stop her contempt showing on her face. I was worried about this cowardly welp? Maybe that’s what they want me to think. Maybe they want me to lower my guard. “We are not here for refreshments, Festa Mallion, we are here to collect your tithe. You are late in paying. Food was the agreed upon tithe for this village, so get your militia to put down those weapons and begin loading up the cargo-8.”

Festa Mallion stiffened. “S-s-sister, please, I beg of you, we have barely enough food for ourselves! If you take any we shall surely starve!” There was desperation in her voice.

“If you hold true to your faith and pray, surely the Emperor will deliver you,” Eloise stated matter-of-factly.

Festa Mallion’s face twisted and she snarled, “Faith and prayers will not fill our children’s stomachs!”

“How dare you!” the sister with the flamer snapped, and raised her weapon. A hot head to match her weapon. Its machine spirit would be pleased with her.

“Hold!” Eloise barked, and then clambered out of the rhino and landed in the dust in front of Festa Mallion, hand on her holstered bolt pistol. Festa Mallion barley reached her chest. “We are the Emperor’s Will. You understand the punishment for refusing us?”

“You will kill us either way. You are no better than bandits-”

The back of Eloise’s power armoured gauntlet met the side of Festa Mallion’s head, knocking her to the ground. The militia stood there, terrified. “We offer you the grace of the Emperor’s protection from the vile xenos and filthy heretics, and this is how you choose to reward us?” Eloise picked Festa Mallion up off the ground by the front of her shirt and hauled her up, her feet dangling so that they were at eye level. One eye was already beginning to swell, her cheek was split and bleeding. “Do you have any idea how many of my sisters have seen fall to protect the likes of you? How many friends who were sent to meet the Emperor early all to keep you and your kin safe?!”

“What safety?!” Festa Mallion snapped, “neither you, or the Cult, or the Guard have been seen in these parts for years! You have abandoned us, and now you condemn us for the fault of the weather?!” Festa Mallion spread her arms theatrically, “Look around! Our crops lie fallow! Yet even the bandits knew to leave us with enough for a few of us to survive, so that they may plunder us again next season! You are worse than the bandits!”

Eloise was crimson with rage, her fists clenched so tight that one tore Festa Mallion’s shirt, and she dropped her. There was no longer any fear in her expression, only contempt. Eloise’s looked up, eyeing the assembled militia, or at least those who had yet to flee. She hadn’t noticed their leaving. There was a child, peeking around the corner of a building. Only now did she realise how gaunt the militia had been, because this child was fell fed. Or at least better fed. She looked down at Festa Mallion again, and really saw her this time. Skin leathery from working the fields, but hanging loose with age. She was better fed than the militia, but not but much. Not as much as the child. They were starving themselves to feed the children.

“How many girls are here?” Eloise asked, softening her tone. She had been stupid. Paranoid. There were actionable solutions to some of her problems. Curse it all! Festa Mallion was right, they were no better than bandits. That had to change.

Festa Mallion spat blood into the ground. There was a tooth in it. She glared up at Eloise, and then reluctantly answered, “Twenty three.”

Eloise crouched down to once more be at eye level with Festa Mallion. “I have a proposition. Instead of food, I will take ten girls. That should also ease the burden on your granary.” The battle sisters would have to sit in the back of the cargo-8. It would be uncomfortable but there was no way she was going to put the children in there, and there were only ten seats in the rhino.

Festa Mallion blinked in surprise. “You want… our children?”

“Just the girls,” Eloise corrected. “The reason our patrols rarely come here anymore is because there are too few of us. We have been remis in our duty, yet expect you to continue yours.” She shook her head, and then took off her helmet. “I am sorry. Let us meet in your hall, I’m sure it is cooler in there.” She looked over her shoulder. The other battle sisters had not relaxed. “Safeties on, all of you!” she ordered. “And Carolie, join me in the hall with the medicae kit.”

There was a moment’s pause before the other sisters complied.

Eloise put on her best, friendliest smile for Festa Mallion and helped her up to her feet, “Sister Caroline isn’t exactly a Hospitalar, but she knows her way around a bandage and alcohol wipe.”

She had meant it to be a disarming statement, but seemed to have the opposite effect.

