Retaliation part 3

In which our Mistress gets acquainted with a seriously mopey servant of She Who Thirsts and sees the eldarith language butchered. 


Story: Retaliation part 3
Author: torture-device

There is precious little that I can add to what my dear Lord Vect already mentioned in the last part. I am however glad to see him back in spirits after that last bout. It is always disheartening to see him so desiccated as he was then, utterly drained of essence and looking very old indeed. 

I fancy my last tour in the arena with those beady-eyed Astartes of the Emperor's Children served some ways to reinvigorate him. 

And speaking of which. 

As Lord Vect has remarked upon, one of the main problems with torture-device taking up the reins after WalkingMaelstrom is, apart from his atrocious English, the fact that we have what TVTropes describes as Mood Whiplash. 

We've shifted from the over-the-top violence and anime influences of WalkingMaelstrom's writing (though I am loathe to call it that) to something that bears more semblance to H.P Lovecraft and Frank Herbert. And small wonder, as at least one of those authors are listed as torture-devices influences on his DevianTART frontpage. He also lists an "A. Hitler", for the record. 

The story begins with Torturer being decapitated. Before you rejoice, remember that he went into trance last episode and that this is all happening in dreamland. The first page is quite well-written, and I started off thinking we could leave this series alone for a while. 

I guess that is the reason I am a gladiator and not an Archon. 

Then, he saw it. A humongous pile of rotting human heads, a pyramid half-drowned in the putrid mud. They were still talking, still whispering with severed voice chords, and the Raptor saw how those contracted on the neck stumps. Bluish, bloated, they all merged into a rhythmical groaning of despair and defeat. He tried to say something, to test if he too had the strange ability to talk, but... 

The whole scene is ruined by the use of the word "humongous". And the typos, which were absent for half a page and then start to flock in on us like carrion birds. 

He actually chats a bit with the thing that decapitated him before the scene shifts to one of battle. Torturer looks dumbly at what is going on and that earns him a swift blade in the gut. He then wakes up. 

We're back on board the Engine of Obscenity, Torturer's flying pink dildo with the never-ending rave party on board. Torturer tries to explain his visions to Zekkel, who replies while channelling Yoda. 

"You shouldn't be interpreting any visions as a decision of the Powers, no. Those areas? Closed from the mortal minds, they are, one cannot peek into those no matter their aptitude, not at all. Messages, direction, warnings? Yes, that'd be correct and wise, right?" 

"Good, serving Slaanesh is , yes? Hmmm?

Torturer then mentions having seen an Asur. This has me puzzled. By the description, he was clearly killed by some Howling Banshee, not a Dire Avenger. Unless it was an Exarch, as they are sometimes referred to as Children of Asur. 

Don't tell me torture-device thinks Asur is the name for Craftworld Eldar? 

Asur is an old name for the dead god Asuryan, which the flaccid Craftworlders still cling to like a babe to its mother's teats. Asur never was a name given to the Eldar as a species. It is actually the name for High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy. 

Either way, this gets Torturer down, and he sits and mopes about not being the best and not being the most special of snowflakes. 

This goes on for nearly a page. 

Then Zekkel does this: 

He struck a dramatic pose, a tattooed finger outstretched to the ceiling. 

"You're being all wrong, my Lord! Don't believe in yourself, no, don't! Believe in Slaanesh that believes in you! Remember the times when it was only by the favor of the Dark Prince that we've been left among the living! Hepathx, Murgos Prime, the attack of the Dark Reapers, doesn't ring to you?" 

I think we just had another mood whiplash, as this reminds me of Mighty Guy and his over-blown poses and proclamations of "the power of youth!". 

Accurate depiction of Zekkel.

They are then interrupted (I guess with Zekkel still in his silly pose) by a servitor who announces that a "demo" of something is ready. What this is, is not elaborated on. 

Before they leave, Torturer suddenly remembers that he has something to give to Zekkel. 

As the thin slice of light was erased from the floor, the Raptor jolted up, as if bitten. 

"I've almost forgot, Brother Demagogue... I've managed to salvage a gift for you from the din of the battle and hadn't since remembered to hand it to the rightful owner! Thought you'd appreciate the gesture. It's in my shrine. Take it, tell me what you think." 

Zekkel bowed reverently, and approached the in-built shrine in the west corner of the Chamber, his left bionic foot clanking awkwardly as he moved.  The tattooed demagogue took note of how unkempt the portal was – Torturer had dumped all that he deemed as a trophy upon the ivory carved shelves and reliefs in total disarray. A few Astartes helmets lied at the feet of the 4 meter high statue of the Secret Keeper, and the ornate cups that the sculpture had held in its many appendages were brimming with skulls, pieces of jewelry and dried skins. But then he saw it, what his Lord meant, and took it from the clasp of Keeper. He immediately recognized it.  Zekkel looked at the Raptor, sprawled in the still open hypnosleep capsule, his face showing off respect and immense gratitude. 

I just love how this entire scene is basically pulled out of the author's ass, as it uses the "Oh, I forgot!" trope once again. 

What is this gift? It's the Crozius Arcanum of Chaplain Moerchen! This begs the question of when the fuck Torturer managed to grab that, as they had to beat a somewhat hasty retreat from Grexx. It just reeks of late addition, so that Zekkel has a new weapon. That in turn begs the further question of when Inquisitor Fey managed to break it, because I sure as shit can't remember. 

This is a common problem with this series, by the way. It is so utterly forgettable, the actions of the characters amounting to nothing, that all they do is eventually irrelevant, even when you do try to remember as much as possible. 

Zekkel gives the crozius a few swings and comments on the "perfect balance" of it. There was an actual echo in my chambers as I laughed at that. It sounded something like this: 

It's like when people talk of perfectly balanced chainswords. There is no such thing. A blunt, bludgeoning weapon like a crozius, which is essentially a large mace, cannot by its very function be balanced. 

We end the scene on Torturer sitting and thinking about how he's going to have further revenge on Moerchen by defiling Inquisitor Fey, showing us exactly how petty and small-minded he is. 

We next go to what I think is on board an Eldar vessel, as that is how it is described to us. We get a lengthy description of how Warlock Devonar positively loathes human beings (who doesn't?) but he doesn't have much choice but to co-operate with the smelly apes. During this, torture-device thinks it is a good idea to intersperse his spotty English with Eldarain, a language he knows even less about. 

The smell reeked of corruption and degradation, and as he closely watched the trio of Space Marines, he couldn't find in them that pillar of nobility they claimed to uphold. Yes, they were big, mighty and apparently quite determined – but, unlike some of the more radical and younger  of Asur, who, in various ways implied that the alliance with the so-called "Imperium of man" was a necessary action if for a time, he never truly believed that the mon'keigh's power could make a difference. At least not to the point where it could be compared with the might of his people.  What could they give them, what kind of asset, if not atherakhia and death lying in their wake? 

 Atherakia translates into English as destruction. Why not just use that word? 

