Campaign 'The Auctorian Onslaught' Prologue Short Story

Hey guys, this may interest some of you people, if not then please ignore.

I am currently setting up a campaign for me and some friends at my FLGS and because i am a fluff freak, it will be very story focused. Because of this, i have set up an entire opening plot to the campaign to explain why the players different armies have decided to wage war upon each other.

My general theory is that i have the campaign story as a kind of living document. Every time a game is played, it is added to the document as a piece of evidence in an Inquisitors case file. This being the case, i am making a few pieces of evidence to get the ball rolling for the players, to set the seen for the first round of games for example.

Now this short story is the first piece of evidence and it can be thought of as a prologue, setting up everything.
Would you fine fluff masters like to give it a read and give comments? I'm looking for some input on the writing and basically how much it sets you up for wanting to know more?

If people are very interested i can provide the entire *Inquisitors Document* i have created, but for now i will simply present you with this story. Cheers guys in advance!


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Subject: Heretic
Evidence 001
Knowledge Source: The Librarian
Knowledge Gathered: Gaius

The siege was quick. The siege was easy. This was to be expected however, this was a simple signalling station on an outlying colony world of the Elusia sector. Only a small garrison of a single guard regiment, it was not expected to put up a fight. Its main role was that of data interpretation and transfer. This station was one of many, and they all communicated with each other on the passing of various ships in and out of the sector. It could be considered a watchtower, but that analogy is too simple to describe it, a map room, would be more apt.
The chaos legionnaires had entered system like a knife entering a body, slicing through the void into drop range of the desolate planet. The regiment in the station were first woken by alarm screams as the main control centre picked up the signature of a massive fleet of warships. 5 minutes later.
They opened fire.
The crust of the planet itself was torn apart as thousands of tons of explosives were dropped onto the station. Through the fullisade of fire, 100 legionnaires dropped through the atmosphere into the warzone.
Herack was a magos in charge of the maintenance of the station, and wasn’t the highest ranking official left alive in the station as far as he knew and he desperately wanted to keep it that way. He had seen many things in the previous hour, men being atomized in seconds, tanks flying apart in the blink of an eye. And Tovos, poor Tovos, ripped apart by that giant man!
He was no warrior; he was a scholar not a soldier. And as any good scholar does, he had hid in the central command chamber of the signalling station. The bullets and explosions had stopped half an hour before, were the invaders defeated? He had decided to stay, exploring would have been suicide.
The sound of footsteps approaching caused Herack to sink even further down behind the cogitator he was hiding behind until there was banging behind the armoured door. It was over 2 foot thick titanium reinforced bulkhead, but he doubted that he was safe. And sure enough, a large tearing noise drowned out his thoughts as the giant armoured warriors cut their way into the room.
The smell, that was the first thing to hit Herack, the taint, the corruption, that which he had only ever been told about in stories.
“Spread out, search for any survivors”
Herack wimpered, it did nothing but speed up the process until he was found by one of the giants. He was grabbed and hung upside down by a massive fist.
“Huh, got one my lord” grunted the warrior. “What shall I do with him?”
A sixth warrior entered the room. This one however was bigger than the rest and smelled worse than any of the others. He domed a large cloak and axe that was bigger than Herack himself was.
“Bring him here” The leader said, his voice spoke with confidence and the hint of power that is unknown to a lowly human. This leader was capable of so many terrible things. Herack understood this to the point that his bowels significantly loosened when he was presented to the huge warrior. “Do you know, little man, that you are the last remaining human alive for over 500 miles in all directions of this site?”
The magos managed somehow to form a sentence.
“Who are you? Aren’t you a space marine? Shouldn’t you be fighting for the emperor? Fighting for us?”
The marines started howling with laughter, a cold chill went down his back as the space marine leader advanced upon him. Herack was back handed and he flew across the room smashing into a cogitator. The pain rushing through his chest was enormous. Had he collapsed a lung?
