In the busy void above Scintilla, capital of the Calixis Sector, orbits a vessel older than the noble line that now claims it — the ancient light cruiser Ignis Aeternus. Once the blazing spearhead of House Von Ulm’s void armada, the Aeternus now rests in permanent geostationary orbit, a slumbering giant turned diplomatic sanctum, noble seat, and symbol of power.
Retired from active duty centuries ago, the Ignis Aeternus is no mere relic. It is the trophy-ship and legacy of the Von Ulm dynasty — a vessel that fought in the Hazeroth Incursions under command of dynasty founder Sepedeus Von Ulm, broke xenos fleets in the Battle of Argento Reach, and bore the legendary Captain Eleanora Von Ulm to a dozen victories. Today, it houses a diplomatic court, Administratum liaison vault, and even Imperial quarters for roving envoys from Terra.
Once a year, on Founding Night, the Aeternus breaks its silence. With banners unfurled and macro-voxes broadcasting the dynasty’s anthem, performed by titans of Haddrak, across the upper hive levels, the cruiser rises into low orbit, passing visibly through Scintilla’s dusk sky. Its ancient macro-cannons are loaded with pyrotechnic shells, delivering a solemn and fiery ceremonial barrage to the surface of the close moon Sothus, in a ritual of past and current glory.
The Ignis Aeternus is a place of dormant power — a ship of legends, secrets, and unfathomed past. It is a gilded cage, full of politics, ghosts, and the weight of the Imperium thus unable to move forward while carrying the past.
As an officer of the vessel, your story begins within its metal hulk— serving Von Ulm dynasty on its decorated bridge.
Day of Founding
The Day of Founding approaches aboard the Ignis Aeternus, the venerable legacy ship of the Von Ulm dynasty. This ancient vessel, now serving as a ceremonial and administrative center in orbit around Scintilla, is abuzz with activity.
New crew members are arriving to assume their posts on the bridge, bringing fresh competition and careful anticipation. Seasoned officers are diligently preparing for the annual budget allocations, a process that often involves salvos of negotiations and strategic maneuvering. Simultaneously, preparations are underway for the annual traditional bombardment of the moon, Sothus, a ritual that portraits the dynasty’s enduring legacy.
In the coming day, the ship will be a hive of activity as crew and officers alike engage in their respective ceremonial duties, while each is striving to secure their positions and resources in the ever-competitive environment of the Imperium.
Yearly speech of Senechalc Polonius De Worm
Polonius ascends the data-dais, clutching a velvet-bound ledger. Ships vox system chime: a measured four-tone cadence. All shipboard systems halt for seventeen seconds of silence before relaying the Seneschal’s speech.
“Crew of Ignis Aeternus—from the least to the greatest, from vault scribes to lattice crawl watchers—I acknowledge your service on this Day of Founding.”
Let this Founding Day mark, as it has for innumerable cycles, the pivot between the memory of what we have achieved and the preparation for what we must yet endure. Today, I give formal recognition to all living souls aboard our mighty vessel. An appreciation that extends beyond rank or title, for this ship functions not by arms or arsenals alone, but by the combined labor of her myriad roles:
Menial Labor Clades (approx.50%)—the unseen backbone of our ship. You who toil in duct maintenance, sanitation, waste handling, ballast shifting, and cargo hauls: your hands bear our history and your sweat births our future.
Astra Militarum & Reserves (approx.25%)—those who stand ready to enforce, suppress, and shield. Whether station-bound or primed for combat, your vigilance ensures the ship’s safety beyond mere paperwork.
Ecclesiarchy Functionaries (approx.10%)—Confessors, liturgists, devotional aides, and chapel attendants. You hold our souls in the light, even when the void beckons our despair.
Technical & Maintenance Architects (c.5%)—elevator custodians, hull integrity checkers, system monitors, and grain of maintenance. Your work remains invisible until the corridors fall silent in darkness.
Logistics & Bureaucracy (c.5%)—Administratum scribes, data clerks, ration overseers, and resource allocators. I count myself among you, and your relentless cataloguing fuels all our operations.