The Astartes file in and sit down, with Haruch the medic whispering the following to Cailean: 

"They've put Moerchen in their stasis-type pod, I've seen it. Looks like he's alive, and they've helped to mend his limb. Not bad for xenos, eh?  I also voxed to the Stormtroopers, Xin's people will help transfer it to their camp, and then "Lux et Veritas" will send a Hawk down to take him and us home." 

Hang on, apparently they are still on the surface of Grexx?  They speak of sending a transport down to get them, after all? And Moerchen survived daemonic possession against all the odds? Great. So, why hasn't Cailean been tended to by a medic yet? There has been no indication of him having received medical attention, despite falling off an air-borne Thunderhawk gunship and then being blown through the air after the daemonic exorcism. 

Apparently his mental fatigue from before is gone as well, seeing as he attempts to pry at the warlock's mind without his psychic hood blowing out. Devonar shrugs him off and greets them instead in what I find a hilarious display of swallowed pride. 

"I greet you aboard the "Song of Vengeance", Aestartes. It is..." As the Warlock rose from his seat, he felt a certain reluctance in uttering the following words. "A great honor. Warriors to warriors – our hospitality is yours to enjoy, our minds – yours to consult with." 

So, they are on board a ship, that is on the surface of Grexx? How is that possible? You know what, I give up, because I find myself sympathising more and more with this kitten: 

Their ship has also gotten into the Imperial system of Grexx without being noticed. See, with Eldar, I do not question it as we have the technology, but it still begs far too many questions for comfort. 

What follows are quite a few pages of tedious info-dump. It is essentially the attempt at a plot beyond Cailean and Torturer having a galactic dick-waving competition. 

It boils down to that Torturer raided an Eldar vessel full of "refugees" some "10 standard cycles ago". How much is a standard cycle? I don't know. A revolution of the galaxy? A standard Terran year? The expected life-span of an Eldar in the Materium? 

It is interesting to note that as Eldar are often perceived (wrongly) as weak and effeminate by the mon-keigh, that in these stories they, just like women, are made out as victims and very seldom anything else. It's a bit of a theme. What Torturer wanted from the Eldar is revealed to be the Bonesinger on board, and it is shown that he also speaks the Eldar language. I can only guess that he is a bad at it as his creator. 

The sequence also shows off Cailean as quite a dim bulb. 

Devonar once again listened to the slave of Whom that Thirsts distort the blessed words of Asur. Each syllable raked against his mind, every word uttered – an insult that couldn't be forgiven. 

"He's not talking in Gothic, is he?" The Epistolary inquired. 

No shit, you idiot? If it doesn't sound like Gothic, it probably isn't Gothic! And torture-device continues to refer to the language and the species as Asur. 

But it makes me wonder where in the hell Torturer learned the language in the first place? I hardly think he'd be able to pry much out of his Eldar sex slaves, as he seems to either kill them or fuck them senseless and then kill them. 

The summary of the brief is that Torturer and his band has been raiding Eldar "refugee ships" for some time, stealing information from their databanks (torture-device is not familiar with the concept of encryption, it seems) and kidnapping Bonesingers. What for, Devonar doesn't know. 

Then we're treated to this gem: 

Cailean was no fool. He knew that his battle brothers and superiors often viewed him more as a warrior, not a tactician, but it was just that he preferred to keep that part of his personality to himself,  never emphasizing the depth of insight into many matters he possessed. The Warlock made the same mistake of judging him as a brute. 

The reason people think Cailean a fool is because he acts like one. Telling us he isn't one is not going to help his situation if what we're shown is the complete opposite! 

The tedious back and forth continues, with it being implied that Craftworld Ulthwé has limited resources. 

I don't know about you, but a craftworld that willingly stands in the way of the servants of She Who Thirsts and openly challenges the Chosen of the Dark Gods, is not a craftworld with limited resources. 

The further implication is also that Craftworld Ulthwé hasn't got the means to handle one measly little warband of Chaos Space Marines. They went toe-to-toe with Abaddon the Despoiler, and can't handle Torturer? And the only ones who can help them are the Imperial Paladins, lead by Cailean, and not Chapter Master Quintus, mind! 

No further proof of these two characters being massive Gary-Stus is needed. 

The group come to some sort of conclusion, in that the Imperial Paladins will help the Eldar of Craftworld Ulthwé with a crusade. What exactly they plan on doing, is left to guess-work, as the scene finally fades out at that. 

We fade-in again to see the Space Marines walking back to their waiting Thunderhawk, and during which, Veridus (or was it Verdius?) questions Cailean's cold-hearted killing of their only witnesses and leads in the last part and gets promptly slapped across the face for it. I don't know about you, but I think Cailean might be insane: 

The Librarian focused on his armored fist, the knuckles nearly splattered with tiny blood drops. How easy it is, to hurt and harm, he mused detachedly, when the truth is on your side. How wonderfully delightful to fix errors and mistakes, and what precision it takes. Veridus has to learn conduct, and it won't come at an easy price. But the Epistolary tried not to acknowledge the images that flashed in his head a split part of a second before he smacked the insolent marine, images that hadn't anything to do with his orders to maintain hierarchy and discipline. He could've hit harder, let his arm pass through the defenseless muscle and bone like a rock thrown from a  primitive sling and watch Veridus's surprised expression before it explodes in bits of gore... 

The best part is that Veridus accepts his bitch-slapping and admits he did something wrong. So, questioning the soundness of mind of your superior officer, when it is obvious your sergeant somewhat agrees with you, is now insolence? I understand that one must maintain discipline, but there is a time and place for everything. 

This was not the place for a pimp hand. 

And then the part ends. 

_________________________________________

This part was essentially about Torturer tripping out and moping about it, as well as it was about Cailean meeting with some snot-faced warlock. Not much happened, really. 

Makes me wonder where the retaliation we were promised went? 

With that, I leave you to the tender mercies of Lord Vect once more. 

I'm off to see if I can find some new slaves to try out new techniques on. That comment about the crozius made me want to practice my own skills with a mace. 

//L

Retaliation part 2

In which the enduring Supreme Overlord is shocked by enormous, spontaneous mood-swings...


Story: Retaliation part 2
Author: Torture-Device

You may, dear reader, find all of this very amusing. I am somewhat inclined to agree.

It takes a certain determination to make an end-product from this, to sift through a pile of mud and feces and pluck out diamonds. It can be most wearisome. But there is still amusement to be had at the deeper things one finds.

For instance, this Torture-Device fellow.

Sweet Lelith already mentioned that he is supposedly a journalist. Also that he is Russian.

To the man's credit, he's never really "exploded" at criticism of his art, mainly because the only people who generally comment negatively on his paintings or drawings are the ones who connect his ideology to his creativity (Occasionally a fair connection, but not always). Nearly every other person who comments on his stuff is one of many lame-brained well-wishers who flock to him like lambs.

Seriously, just look at these.

A couple good, independent artists, some of whom share his interesting ideas on life, and of them a handful comment on the picture as a piece of art and discuss its merits and weaknesses.

Then a million other "OMGSOBEAUTIFUL" comments from people with hastily-made flashing swastika icons.