“Not many people have had the stupidity to talk directly to me little thing, not in a long time. So how about this, I tell you what you want to know, as long as you tell me what I want to know. And then I will kill you.” The space marine captain towered over him has lay on the floor struggling to breath.
“What if I don’t comply?” The warrior took a step forward and pressed onto Herack’s chest. With a crack, he heard his own ribs break.
“The only difference in the order of events is the speed with which I kill you, and do not worry; I have friends here that will all take little effort in destroying you.” The magos tried to reply but simply spat blood down himself. “My name is Karak Kargos, Lord of the Dark God, and I am going to see this entire sector drown in a pool of blood much like you. But to do this, I must first gather the resources to do so. I have contacts, inside on a planet known as Auctoria.”
Herack’s home world. He had previously worked at Bellua before his transfer and knew what was below in the catacombs of the mountains.
“Oh you know the place? Surely a figure of your standing will have heard of the manufacturing ability of the Arno Basin”.
Thank the emperor. They do not know.
“This is how it will work. We need imperial codes so that we can gain access to the systems defences. You will either provide us with these and I will execute you quickly. Or I will hand you to Malvor and find the codes myself.”
A chaos marine stepped forward cackling loudly. His whole body convulsed as he revved his chains axe at the magos. Blood splattered all over the man’s face. Herack decided it wasn’t even a choice, he struggled to lift a hand, but he managed to point a cogitator over in the corner, his own personal. It contained all the information the tyrant would require.
“This cogitator requires a hand scan for authenticated login my lord” said the bionic eyed legionary.
“Malvor” said Kargos menacingly, the marine with the chain axe stepped forward cackling once again as he revved up his weapon. In a moment of agonizing pain, the magos could see his former arm being dragged off across the room towards his cogitator. This was his last memory before he blacked out.
“That was very generous of you.”
Herack woke again to the chaos lord towering over him. It was light now, how long had he been out?
“We will be leaving now, and as a reward for being so helpful. Rather than kill you, we will leave you to bleed out where you sit”
“But you promised to end it!” screamed Herack, the pain all over caused him to vomit mid sentence.
“Oh you poor fool, did you actually expect such trivial mercy?” the chaos lord chuckled. Somehow, having the warlord laugh was so much more threatening than when he spoke normally. “Before I leave I must ask, how many humans live on this planet?”
“Six mi...mi... million” the magos stammered, still trying to recuperate from his body’s shock.
“How unfortunate that they must be exterminated...” Kargos spoke softly, his voice trailing through the otherwise silent room.
“Why... they are no threat to you!”
“No... That much is true. But here is a tip little man. Try genocide someday, it cleanses the soul.” The squad cackled with laugher again as they began to leave the command room. The last one to leave was the legionnaire with the bionic eye. He lingered, before backtracking and walking towards Herack.
“You know more than you let on...” he spoke menacingly. “ I saw into your eyes as Lord Kargos spoke of Auctoria, what do you know?”
Slowly at first, the air around his power armour began to shiver as his body transformed. Whatever this thing was, he was not a space marine, he was not even human. A being made of metal stood before him, clad in the armour of his own skin and a cloak of metal shards that reached up over his shoulders to give him the look of an old hooded man. In his hand, he carried a staff that pulsated with green light.
The living metal figure produced a green needle from under his cloak and inserted it into Herack behind his ear. The pain was excrutiating as nanoscarabs crawled through the man’s neurological system absorbing all of his memories. The magos died there instantly, the body being able to handle no more punishment.
After a minute, the figure extracted the needle back from the corpse and inserted it into a slot in his hand, allowing it to retain all the gathered information. Personality, needs, ambitions, hates, and loves... memories. The unknown being understood them all. Analysing the new information, he came to understand the truth about Auctoria, as far as this dead man ever knew.
The lord transformed back into the guise of the chaos marine.
“How very interesting.”