And finally—my thanks and deepest respect to you, the commanders and officers who guide this vessel with wisdom and severity. Commanding officers, who uphold the unyielding chain of command. Navigators, who walk the line between light and shadow. The Tech-Priests, who keep this ancient frame singing in the name of the Omnissiah. Ship-masters of arms, who maintain discipline across every deck. Security officers and armsmen, who guard the ship from within and without. Each of you is a bolt in the machine that holds this vast engine together. Without you—even I, who carry the ship’s very heartbeat—could not maintain its lifeblood. Now we shall welcome those newly assigned aboard—two thousand three hundred and sixty-three in total—you arrive to a sanctum of steel and fire. Among you are: Bridge Officers Junior Logisticians Enginarium Adepts Novitiate Ministorum Faithkeepers Conscripts from the penal press Junior archivists Etc, etc You enter a vessel that remembers every step walked within her. Tread lightly. To those departing: whether by reassignment, retirement, honorable discharge, or expiration — we mark your ledger closed. The archives do not forget. And now for Extended Operational Summary for the past cycle, date 821.M41 With 50,321 souls aboard and all compartments active, the operational scope of this vessel remains both sacred and staggering.
Per custom, I now recount the materials, expenditures, and systemic flows of this past cycle:
- Consumables and Supplies:
- Prometheum expended: 1,447,611.3 liters, inclusive of ceremonial fuel usage during victory processions.
- Corpse-starch consumed: 38,917,448 ration units. 0.6% contamination rate detected and purged.
- Recaff beans imported and consumed: 74 tons
- Water recycled and reused: 91,321,440 liters
- Alcoholic tinctures requisitioned (duty-free + illicit): 12,004 bottles Amasec for officer distribution: 2,191 bottles (including 147 “mysteriously misallocated”)
- Incense bricks burned (Shrine and Bureaucratic): 57,020 units
- Lho-sticks consumed: 602,441. Sanctioned use: 51%, Illicit: 49%
- Soap bars issued (standard, scented, ablutional): 138,230 units
- Sanitary pulp (servitor hygiene maintenance): 211 metric tons Etc, etc
- Materials, Ammunition, and Trade Goods:
- Ordinatus-macro shell casings loaded (training + ceremonial): 2,540 units
- Repair-grade adamantium slabs consumed: 44.5 tons
- Plasteel rivets used in hull maintenance: 208,772
- Sanctioned Xeno-tech relics acquired (undisclosed origin): 7 units
- Data-slate replacements (deck-to-deck loss rate: 13%): 3,114 units
- Servo-motor cores replaced across Enginarium: 1,388 units
- Vornic silk bolts: 870 units (origin: Achernar Loomholdings)
- Medicinal bio-packs: 15,700 units (Imperial Pharma-registry compliant)
- Obscura (seized and re-routed under Administratum order): 211 vials
- Machine-anointed copper wiring (from Ryza forge contracts): 36,000 yards
- Frozen grox meat (trade surplus from Uforic Halcyon Compact): 94 tons
- Fresh strawberries from the Agri-world Spectoris: 30 units Etc, etc
- Bureaucratic and Social Metrics:
- Formal complaints lodged: 18,441 Resolved: 4,982 Punitive resolutions: 5,103 Rejected as ‘unbecoming’: 6,601 Still under archival review: 1,755
- Orisons conducted in shrines: 212,114, including 15,000 private devotions.