When you look at the comments on Retaliation part 1, it's the exact same babble. The very first comment is, "Oh snap son, epic stuff right here 83 <3". Nobody says a word about the writing itself. The most critically inclined comments run along the lines of "I like this character" or "He reminds me of this guy..."

Torture-Device is viciously active in the deviantart forums, and many of the people who watch him do so only because he is one of the more unique performing jesters there, not because he's a decent artist, and the comments on his artwork reflect this.

Torture-device insists on speaking English and writing stories in English, but he's fucking horrible at it. He is completely forgettable when it comes to nuances such as grammar and plot structure.

And I assure you, the plots he works out with WalkingMaelstrom suggest he can't think things through before he sits down and starts slamming against a keyboard.

The main reason that I ever even heard of this series was because I came across this picture right here:

I get off to the sight of craftworlders being violated.

And here, we see Torturer raping a couple of aspect warriors like it's no big deal. He looks like he's enjoying himself in his depravity. But this is, unfortunately, a far-cry from the Torturer he writes about.

Why do I bring this up?

Look at the picture of Torturer in the title-card, then compare it to Torture-Device's "original" work and you will know just how much he obsesses over this series.

Part 2 opens with...

Torturer stretched slowly, each movement as a test of his body. Joints clicking in place, implants writhing under the skin like metallic worms buried deep in the flesh, the faint creak of muscle tissue being pumped full of blood - all the sounds coiled into a melody praising his physique. The inevitable pain that stemmed from the newly healed wounds only added to the delightful feeling of restoring. His body was working. Flawlessly.

Torturer stretching? And being flawless?

So right off the bat we are met with Torturer slapping Razorwire's shit in an apparent sparring match, and we get the sense that it's been a while since the titanic hours-long "battle". Torturer probably booked it from Grexx faster than a basilisk on water, and his wounds are healing, so we can assume it's been at least a few days since his faux-battle with Cailean.

At least, I think he's fighting Razorwire. Might be he's not. This passage is a tad confusing.

Stimulants rolled lazily down his veins, granting confidence and elation. Adding to the satisfaction was a long moan from the farthest corner of the training hall. The Noise Raptor slowly strode down to the hulked mass obscured by the shadow, and with a movement of his foot flung something away from it. A training battlehammer clacked on the floor, smearing blood across it. The Chaos Marine kneeled down and cocked his head to a side.

"Subordination, Razorwire. What I really should do…" Torturer picked up the heavy weapon and observed its bloodstained working surface. "Is take this and hammer the notion right into your head. Right? Because that's what any normal leader does when faced with such irreverence."

He heard the Havoc spit out blood and shift, trying to get up and continue the sparring, and promptly brought the hammers head into Razorwires outstretched arm. The force of the hit was enough for bone to let out a sickly "crack".

 Torture-Device is, recognizably, a far better writer than WalkingMaelstrom, and he makes the distinction of actually calling Razorwire a havoc, not a devastator, something which has irked me greatly these last several parts. But the problem is still that his English is atrocious, and it can become very weird, very quickly.

So the author takes the next several pages to shed a bit of light on the behavior of his self-insert, and sure enough he's all moody because he "lost" to some dumb stain of a psyker. From the narration, it is further implied to us that Torturer's ship is alive and completely out of the crew's control.

Such actions would disturb the "Engine of Obscenity." That was undesirable. Who knew where she would take them when angered?

Further, it seems he is going around without a gellar field on his ship, which begs the question how he has not been utterly swallowed. The warp is a fickle place.

And another thing!

The paragraphing is uncanny in Torture-Device's writing. He has lines that are separated by single spaces and then some sections are double-spaced, and while I usually prefer double spacing because of how easier it is to distinguish between lines.

But with Torture-Device, he's going between the two interchangeably, and it doesn't work.

During the flight, the only human that that was forced to bear the full weight of Torturers dysphoria as he had to remain glued to the commanding bridge, was the Captain.

Torturer knew how to pilot a small fighter ship, like the one he hijacked from the Blood Disciples.

Note the complete non sequitur there. But that paragraph is then followed a couple spaces down with:

But the "Engine of Obscenity" was a big, Infidel raider vessel, a home for 91 mortal entities, basically a floating cathedral crammed full of weapon systems, praying chambers, generators and warp drives. He had no ability to submit and pilot such a ship, so every time he'd reach the peak of his frustration with Captain Tarregus, he'd back off well knowing that the latter is too vital an object. And Captain Uthark Tarregus was a brave man.

  That particular paragraph just goes on without any spacing at all. Torture-Device does not know how to make text presentable.
You must give it to him, he knows how to craft a scene at the least, but that's all I can really grant after several misspellings, tense-shifts, comma splices, comma misuses, improper capitalizations, quotation mark-abuses, and on and on.

So later, Torturer goes to visit Zekkel, and then is polite enough to remind us he has functioning naughty bits.

"This…"  he returned to the capsule and shook the piece of flesh in Torturers direction. "Is so you, isn't it? You should agree, definitely should."

"She sucked me dry, I granted her a quick death." Torturer smiled slightly beneath the mask. He thought of a small box, full of blood-red, slightly shimmering jewels. It was getting fuller with each day as he pulled an Eldar slave out of a holding cell. He always found their soulstones, despite their attempts to hide them in most peculiar places, even within their own natural orifices. But he, Torturer, had a real hound nose for the soulstones.

 
Am I seeing this wrong, or was it just implied Torturer sticks his nose up craftworlder asses?

How gauche! And yet arousing.

I should point on something of an oddity. Torturer insists he have order and respect in his warband, despite being knee-deep in debauchery for the sake of She Who Thirsts. As if the Chaos gods were anything but chaotic! Any traitor space marine pact I've ever encountered was a rag-tag mess of men all ready to cut one-another's throats, stayed only by the promise of better riches through cooperation.

And Zekkel is revealed to be the absolute master of bad insults:

"Assault on the loyalist fleabags – total success, it was!"

 You're really cool, Zekkel. Calling people fleabags.

Torturer is apparently in need of cheering up, which is why he is seeing Zekkel. If anything, I suppose the "demagogue" is good for that. Their conversation largely revolves around Zekkel consoling Torturer, because the "noise raptor" is depressed at having not killed a Librarian.

And this is where suddenly, I sense something is horribly wrong.

"I nearly get killed! Had Tarregus and is men fail to teleport me, my brains would be splattered all over that warp-forsaken rock!"

Torturer and the Sick Six were flown away in a random Thunderhawk in Symphony of Chaos part 2, not teleported! Could it be that Torture-Device isn't actually reading from WalkingMaelstrom's writing? I'm beginning to think so. The two write so differently from one-another that these sorts of contradictions and retcons make reading even more difficult than it already was.

This becomes even more worrying when we shift to Cailean's perspective, who we must hear from because unfortunately someone somewhere (a certain author) insists he is the greatest opposition to Torturer there is.