Inside the village hall, as Festa Mallion had her wounds treated, Eloise listened to the troubles of the village, and in turn, promised to do her best to keep the girls she was taking from active combat roles in the future, if possible. There were battle sisters who had been forced into other roles by necessity, they would appreciate a return to their original roles, in due time. She also promised to seek out the Abbess and organise more patrols in the region, however in her mind she knew that it would likely entail asking the Cult of Ishtar for aid. They were not bad people, all Emperor worshippers, but in a somewhat twisted way like the Mechanichus. There were other villages to visit, but Eloise suspected that they would be in similar situations to this one, and she simply didn’t have the available transport capacity to safely take that many girls back in one trip. It would take time, but she would get to the other villages. The Order of the Glass Lily would not be saved by acting like they were the Barons of a bandit fief. It had to change, or they would perish. Simple as that. Maybe we can even plant out own crops! Ha!” Eloise joked on the ride back, entirely unaware of how this thought would sit at the back of her mind, and how today’s actions, in six months time, would lead to a bloody civil war within the Order of the Glass lily.

113, M42. Agri-World of Teksin

Captain Kohlious Heka'tenn stood with Khasitoi, Tactician of the Stormbolt Spire, of the Shrikes Chapter.

"And you're sure this will be a point of attack for our fallen bretheren?" Kohlious asked.

"Indeed. Data showed the Heretics attempting to interfere with the signals from this location. They were stalled. They will return, in force."

Members of the two chapters stood throughout the fields, keeping their eyes peeled outward. The fields gently rolled in the wind, in verdant waves of vegetation.

Then, the drop pods hit to the south. Crimson-clad heretic astartes charged out, their blades already stained in a previous day's massacre. With wild abandon and wilder cries, they trampled the fields as they made their way across.

The feet of the loyalists trampled crops just the same as the traitors, as their power-armoured feet stamped their way to meet their bretheren in glorious combat. Bolters and flamers raised, the loyalists were met with a rain of bolter and plasma fire from their foes.

Then from the North, a surprise assault - blasts of gauss weaponry at the marine's backends, as a mechanized force of xenos walked in lock-step towards the communication towers.

Kohlious and Khasitoi called upon their terminator elites to handle the necron threat, with Kohlious leading their charge. Khasitoi took the remaining forces, including his magnificent machines of a dreadnought and a vindicator tank, against the threat of the World Eaters. Apothecary Jonnix Ionn of the Forges joined Khasitoi in the south, with his bladesmen bodyguards keeping a close eye on his back.

The vindicator blasted a solid chunk into the heretic's rhino transport, as the Shrikes' dreadnought sent blasts of macro-plasma fire into the opposing astartes' forces. The Forges' soldiers blasted gouts of flaming promethium across the fields towards the World Eaters, who responded with nothing but a lust for blood that disregarded their power armour being cooked.

A few of the traitorous astartes fell from the fire, but most rushed through, chainswords and chainaxes ripping through the ceramite and into the bodies of the frontline of the Forges, who met their fallen counterparts with drawn knives and chainswords.

One of the heretics stood a head above the rest, carrying the heaviest chainaxe and being draped in the skulls of his many kills.

Kadatar of Ionn's guards stepped in, relic shield blocking a chainsword as his blade drove into the opening in another heretic's armour.

An axe strike knocked his shield aside, and another strike in surprisingly little time drove itself into Kadatar's shoulder, as the leader of the warriors drove Kadatar to fall.

With shocking alacrity, his axe came ripping through the ceramite of another of Ionn's guards, into the Shrikes' dreadnought, then into the apothecary himself. One by one they fell, their injured bodies or constructs crumpling into the soft soil of the agri-world.

But just as one well-placed, powerful strike could knock a loyalist down, the last of Ionn's bodyguards, Natar, was able to fire one expert round of bolt pistol fire into a weak point on the heretic's armour and deal enough damage to force him to retreat.

Standing amidst the wreckage, the once-pristine fields of Teskin were trampled, stained with blood, and covered in burning rubble. Natar stepped to the side of his charge, Apothecary Ionn. He knelt, and could feel the tears stream down his eyes. He had failed in his duty, and his protectorate had been injured. Much to his grace, though, Ionn released a grunt of pain, and he knew his charge had at least not yet left for the eternal fight by the Divine Dragon's side.

Khasitoi similarly knelt over his fallen dreadnought warrior. The damage to the walker was worse than it should've been, and the broken adamantine plate upon its knee would be near impossible to repair or replace. A tear came to his face and a drip of oil from his servo-arm.

But despite the damages, the battle was won. The astartes had defended the communication towers from whatever machinations the heretics and aliens had intended. The traitorous astartes and the xenos forces that remained retreated