- Sacrificial rites to the Machine Spirit (accepted by Omnissiah): 1,418 documented instances
- Cases of minor heresy prevented or corrected: 72 Actual purgations required: 9
- Number of structural compromises (bulkhead, deck stress, vent collapse): 66 Ventilation duct altercations (“rat-fights”) resolved by internal tribunal: 54 Etc, etc
As the Aeternus rises above Scintilla once more and her glorious hull glides through the dusk like a sword held aloft by tradition itself, I ask that you remember: It is not firepower that sustains us. It is not faith alone that shields us. It is precision. And it is vigilance. You are seen. You are counted. You are ledgered. To those worthy of prosperity: may the coming year reward your diligence. To those not yet worthy: there is time. But not much. And finally, as by tradition, the Lord Captain would greet and recite the names and designations of the new crew members. In order of classification, departmental registry, and age. With full ancestral notation where available. Yet as many of you know, our Lord-Captain is not present aboard the Ignis Aeternus this cycle—engaged as they are in matters of utmost consequence to the dynasty. In their absence, and with their full sanction, the burden and privilege of this address has fallen upon me. And I will speak not in their voice, but in the voice of this ship, which speaks through the data-slate, the ration docket, the fuel pump, and the beating heart of duty.
Chapter: 1
Episode 1: “The Founding Day” (25.8.2025)
- Ignis Aeternus (and Polonius De Vorm) receives a contingent of replacement crew.
- The traditional Founding Day bombardment flight to the moon. Poor accuracy reveals a “conspiracy” involving the misuse of promethium.
- The officers haggle over how to spend the surplus budget. Polonius, through bribery, threats, and blackmail, succeeds in winning a majority for his own proposal — a trade agreement for strawberries for Von Ulm dynasty.
Episode 2: “The New Captain” (1.9.2025)
- Wilfried Hermansson af Thurnskarn, commander of the Von Ulm dynasty’s Honor Guard, arrives aboard the vessel. Late. (However, since no member of the Von Ulm family is present, the seneschal makes no great issue of it.)
- Shortly thereafter, a messenger arrives and declares himself to be Victor von Ulm, heir of the dynasty and the new captain of the Ignis Aeternus. This announcement leaves the officers and the seneschal nearly speechless.
- Official seals and proper gene-marks, however, remove any doubts from the officers’ minds.
- The captain immediately announces that the ship must depart at once, though he does not explain the reason.
- The vessel lacks a Navigator, so Polonius and WHaT depart to the planet’s surface to acquire one.
- The only Navigator immediately available is about to be delivered into Inquisition custody—but WHaT and a detachment of the Honor Guard, acting under Polonius’s orders, resolve the matter.
- The Navigator’s name is Ophelia Mercator.
- Afterwards, the seneschal organizes a program by which the new captain is introduced to the ship and its crew.
- During the tour, Amanus Medare insults WHaT, who challenges him to a duel. The captain declares the duel shall take place the following morning, to first blood.
- The evening concludes with a banquet, during which WHaT is offered a poisoned drink, and the seneschal delivers an inspiring, philosophical speech to the new captain.
Speech of Seneschal Polonius De Vorm to the new Lord-Captain, upon the formal sealing of command as witnessed and written down by Senior Steward Malachias Kepp
“My Lord-Captain,
Today, the ledger is clean. No blot of error, no ink of compromise. A rare thing, this beginning.
You are, in a sense, a newborn. Do not take that as insult—it is the highest state of potential. The child knows nothing of command, yet none doubt its authority when it cries. So too, a captain must be heard before they are understood.
The ship will test you, as breath tests lungs long untried. It will compress you—like gravity on bone—and demand that you become the shape your title implies. And in time you shall.
But for now, you are like the first breath drawn in recycled air: uncertain, thin, but necessary. And from that breath—every verdict, every charted course, every life lost or preserved—will follow.
Do not be too eager to sound like your predecessors. Dead men echo well, but rarely lead the living. Instead, listen. To the Land’s tiles beneath your feet. To the sudden change of air pressure in the upper decks. To the complaints that never reach your ears. To what is omitted from reports.
The child becomes the heir not by birthright, but by endurance. By learning to walk on decks that tilt without warning. By knowing when to speak—and when silence speaks louder.
You are not the first. You will not be the last. But today, this command is yours. And like all living things, it begins with breath. So take it, my lord.
And hold it well.”
Episode 3: “Duel on the Bridge” (8.9.2025)
After the banquet and the restless, intrigue-filled night that followed, dawn on the command bridge brings the day of the duel.