The Librarian though, knew nothing of the hate the Interrogator bore for him and his kind. Probably he wouldn't even care if he knew. He was consumed by his own brand of loathing, and after he pushed a ragged curtain away to reveal a trio of tied up cultists clustered under the watchful barrels of two Stormtroopers, that somewhat pleasing feeling inflated in his chest. One of the troopers turned to the Space Marine, mouth agape in amusement and stammered, greeting him.

"Your Hi-highness, b-but, Lieutenant Ksi-Xin… She h-ha…had orders… "

Cailean's stare lacked any of the paternal softness often attributed to the god-like marines, and Trooper Rale felt himself a sizzling away insect as the Librarian towered over him, the golden eagle on his helmet scratching at the piece of ferrocrite plating above them. In a second, all his desire to follow Xin's, or anyone else's orders, if they were in disagreement with the marine's wishes, evaporated. He lowered his eyes and stepped away, somewhat shaken. Two other marines, Veridus and Seo followed, and soon the small compartment, hastily built up, was completely crammed. Pain hissed behind the Astartes' backs that he's got full rights to the heretics and that he, as the Lady Inquisitor's Interrogator, should be doing the questioning first, but no one listened to him.

When did Cailean become so utterly frightening? This is a completely different character from what we saw last part, let alone in WalkingMaelstrom's writing! Somewhere along the lines he gained a loathing for mortals and a murderous rage, as opposed to his conveniently-timed exclamatory battle-anger.

My favorite part of that, though is how the storm trooper (once again, battle-scarred badass) is gaping in amusement. Apparently he found Cailean so ridiculous he could not physically summon laughter.

With a psychic hood like that, who can blame the trooper?

And then it begins to get really weird.

The Librarian felt his lips form an unpleasant smile. Crying. The woman should've cried a long time ago, the very moment when the thought of turning away from the Emperor's light crossed her mind. Now, however, it was time to reap the fruit of it, so why cry? This world, thought Cailean, would much better, if people learned to accept the consequences. People. These, however, were people no more. With such a conclusion, he grabbed the technician heretic by the cuff of his collar and hoisted him in the air, for better eye contact. The woman cried and attempted to stand up, but the barrel of an autogun stuck in her ear made her sit back again.

Then the point of view quite suddenly shifts to the cultist he's just lifted up, Ioruk Korr, who we are told was so excited to fight space marines he looked up how to beat them on the holonet. No, I refuse to even comment on this supposed holonet.

Cailean casually crushes his neck and moves on to the next one, with a smile that makes even me uncomfortable. Seo then appears and grows perturbed by the epistolary's behavior. He insists the Inquisition be left to finish interrogating the cultists, but Cailean simply laughs at him.

"You know what I can do to these worthless little animals? Can the Inquisition do this?"

He looked back at Lynn once. With a flick of his wrist, the channeled psychic energy that he had been harboring coursed down his arm. It was painful.

The reality was that he was completely drained and exhausted in the previous battle and the attempt to perform exorcism on the Death Spirits' Chaplain. Now, releasing the last stored energy felt like tearing veins away from his body, like some force had sliced him open and ripped his nerves out. His arteries bulged and darkened from the effort, the hood sending sparks flying from the overload. But at the same time, it was needed.

It took upon the form of electricity, as nearly always. Cailean sensed the lightning lick at his palm and then dash at the victim of his righteous fury.

Lynn went up in flames. The agony was instant as the tied up woman began burning alive, enveloped in shroud of what appeared to be pulsing azure flames that seemed to rapidly shred layer after layer of the exposed skin and cloth of the captured woman.

The Inquisitorial troopers jumped away and even the Exorciatior went aghast at the sight of the heretic's flesh melting and popping under the force of the psychic fire. Trooper Rale raised his gun to put an end to the screaming woman, but Cailean, upon noticing that, steered the gun's barrel away from Lynn. He wouldn't allow someone to intervene in the moment when vengeance took its place. All the time, he'd been watching the woman, tracking her thoughts. It was all pain, pure pain, and not an ounce of repentance. He gritted his teeth. All useless, all the same. But on another level – it was sure nice to see things fall back in order. It somehow patched up that hole in his mind, the hole that lead to a place he preferred not to think about.

There are no words.

---~~~---

Well, that left me wondering who's really the good guy in this series. That may have been Torture-Device's intent, though. The idea that he might have accomplished his goal scares me.

It would appear my language grows coarser with each passing review. I attribute this to the asinine nature of this series and the constant feeling I'm being quietly insulted.

I need a break to take the edge off of this. Dear Lelith is performing tomorrow night, so hopefully that will make for a rejuvenating experience. Seeing her lithe form, spinning and sailing through sprayed gore and severed limbs, her hair flowing and clattering with the jingle of a hundred blades as blood splatters onto those high cheekbones and showers her exposed form...

Simply beautiful.

The thought of seeing Lelith's dance of death makes me randy. I might have to call up that harlequin and his mate that Ilathin mentioned. I am told they can do wonderful things with their contortions.

Ta ta, my sweet little readers!

- V.

Retaliation part 1

In which Lelith gets shown that some mon-keigh do not quite live up to their own highly set standards. 


Story: Retaliation part 1
Author: torture-device

Lord Vect seemed in need of some serious R&R after the last part. I can only laugh at his predicament and weakness. My dear Asdrubael, I thought you were more resilient to the pain that can be inflicted upon one's person. You're eladrith ynneas, act like it. 

Before we dive into the next part, we need to acquaint ourselves with its author, because it is not WalkingMaelstrom anymore. It is Torturer's creator: torture-device. 

Although, that name is a little misleading, even if it does show nicely that Torturer was meant as a self-insertion Gary-Stu character from the start and something that would explain his obnoxious being, although a lot of that can be ascribed to WalkingMaelstrom's awful writing. 

Torture-device is - hold on to your hats, lords and ladies of the Dark City - a Russian Nazi. Even if it does say Norway as his country of origin on his frontpage on DevianTART, there is enough Cyrillic on his page and in the comments at times, to nicely give away that he's indeed Russki. Not to mention he will gladly correct anyone who thinks he is Norwegian. 

If you take a stroll through his galleries you will notice that apart from needing a strong stomach (even by dark eldar standards) to make it through, there's a risk of becoming seriously bored, as the theme varies very little. It's blood, guts and gore, mixed in with fanart for Warhammer 40k and a series of celebratory portraits of famous spreekillers, such as Timothy McVeigh. Inspiring for my kind, but positively disturbing as it is a mon-keigh displaying these traits. A central theme is usually the denigration of women. I can see why he and WalkingMaelstrom work so well together. 

The guy has also been banned from DevianTART a total of four times, coming back like a distorted Jack-in-the-Box each time, either because he truly likes the community or because he lacks better sense. These regenerative abilities easily makes him more powerful than humanity's corpse of a God-Emperor. It was during his last account, just prior to the current, that he made his true e-fame over there. He also had a stab at ConceptArt.org, like many TARTlets, but that did not work out so well. 