Amanus Medare — who had fruitlessly approached several officers with treachery, yet had successfully armed himself with combat drugs — now faces af Thurnskarn, who has prepared for the trial with the ancestral rites of his line.
The contest of honor, overseen by the Captain and witnessed by the officers, descends at once into a maelstrom of brutal violence as af Thurnskarn drives his heirloom bone-dagger deep into Medare’s flank with the opening strike — only to discover that, under the effects of his chemical enhancers, Medare refuses to yield as the rules demand, and instead fights on to the bitter end, losing not only his honor but also his second leg.
The Captain declares af Thurnskarn the victor of the duel, and Medare — due to his health and dishonorable conduct — unfit for his post. Seneschal Polonius De Vorm, expressing moderate satisfaction, hopes that the outcome will calm the situation on the bridge and serve as a necessary curb upon Medare’s ego and ambition henceforth.
In the wake of the rumors that spread about the duel, a saying began to circulate aboard the ship in High Gothic: “Serum est flere post bracas cacatas”.
After bloody but necessary procedures, the Captain orders the pilot, Andechs Rosenkrantz, to set course for the system’s Mandeville Point. Rosenkrantz successfully executes the challenging flight maneuver, exploiting the gravity well of a nearby gas giant, and guides the Ignis Aeternus onto the path laid down by the Emperor and by Destiny itself.
Vala
Captain von Ulm and the Guard Commander af Thurnskarn, under the guidance of Orion B’salva — the ship’s oath-bound and Emperor-conditioned psychic channeler — acquaint themselves with the sensorium of the Ignis Aeternus, a central oasis of inner peace and meditative strength supervised by Head Mistress Vala. At the same time, B’salva conducts the annual inspection of the resonance-auras of the ship and the harvesting of the energy that may be drawn from them.
Orion B’salva meets Malchior of Sthel and witnesses the Grand Organ and the choir of cherubim aerie.
Upon returning to the bridge, the Captain appoints Andechs Rosenkrantz as the vessel’s pilot, in the place of the dismissed Amanus Medare, and consults with High Confessor-Abbot Malchior of Sthelin and the ship’s Navigator, Ophelia Mercator, regarding the nature of the rites that must precede the next stage of their journey: the passage into the Immaterium.
Thus, all was made ready for the departure. The destination of the coming warp translation waited for the navigators guidance and the lord-captains approval.
Episode 4: “Executive Council and the Rat Guards” (13.10.2025)
Seneschal Polonius De Vorm invited the Lord-Captain to a private dinner, during which he proposed the establishment of a formal executive council. Its purpose would be to centralize strategic decision-making and prepare the foundation for future campaigns within the Koronus Expanse. The Lord-Captain approved the proposal.
The executive council convened for the first time in Polonius’s private chambers. During the meeting it was decided that their next destination would be the feral jungle world of Endrite, whose savage population was seen as a potential source of new recruits.
The plans included, among other things:
- Contests and trials of strength among the natives, by which the most capable would be selected for recruitment.
- A speech by Captain af Thurnskarn, intended to inspire the locals to join the service of the Imperium.
Before departure, Navigator Ophelia Mercator requested a private audience with the Lord-Captain. What transpired behind closed doors was never officially recorded, but afterwards Ophelia announced that she had achieved new insights through House Mercator’s rituals into predicting warp routes. The Lord-Captain’s journal, however, makes a vague reference to a “first time” and to cries of “hurt me.”
Ophelia Mercator opens her warp eye:
I focus — and I open the Eye.
The walls of my chamber breathe outwards.
Light stretches, colors melt, sounds turn to taste — iron and salt fill my mouth. The void around the ship folds in on itself, and thought becomes a bubbling fountain. The hull hums beneath me, fear and prayer thrumming through the deck plates. Then all of it dissolves — and I see.
The Beyond opens.
The Immaterium. It is the Sea of Souls with no shore.
My mind insists on calling it water, though no such element could exist here. It moves in slow motion, luminous and heavy — a sea made of memory and madness. Our vessel floats inside it like a fragile bubble of faith and steel.
Beneath us the surface of reality shimmers — a thin silver skin trembling under unseen winds. Through it I glimpse the pale lights of the stars, each one a flicker beneath the waves, distorted by the vortex of unreality; the Materium, flattened and fragile under enormous pressure.
Above me the water deepens.
Far off, shapes drift — vast and silent. They move like beings older than thought — shadowed limbs, cathedral-sized spines, faceless visages. As they drift around me, the pressure of their gaze makes my heart quake.
Currents vibrate through the sea.
They caress the hull and brush my mind — surges made of feeling. Anger, devotion, despair, joy — all entwined, flowing like invisible waves. I let them pass through me; resistance would drown me.
The ship glides slowly on the currents, the Gellar field shimmering around it like oil. Soul-lights drift nearby — tiny points of color, shards of lives, memories and dying thoughts. They tumble in eddies, collide and cling to the hull.
Each wave whispers — part prayers, part screams — I can no longer tell which strike at the waves and which at me.
A whirl draws upward; the silver skin of reality quivers, blackness boils above it and something vast moves in its depths. Then the Sea of Souls sings — a beautiful and terrible promise of freedom and perdition that wraps itself around my soul and beckons me to dive.
Beneath that song, the distant beacon of the Astronomicon stutters and wavers through the Warp — a faltering, pulsing light that bleeds like a heartbeat across the immaterium. Its flicker throws sickly filaments of pale illumination into the churning sea, lending a trembling, lighthouse-like cadence to the waves and tugging at the shape of my thoughts as if some far, aching will were blinking to keep me from getting lost.“
During the warp voyage, a critical fault was detected in the ship’s cooling system. Mistress of Shields Kellee Lamartina successfully redirected the surge of cooling iquid from the ship’s dorsal weapon reservoir, as weapon platform was not yet operational. This prevented ship component damage, and the vessel continued on its way.
Later in the journey,Void Channeller B’salva began investigating reports of restless and erratic crew behavior. At first, warp contamination was suspected, but B’salva’s meticulous inquiry uncovered a horrifying conspiracy.
A member of the crew had been poisoning others — yet the true purpose of the poisonings soon emerged: helmeted rats had been inserted within the victims’ stomachs. This ghastly act spread panic among both the crew and the officers.
Using ship schematics, surveillance feeds, and manpower, a manhunt was launched. The suspect was finally traced to a cargo container in the freight bay.
During the pursuit, Captain af Thurnskarn had been ambushed and captured in the cargo deck’s sanitation area. He was found bound inside the container just as the
perpetrator was preparing to use a grotesque “pneumatic rat-launcher” on a next victim. A short but fierce firefight followed and the lord-captain heroically slew mid-flight the rats aimed at his retinue.
The culprit was captured alive and placed under special containment and constant surveillance.
Episode 5: “Arriving to Endrite” — 27.10.2025
Ignis Aeternus translates from the Immaterium into the Endrite Star System.
The system’s sun is a red dwarf, orbited by three planets.
- Seneschal De Vorm becomes overwhelmed by the fear of mutation and must be restrained for a day.
- Orion B’Salva interrogates Janitor Mondosa through psychic means. During the process, Perils of the Warp manifest: a Warp Predator is accidentally summoned through Mondosa’s latent psychic link to the Immaterium.
- Wilfried af Thurnskarn faints from shock upon witnessing the daemon’s manifestation.
- Orion attempts to carry him out of the interrogation cell, but the daemon attacks, ripping off Orion’s left leg.
- Orion loses consciousness as the creature butchers the two remaining guardsmen and escapes into the vessel.
- Wilfried, regaining his senses, plugs the bleeding vein in Orion’s leg stump with his finger, stanching the bleeding until help arrives.
- The crew later tracks the daemon to the Trophy Halls of the ship, where Lord Captain von Ulm personally leads the troops when the Anathema is slain.