But I will admit, the man has some serious artistic chops. That's just the problem though. Thanks to the wonders of the Wayback Machine, one can take a stroll through his old accounts on DevianTART, and although he has developed well in pure technical terms, he has not developed at all in choice of motifs. They are still the very same as back in 2005, when he first joined up as Deathwisher88. 

My Lord Vect has already recanted how torture-device, in all his Internet Tough Guy-ness, teamed up with WalkingMaelstrom but what he did not touch upon is that torture-device, according to his journal, works as a journalist, which means he does writing for a living. 

Perhaps this means we can expect some better writing, now that we switch authors in this "epic saga". 

The first attack had no effect. Moerchen, or whatever was left of him in the deformed shell, blocked the blow with a clawed, bony gauntlet, swiping the force staff aside and nearly ripping it out of the Librarian's had [sic!] as the protruding spikes dragged along the power unit. 

But I wouldn't count on it. 

This part begins where the last left off, with Epistolary Cailean facing off against the daemonically possessed Chaplain Moerchen. I'll let Lord Vect's reaction to the revelation that Moerchen housed a daemon inside him all this time stand in for my own reaction. 

Though apparently I am not the only one with trouble to accepts facts, as Cailean blurts out, 

"Snap out of it, Moerchen!" he yelled and leapt aside. "Emperor witness to my words, I don't want to kill you!" 

as if a daemonic possession is just something you shrug off. I've got an offspring of the Eater of Souls in me. No biggie! I'll just walk it off! 

The daemon of course finds this highly amusing and Cailean looks for support in his notion to try to spare the creature from his comrades-in-arms, but finds none. It should be noted that he has by now seemingly forgotten his great rage and sadness at the death of his battle-brother, Ashur. As has torture-device, because there's no mentioning of Ashur's body, at all. 

The daemon in Moerchen's body recognises Veridus as the weakest link, simply because he is the youngest. I don't know about you, but in my experience even newly indentured Space Marines can give wyches some trouble if they don't watch out. Also, torture-device spells it Veridus, whereas WalkingMaelstrom spelled the name Verdius. Fantastic! Even the authors can't bother to double-check they got the names spelled right! 

Anyway, the daemon launches itself at Veridus/Verdius, who enters into a poorly-edited battle with it: 

The daemonhost, however, didn't waste time on empty regrets. It set many of its glossy oculars on Veridus, quickly calculation him to be the weakest link, and charged. In a long feral leap, the ex-Chaplain closed the distance between himself and the youngest tactical marine, his right hand dissolving into a blackened haze of a rapid mutation. He descended on Veridus.  A forked claw, riddled with hundreds of needle-sharp teeth attempted to close on the marines neck, to cut and decapitate in one move but Veridus managed to duck. The claw swooped above his head, but that wasn't the end of it. Veridus was so focused on the pseudopod mutation, that he didn't take in account the monsters field of vision. 

Something tugged at his sword, something stopped it from plunging into the daemonhosts belly. Tentacles, formed from the arm of his left hand constricted around the blade, jamming the whirring teeth. With one inhumanly powerful tug, the ex-Chaplain ripped the chainsword out of Veridus's grip, and counterattacked with the claw again, this time aiming to get ahold of the marines leg. 

Disarmed, Veridus fell into a paralyze as he watched the overgrown limb dart down to his knee, opened wide to increase its eviscerating strength – then instinctively jerked away as he saw it erupt in a fountain of black, foul-smelling blood. 

And here we notice a few things about torture-device's writing. The most obvious is that he has not bothered to proof-read this even once, with some sentences making no grammatical sense as a result. He can't blame English not being his primary language, as he is able to make himself perfectly well-understood in his Journals, and these give the impression of at least in the longer cases being written down beforehand. No, this is just lazy. 

Second are the run-on sentences. This particular excerpt has no examples of them, but trust me, they are there. Another problem is linked to this. Again, there are only a few in this particular quotation, but more often than not torture-device simply forgets the apostrophe necessary before the 's' of the possessive case, turning many words instead into plurals. This is such a basic component of the English language that he simply has no excuse. Had he bothered to go back and proof-read what the fuck he had written, I am pretty certain it would have been caught. But no, torture-device is lazy. 

The next problem is the purple prose. WalkingMaelstrom suffered from this badly too, but torture-device's is of a different kind. WalkingMaelstrom's was of the more traditional, Thesaurus-abusive kind. Torture-device's stems from simply not knowing what word to use, and probably picking the first word that pops up in whatever translating machine he uses, when he types it in in Russian. He doesn't bother to look up definitions or anything. Hence why you get a sentence in which the word "oculars" is used instead of the more common "eyes". Seriously. 

Lastly, he simply writes a lot of verbs out in the wrong tense altogether. It happens on such a consistent basis I am curious to whether he actually knows in what tense he writes. 

Anyway, back to the battling morons. 

Veridus - or is it Verdius? - is saved from becoming daemon-food by Sergeant Seo, as Veridus obviously can't defend himself using a chainsword... and Seo apparently can. Seo quickly gets into a heap of trouble too with the thing and is thus in turn saved by the, need I remind you, badly wounded "Epistolarry". 

One of the three Stooges: Larry the E-pistol.

Cailean gets a hold of the head of the daemon and tries to exorcise the daemon from Moerchen's body. 

"GET OUT! IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR I CONDEMN YOU TO LEAVE THIS MAN!" 

That goes about as well as you can guess. We have already established that Cailean is pretty incompetent at basic Librarian duties, like the conserving and passing-on of information. 

The daemon throws Cailean off with relative ease and sets after Veridus again (why?) only to be knocked flat by a powerful beam of energy. Knocked flat. Not evaporated. 

Then another beam struck Moerchen's backpack, sending him sprawled and convulsing as the power had been cut, the warp entity not able to sustain mutations of the armor without it. 

That was when they heard the high-pitched hum of engines. Cailean followed the trail of yet another shot, which nearly missed Seo, and saw something most unnerving and unexpected. 

The source of the humming-bird engines is soon revealed to be a small group of craftworlder jetbikes. Now, I don't know, nor do I care, much about the transportation methods and abilities of my flaccid craftworld-dwelling cousins, but they must've arrived from somewhere, right? The jetbikes suggest that they have arrived from a ship somewhere, or possibly even a webway portal, but to suddenly appear like this? And the Epistolary did not sense it? At all? Even when engaged in battle, the activation of a webway must've at least sent a tingle down his spine. 

What puzzles me even more is that the storm troopers, veterans of battles with six-limbed monstrosities on board space hulks, are seemingly afraid of a group of five jetbikes. As they approach, Cailean calls his battle-brothers to him and they stand, back to back, and await the incoming jetbikers. The daemon does so as well, it would seem, as nothing more is said of it more than that it struggles to reform the backpack that was blasted to bits. 

The apparent leader of the group of eladrith jumps off his yellow and light blue jetbike, and Cailean recognises him as that because he's wearing a helmet that is both minimalistic and generously adorned with gemstones. 

The daemon does not take well at all in the arrival of what I guess to be a farseer. 

"youyoufuckinginsolentspawnoftheelderfodderforthegreatgod!" 