After the incident, the crew surveys the Endrite system:
- Planet I — Lifeless rock world
- Planet II — Jungle world: Endrite
- Planet III — Massive gas giant
The Lord Captain orders the vessel to approach Endrite, intending to recruit new crew from among its feral inhabitants.
Wilfried finds military records about Head hunter Brigades of Imperial Guard enlisted from Endrite population.
However, the augury arrays detect no villages or the fabled wreck of the battlecruiser said to lie there.
Scout shuttles under the command of Eyron are deployed and successfully locate the ancient battlecruiser.
Upon receiving the coordinates, the Lord Captain orders his retinue to land on Endrite, while De Vorm remains aboard the ship in command.
The shuttle lands safely upon the wreck’s hull, and the landing party finds a secure path through the derelict vessel’s interior.
When exiting the hull, the retinue witnesses strange paintings and totems left by feral tribes, depicting crude skull effigies and symbols of the Imperium intertwined with tribal motifs.
Beyond the wreck, a thick and unpassable jungle stretches in every direction, its verdant canopy and choked vines sealing the battlecruiser in a prison of living green.
Backflash 1 “An art exhibition at the Imperial Botanical Garden” – Played 17.11.-25
Supplementary Report on the Scintilla Garden Pavilion Incident 000005654334
Filed by: Orion B’Salva, Imperially-Conditioned Psychic Responsibility Officer of the Ignis Aeternus
I have included in the following report everything that transpired, supplemented by my informed assessment wherever the incident involved circumstances that obscure factual clarity or jeopardize mental stability.
My attendance at the grand exhibition of glass artist Glenos Timwelly, held at the Art Pavilion of Scintilla as a representative of the Ignis Aeternus command, must be considered the Emperor’s guidance, for I had neither prior familiarity with nor significant interest in that particular art form. Yet something drew me to this specific social gathering — events that I normally avoid entirely.
The architecture of the Great Art and Garden Pavilion — crystal-glass-tonic structures and its numerous expertly tended miniature ecosystems — made a lasting impression upon me. But the effect was nowhere near as powerful or disturbing as that of the artist’s yet-unrevealed glass sculptures, which were not identifiable by any mind awake to reality. The distinct psychic aura emanating from the sculptures and the pavilion I initially took to be an extraordinary yet still natural consequence of strong creative force and the admiration of the audience. How mistaken I was.
Another Ignis Aeternus officer in attendance, Assistant-Pilot Andechs Rosenkrantz, felt similar sensations. His bold action and initiative later proved crucial in resolving the situation with honor. The Emperor’s guidance once again.
As the ceremony’s official beginning continued to delay and the audience grew restless, we agreed — following R’s suggestion — to move closer to the center of the pavilion, where the artist’s studio was located. It was clearly the source of the intensifying psychic aura. At the same time, the glass surfaces of the crystalline cathedral began to take on a hazy violet hue and shimmer — a phenomenon most guests assumed to be part of the exhibition’s opening spectacle.
Our cautious curiosity turned into urgent determination when a scream echoed from the crowd — a viewer collapsing in sheer terror. The violet hue had spread from windows to every glass surface — from drinking glasses to ocular lenses. It was as though the entire pavilion had plunged deep into a sea of souls, drawing the attention of the horrors lurking within. The more psychically attuned among the guests were already noticing. There was no time to lose.
Led by R, accompanied by two security personnel he had hastily recruited, we advanced through the garden area designed to replicate a mountainous landscape — until our path was blocked by an unbelievable threat. The sculptures had begun to move and attacked with forge-heated, razor-sharp protrusions. We narrowly avoided fatal wounds, suffering only psychic harm as we pushed through toward the next biome. The accompanying guards were not as fortunate — they were shredded and left behind on the mountain path.
Upon entering the hot and arid desert arboretum, we immediately realized that progress was impossible — three sculptures far larger than those before now blocked our path. Worse still, these reshaping nightmares did not respect the glass panels dividing the biomes. They slid through the blurred violet walls without breaking them, as if the material were mere air.