The farseer proceeds to idly kick the daemonically possessed chaplain in the gut, a kick that is so hard it makes the ceramite armor crack. Maybe I should put that picture above, down here instead... 

Cailean doesn't like that, so he says so, and follows it up with some random italics, which I think are meant to be Cailean's thoughts but no indication is made that they do belong to him. 

"No!" yelled Cailean. "Don't kill him! You can't, he's an innocent man!"  

"If it's anyone to end Moerchen's life, it should be me. It's my burden and the last thing I could for him."  

Amazing that the apostrophes are all in their place here. 

One of the jetbike riders then clarifies for the dense mon-keigh that the warlock knows what he's doing- wait, warlock? I thought the leader of the group was a farseer? Either way, the warlock wants to do the only decent thing and kill the rapidly mutating abomination before it can wholly manifest, but Cailean manages to convince them not to, after having got some support after psychically talking to Sergeant Seo, a man who in Prelude to the Rapture part 1 did not like having his mind invaded. This time around, he seems pretty sanguine about Cailean barging into his mind unbidden. 

It soon becomes clear the eldar are after Torturer as well. I cannot fathom why. Why would even our miserable craftworld cousins spend a second glance on a third-rate pirate such as Torturer? Cailean seems to think him so evil that he has trouble saying Torturer's - assumed - name out loud. Even after the warlock gives a very general description of him, Cailean has to growl the name to get it out. 

"A Chaos Champion that crucifies his victims on his armor and has a mask on his face?" 

"Torturer!" Growled Cailean. "The damn warpshit traitor!" 

I have to smile indulgently at the attempted swear-word here. Not only does it feel incredibly out of place in the mouth of a psycho-indoctrinated, genetically enhanced monstrosity such as a Space Marine, a creature with more in common with the haemonculi's grotesques than either side would want to admit, but it is also incredibly silly. 

Cailean then spills the beans that he failed to banish the daemon, which only earns him the rightful derision from the warlock for his incompetence. In a complete heel-face-turn, though, the warlock then proceeds to offer to help the Imperials with the banishment, of course in exchange for a little something.  

The price is what little information the Imperials can give on Torturer (which I have to say is not much, though I wonder why the warlock doesn't just wrench the needed information from the head of Cailean? Is this another display of the craftworlders' so-called honor?). Seo, swiftly becoming some sort of voice-of-reason as well as the man who moves the stalling plot along, suggests this is a prudent course of action, even if "the Council" would not agree. 

Wait, what "Council"? He can't be talking of the craftworlders' Council of Seers, as that does not apply to the mon-keigh. Do Space Marines have Councils now, instead of a leading Chapter Master? Obviously not the Imperial Paladins, as they have a named chapter master: Quintus. Methinks this is just another case of torture-device not bothering to do his research. Because he's lazy. 

The content of two pages of chatter back and forth is that yes, the eldar may help them. During all this time, the daemon has been suitably weak to be held down by the boot of the warlock. The still-unnamed warlock then tells Cailean what to do: his role is to "hold the soul in place" as the warlock pries the daemon out. Again, what? I don't know much about psychics, but I am pretty certain it doesn't quite work like that. A soul is not easily held in place as if it was a simple piece of meat. 

At least it leads to us getting a look at the warlock's face as he tears his helmet off. He's pretty average, by my estimate. 

The warlock, after jamming his sword in Moerchen's chest and then pulling it out, gets a rune out of a pouch and jams it into the chest instead. 

Cailean fought with all his minds to keep the Chaplains soul bound to the body, his fingertips being set aflame as he coursed his energy to mend the damaged done by both the wound and the daemon.  In his concentration he didn't even feel how his psychic hood began overheating, the wiring starting to melt down and give out. The mix of emotions from both entities had begun to override his weakened consciousness. 

The exorcism proceeds according to plan (one of the few things in this story that does so, and all it took was an Eldar) and the daemonic entity leaves Moerchen. 

Cailean then suddenly grabs the warlock's phantom blade and strikes the daemon, making it explode and sending both him and the warlock, but not Moerchen's body it'd seem, flying some 50 feet before landing, without hurting or killing them. 

I just... what? How is that- 

You know what, fuck it! I'll just stop trying to bring logic and reason into a story which is so gleefully insane. I mean, if the authors did not bother with such niggly details such as the laws of physics, then why should I? 

And after that, we are introduced to Warlock Devonar of Craftworld Ulthwé, which is here spelled Ulthwe. 

The jetbikes were described as being light blue and golden yellow. This is what a seer council of that craftworld looks like according to the archives of the Dark City: 

Please note the black and bone color of their robes and armor. 

On that blatant disregard for the source material, we leave to see what is going on with the slaves of She Who Thirsts: 

Torturer collapsed right after the rendezvous with the "Engine of Obscenity", when the bloodied, exasperated marines finally got out of the Thunderhawk and unto the cargo deck of the mothership. 

Just one question: why the fuck isn't that pink dildo-ship blown out of the orbit of Grexx already? Does it have a cloak? If so, why is that never mentioned? Grexx is an Imperial world, and even the smallest of those worlds have massive orbital defences. That is why we dark eldar, when we go on raids, rely on the webway to bring us out where we need, so we don't have to risk going toe-to-toe with the Imperial Navy's artillery. It is only common sense. 

Torturer's collapse was apparently foreseen by Malexis as a side-effect of Ekstase, his newly made combat drug. Razorwire, being a dickhead, sees his opportunity and proceeds to stab the prone and unconscious leader of the Sick Six just to prove a point. This earns him a scolding and a threat from the others and nothing more. 

I have two issues with this scene: How can Zekkel even be a Space Marine, a creature bred for war and only that, when he is so utterly useless in a fight? He's the only one who is actually wounded in the group, and he's managed to lose an entire leg. 

Secondly, the backstory to Ignis, while welcome in that it gives us more to go on than "samurai parody in both action and word" in terms of a character, it comes at precisely the wrong time to grind the already slowing pace of the story to a halt for all of a page, as the author stops to soliloquise over the background to his ultra-special Original Character. A few lines would've sufficed, really. This is so-called heinleining at its worst. 

And on that note, the first part of Retaliation ends. With Razorwire stabbing and then spitting on Torturer's unconscious body. 

I'd have more respect for him if he'd been the cause of Torturer's fainting, but he isn't. As it stands, he just got upgraded from dickhead, to assmuncher. 

_____________________________________________________________

I want to summarize this by first saying that it could have been worse. Much worse. As badly edited and un-proof-read as this is, it is at least obvious, below the insanity, that torture-device does indeed write for a living. 

The trouble is that he is lazy about it. Misplaced words, missing possessive forms, wonky grammar and misspellings abound. If he actually spent more time than an afternoon's worth writing this, I would be amazed. This is something he shat out in one sitting and then called done. 

Another problem is that he seems to think the genhanced monstrosities the mon-keigh call Astartes are just bigger, stronger humans, and he makes them speak like hive scum. It just comes across as if torture-device hasn't understood the source material. 

That being said, it is easily the most enjoyable part so far, although it isn't up against the stiffest of competition. As a matter of fact, the competition is rather more flaccid and formless, so I guess this is a hollow victory for our Russian nazi. 

I'm off to see if Lord Vect has recuperated from his last venture into the realm of Rivals til Death. If not, well, he'll just have to grow thicker skin. 

A wych knife can work wonderful motivation when applied to the correct parts. He's not dumping me alone on this one! 

//L//

Symphony of Chaos part 2

In which the all-powerful Supreme Overlord makes shocking discoveries, and is nearly lost to space-time anomalies...

Story: Symphony of Chaos part 2

Author: WalkingMaelstrom

So there I was, enjoying a good game of Strip-Dawn Blade Hold with the twin jetbiker sisters Aeolith and Myrnanras, pondering the matter of this next reading while I distractedly won the blade-brassières of the girls, when I (the all-knowing Archon of the Kabal of the Black Heart) came to an epiphany that shook my understanding of Rivals Til Death.

I then killed Myrnanras for accepting favors from Dracon Korask and had my way with Aeolith. Seeing her sibling dead excited the girl greatly, I think.

The gorgeous Aeolith is currently hooked from my ceiling, dripping her bodily fluids down on me as I write this, but enough about that sweet little morsel.

You see, I took a peek at this chapter as I got my new toe installed (Rakarth refused the tooth, the poor fool, so after his last cadaver stopped bleeding he agreed to just grow me a new toe of my own) and the first paragraph made me realize something.

Note every physical characteristic of Cailean as shown here. He is, most obviously, a filthy little psyker (and by nature apparently a very powerful one), he can use his power to kill things, although he rarely ever does this, and is instead only ever depicted using his fists and various weapons. He is also capable of a Dragonball Z-style "power-up" technique that consists of looking constipated and screaming at the top of one's lungs.

He also has blonde hair and blue eyes, like the cute superior race-spawn that he is.

Pay mind to this image WalkingMaelstrom also commissioned of (brace yourselves) a Naruto/Warhammer crossover.

In the grim darkness, there is only bad premise.

Ewgh. I feel violated.

Well, not the best example, I suppose, because apparently Naruto's eyes are able to change to red. Look at this one instead:

A HIGHLY ACCURATE DEPICTION.

You'll notice the blue eyes and blonde hair. Naruto is also able use magical abilities (and is apparently naturally great at it), but does not use them particularly as often as he should. He is, like Cailean, capable of shit-taking power-up squats and is very short-sighted and easily angered as well. He is also the target of several people who he has angered in the past.

It may seem like a stretch at the moment, but in time, I suspect you'll come to appreciate just as I do that Cailean is (intentionally or not) Naruto Uzumaki infiltrating Warhammer 40,000.

Now, this also does wonders to explain various other things in the story. Torturer's "To think I wasn't going to use them!" quote is, I am told, practically straight from Naruto's fight with a supervillain who also calls on the support of others to pointlessly draw out a fight for another 40 pages. His insistence that a person can jump twenty feet into the air is a rip straight from Kishimoto's stain of a manga.

Even his insistence on idiotic inner monologues to point out the obvious is lifted straight from Naruto.

Key to the series, however, is the fact that this easily explains his blatant, mindless sexism. I doubt he's ever met a girl in his life, because he thinks a woman - scarred countless times by battle - who has murdered alien horrors aboard a clump of warp-spat space wrecks should be frightened over a Space Marine, or a lost hand, or a couple of cultists. The women in his stories, by and large, are worthless, moody, and taken to revering his beefcake characters.

One might think Inquisitor Tina to be a contradiction, what with how she literally leapt into the fray, but as you're about to find out, she is most certainly not.

In fact, she actually belongs to the most obnoxious of all tropes in existence, sharing a spot with every damned fictional princess that ever existed.

I must warn you as we reach the precipice of this part: this is the very worst chapter yet.

WalkingMaelstrom starts us off with, again, more restatement of the blatantly obvious, because he seems to think he needs to remind of us what happened in the last segment.

Cailean shook with anger.  Not only has he failed to kill this heretic, but doing so cost him one of his dear friends and several other loyal Imperial citizens.  Every wasted moment meant more would die.  He couldn't take it.  Nulli Secundum crackled wildly, the rage adding to his power.  "HERETIC!  I WILL KILL YOU!"

It's all very humorous and cute to make fun of him for telling us what we already know, but the problem is that he's doing this to pad this series so densely that I keep each part away from the other for fear of them altogether producing a gravitational singularity.

And this does not help the writing at all. As I said in the review of The Vessel of His Wrath, WalkingMaelstrom lacks any feasible grasp of word economy. I should also comment that he probably does not know what "economy" means: Lelith pointed out to me over dinner that he uses awkward words such as "impetus" and "chagrin" in close proximity to one another. The man is humping a thesaurus as he writes!

Back on track.

Cailean apparently immediately breaks out into a charge in his sheer rage, moving with "blinding speed" over whatever distance it is he needs to cover, which suggests he has activated the Quickening again.

 Inquisitor Tina apparently also can sense disturbances in the ground by kicking others.

Tina, blocking a blow from Zekkel, kicked him away only to feel the ground shake beneath her feet, the power of Cailean clearly visible to her and Moerchen. 

She then comments aloud, in spite of her intense fight with the possessed marine,

"Such power…Cailean…" 

Again, because she is a woman and therefore must gape in awe at anything some man does.

But in spite of the incoming one-ton mass of MAN, Torturer just doesn't give a fuck, and at this juncture I must once more question the distance between these two opposing parties. Torturer acts like Cailean is running at him from across a large field, casually turning to idly jest and to give orders to his out-of-nowhere daemonettes, before he promptly just flies away.

And for a man enraged by the death of his bestest best friend, Cailean is very talkative.

"YOU DON'T RUN FROM ME, COWARD!"

    "For a psyker, you aren't very smart when it comes to understanding what I meant by pressing matters.  I'll leave you in the company of my retinue.  Ta." 

And for a man standing in the heat of battle with a pain-train coming at him, Torturer speaks in such an unwieldy, disjointed manner that it defies even the text bubble nature of the shitty Japanese comics WalkingMaelstrom learned to write from.

So Torturer flies away in apparently the exact moment that Cailean is reaching out to put him in a chokehold, which once again begs the question of proximity. If Cailean was so close he "could get a grasp" on Torturer, that implies he could have grabbed his leg and dragged him back to earth or something... if Cailean wasn't utterly incompetent.

Lelith and I (great Supreme Overlord that I am) have already commented extensively on the fact that WalkingMaelstrom doesn't understand the difference between a jump pack and a jet pack, but we'll suffice it to say Torturer goes flying across the indeterminable expanse of the battlefield to go pester Apothecary Malexis, who is, despite the aggregate incompetence of the rest of his team, holding off against a group of Adeptus Mechanicus magi and the Apothecary Haruch.