We retreated to the highest rock formation of the mountain biome seeking safety and a solution. From the summit, Rosenkrantz spotted what we had previously failed to locate — a watering system valve with a hose. With great speed he rushed toward it while I drew the constructs’ attention onto myself. The reckless plan succeeded: Rosenkrantz opened the pressure seal and unleashed a jet of freezing water upon the approaching sculptures. The result surpassed all expectations — the figures froze, cracked, and shattered!
Having survived this immediate danger, we continued toward the pavilion’s core, where the psychic aura was still intensifying and threatened to tear the barrier of the immaterium permanently. The sight that greeted us inside the central atrium surpassed all previous horrors: from the remnants of the artist’s workshop rose glowing strands of molten glass, bulging bubbles and pulsating spirals — dancing in jagged symmetry. The artist himself writhed ecstatically within this kaleidoscopic creation frenzy.
Recovering from our shock, we quickly understood: the only way to regain control was to neutralize the artist by any means necessary.
Under a psychic shadow-cloak I conjured as cover, and half-submerged in the shallow ornamental pool separating us from the target, we managed to approach unseen for the crucial final stage of our plan. Confirming that the artist’s consciousness was still capable of human communication, I approached him openly — armed only with lavish praise and a hail of flattery. Meanwhile, Rosenkrantz would flank unnoticed and strike when my deception inevitably failed.
The artist, without a trace of suspicion, received the compliments with pride and turned to showcase his undeniably magnificent creation, proclaiming it the ultimate culmination of his life’s work.
Taking advantage of his rapture, I penetrated his fragmented mind — not to find how but why this was possible, and how to undo it. No means of reversal was found, but the reason flooded me with crystalline clarity: a compulsion — a need to create something so fundamental and unique that it would satisfy his torment and share his suffering. Experiments with forbidden materials rumored to bind psychic force into glass… sacrifices made to obtain such substance… and how it had enabled his grandest, greatest, and final exhibition…
Unexpectedly — just as Rosenkrantz prepared to strike — he tore himself from my grip and hurled his body into the glowing heart of his largest sculpture, screaming:
“Now it must be fed!”
Our shock turned to horror when we realized his death had only enhanced the sculpture’s potency. No sign of diminishing — rather the opposite. Only water had been effective thus far, and the shallow ornamental pool was now our only source. We required manpower and equipment to divert its water to the sculpture’s foundations. We set out immediately to gather support, invoking Rosenkrantz’s officer authority.
A small assault group was formed — pavilion security and a land-sculpting servitor among them — armed with shovels and tools. Yet terror overcame duty when they beheld the creation, and they fled.
At that very moment, the apparition, having fully absorbed its creator, turned toward its next target — the audience. It stretched itself across the atrium, breaching the glass partitions. The cultural elite of Scintilla fled in a single mass of screaming panic — astonishingly without trampling one another — out through the main entrance, desperate not to be devoured by the towering monstrosity.
Outside, contrary to my fears, they were met not by daemons of the warp but by rare, bright Scintillan sunlight. The horrors seen through violet haze had been illusions cast into their minds — a vile trick to delay escape until it was too late.
Our relief was short-lived. With the audience gone, the installation turned its hunger toward us.
Our reinforcements dispersed, we were just receiving the pressure hose and the servitor-cut trench had progressed barely one meter when the colossal glass mass began advancing. We fought in waist-deep water to attach the hose to the submerged pressure valve — dodging glowing tendrils — but could not open it.
In the final moment, Rosenkrantz resolved the situation by firing his service weapon directly into the valve, blasting it open. A towering geyser erupted, drenching the pavilion in frigid mist as the water level surged toward the glasswork remains. Soon the molten sculpture hardened, cracked, and collapsed into countless fragments.
As the last unnatural hues faded and clear sunlight fractured through tens of thousands of droplets suspended in the air, we departed through the reception hall. Rosenkrantz retrieved a single shard as a souvenir of the exhibition.
Episode 6: “Exploiting Endrite” 24.11.-25
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Ignis Aeternus WH 40K campaign notes 