On the way, Torturer recognizes that Zekkel is apparently getting his ass handed to him by Inquisitor Tina Fey, and a remark is made from his perspective:

It was a larger concern that Zekkel had gone it alone against the Inquisitor.  He wasn't meant to be the melee type, more a motivational member.

That's right. A possessed former Word Bearer dark apostle is getting his ass handed to him by a mortal woman, whose neck he could easily just break with a nice backhand like Cailean demonstrated in The Vessel of His Wrath. More amusingly, WalkingMaelstrom also classifies his characters like they have fucking stat-lines and ability ratings.

But Torturer crosses the field and bothers Malexis, and so begins possibly the most fucking retarded three-page spread of senselessness that has yet come from Rivals.

     "MALEXIS!  IT'S TIME!  PREPARE VIAL X!"

"Ooooooh!  Vial X?  Ekstase?  Coming right up, my Lord!" The equipment on his back whirred insanely, multi-colored liquids merging into some sickly purple and red vial.  A clean needle emerged from another mechadendrite and pulled all of the contents into its massive container.  With an insane smile, he looked up to the sky and yelled.  "MY LORD!  YOU ARE READY TO RECEIVE!"

The air whistled as Torturer descended head first, like a human comet, only to flip himself at the last moment and land right next to Malexis, the tremor throwing Lamontes and Haruch down to the ground.  The injector stabbed Torturer directly into the spine, with inhuman precision that made Haruch's stomach churn that such a foul heretic could be so well-versed in the art of combat drugs, a hideous counter to his healing arts.  

Torturer's muscles apparently begin to bulge in spite of his layers of armor. If the effects were so drastic that we need to be informed of it (how it works is beyond me) then that would imply his armor is falling off him as he shatters his exoskeleton.

Interestingly, nobody bothers to shoot this pile of warp stained cunt-discharge, and instead listens as he begins ranting and "raving on and on".

"YESSSSSS…YESSSSSSS!  OH THE RUSH…I FEEL IT AGAIN!  GET INTO EVERY BLOOD CELL, EVERY ORGAN, EVERY PART OF ME!  MAKE ME FEEL WHAT I'VE BEEN MISSING!"

Inquisitor Tina can apparently hear this, which indicates that they are close enough to be within earshot over the sounds of fighting (presumably gunfire, shouting, jet jump pack ignition at the least) so they must be fairly close. If this drug Torturer just took is enhanced by the warp, wouldn't the null standing here be enough to wreck his shit and the shit of these daemons that have supposedly been inhabiting his armor the entire time?

Maelstrom's comprehension of phyical laws and their relation to the space-time continuum comes in once again as Moerchen apparently shouts "GNNNNAHHH!", whatever that word means, to the Lady as Torturer fires a random blastmaster, I think.

"End of the line for you…heretic.  Let me make this quick." With Hope held high, she readied herself for the thrust into his chest.  Before she could, a powerful sound blast came screaming at her.

"MY LADY!" Moerchen shoved her to the side and took the blast.  "GNNNNAHHH!"  He flew twenty feet back before landing on his back.

"MOERCHEN!" Tina cried out.

At first I was surprised to find Moerchen had somehow covered the distance between himself and Razorwire and the inquisitor's fight with Zekkel, but it seems they up and stopped fighting offscreen and so Inquisitor Tina and Moerchen were together at the start of the chapter (which supposedly takes place immediately after Symphony of Chaos part 1).

But more importantly, this is the sort of space-time continuity problems I have with this. WalkingMaelstrom has Moerchen do this because he thought it would be badass for the chaplain to take the hit, but logic indicates that the Lady apparently heard this onrushing sound first, then Moerchen shouted at her, then he jumped, and then he got hit. What, is the atmosphere of this planet ridiculously thin or something? Are sonic weapons this debilitatingly slow here? If we even begin to start pulling at the loose threads of logic here, the entire thing just comes apart.

What comes next makes no sense and each time I begin to press upon it, my mind begins to pulse with the precursors of a very potent migraine. But let me give you the run-down.

Apparently Chaplain Moerchen has had a daemon in his body the entire time and was never either exorcised or killed for it, despite being an enormous threat to the security and integrity of his chapter. Torturer somehow gets the better of Moerchen and coaxes the daemon to possess the chaplain, resulting in a scene that was clearly never proof-read with things like "bulged muscled" and an extreme repetition of the word "helmet".

Lovely though this picture is, I fear it does not effectively illustrate this scene.

So now that Moerchen's deep dark secret is out, everyone suddenly stops fighting and has a nice talk about it. Ignis, enormous wapanese twit that he is, mentions to Seo,

"We knew of that chaplain and his secret.  Lord Torturer told us so.  It was all part of his plan.  Rather perfect, would you not agree?"

Yes, he knew about the chaplain and his secret but forgot to mention Inquisitor Tina is a null. Nice job.

So, after Torturer implies Inquisitor Tina is not actually a "Lady",

"YOU BEAST!  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?!?"

"Oh…something long overdue, my 'Lady.'"

It is revealed to us that this fight has occurred over the span of an hour.

How?

How could this have possibly taken an hour?

Fuck-nothing has happened at all in the last two parts, and by the time that we are informed that there was little progress between Ashur and the Noise Marines, five minutes had passed since the start of the battle. Have these people just been shooting and swinging into the air the entire time, because it is impossible to go so long with so little death.

So while everyone is gawking at possessed Moerchen, Torturer decides to kidnap Inquisitor Tina in yet another fine example of zero proofreading:

Torturer signaled Zekkel as he grabbed Tina and with a quick injection of tranquilizer to the side of her neck that rendered her unconscious. 

And in a flurry of caps-locked boisterous exclamations, he calls down a random Thunderhawk to get them out of there, rather than teleporting away again.

BUT JUST THEN!  Epistolary Cailean jumps onto the Thunderhawk as it flies off!

"This fucking Librarian…"

 My thoughts precisely, dear Torturer! Needless to say, it doesn't go so well, and Cailean apparently falls to his death is entirely unharmed by his drop from a high-speed aircraft.

Torturer then kills the last of the noise marines sent to him by Eleaxus, because the guy was trying to extort him. He then finds out this mysterious box the noise marines were carrying contains an extremely powerful bomb.

Well, taking cues from me now, are we, o Flawless One?

But regardless, Eleaxus's ineptitude in trying to kill Torturer's band means that now the Sick Six are free of him and all other influence.

Back on the ground.

In the time Moerchen's daemon has had control of his body, it has done absolutely nothing at all despite possessed creatures having a track-record of immediately going on mass-slaughter sprees. Cailean, seeing this thing, finishes off by vowing to kill it. In spite of his previous friction with the chaplain, Cailean ends the part, saying,

"My brother…forgive me."

---~~~---

Precisely what do we get out of this part?

I think it's a little different for everyone. For me, it was a most tragic case of diarrhea.

But in all seriousness, this part left me feeling severely ill. I need to go lead a raid or something before I dry up like one of the river-pickers.
And I also need to get Aeolith's body down from the ceiling before it rots...

Busy busy, so very busy! Stay sane, my subjects!

- V.