The Composer

PART FOUR

The Composer was alone since months, venturing aimlessly through the dark void. Still not having any idea how to proceed he just sat in his vessel, looking into endless space and playing around with his sorcery. One day he accidentally summoned a lesser daemon of slaanesh, a so called Daemonette. Encaging her in a psychic barrier he began to chat with it. Talking to the Daemon somehow lessened the pain of betrayal and loneliness, but he knew it would not understand a word. Suddenly she spoke in his language, "You must go to the Ilkai sector, young Composer. Your fate will begin there." Very surprised by her words he instantly set the autopilot of the vessel to the Ilkai sector, a quick look at the card and he realised it was a sector very near to the Eye...
Not much later he arrived there, landing on the barren world of Ilkai Prime with his enslaved daemon by his side. "So tell me, where should I go now?" "The centre of the planet holds the truth..." After this sentence the daemonettes vanished back to the warp. So the Composer made his way alone, beginning to sense the psychic energies on the planet he searched for its source. He found an abandoned Mechanicus Complex, leading him far underground. To his surprise he encountered nothing but deactivated or completely destroyed servitors. But with every step he took the call of psychic energy grew louder, almost crying out for him and pushing him further into the Complex.
It was deep beneath the surface when he finally found it, a giant room full of reactors and activated servitors. In the middle of it a giant tower rose into the planet, the source of the energy was on top of it. He made his way up the stairs, being careful not to make too much noise. Someone must be there, he thought. His thoughts seeminglywere right. On the top of the pillar a marine stood, arms risen high above his body channelling energies around his palms and casting them through the room. When the Composer took the last step and stood onthe platform the Figure turned around, seemingly a thousand sons sorcerer. "Who are you, intruder?" The Sorcerer spoke to the Composer directly through his mind, his voice echoing through his head a thousand times. "I'm a legionarie from the Third Legion. Your former brother, remember?"
"Legions mean nothing to me....I grew out of it. What'syour business, youngling?"
"My... business? Why would someone wielding this much warp energy care about me?"
"Ah you know it's warp magic? You mustbe a sorcerer then."
"Oh indeed, I know some about it."
"Then you must die. This is my energy! My hideout and you will not ruin it!", with this sentence the thousand son began throwing bolts at the Composer, shimmering arrows of yellow fire and dark purple energies. Unable to absorb or reflect them the young sorcerer jumped aside, the boots hit the wall behind him and faded into nothingness.
"Why would you attack me like this?", he asked "I've done nothing to deserve such an attack!"
"You found me, that's it! For I, Iomphis, the doom of Ilkais, made my fort here!"
The Composer smiled and decided to taunt the enemy. "Your fort? Excuse me but this is nothing more than a cave with a few servitors and a maniac wielding way to much energy for his understanding."
"You dare to insult me like this? You are an intruder and have to be exterminated!" The thousand son began drawing warp energy from around him and casting more bolts, the Composer watched his moves exactly and imitated it, shooting some bolts at his enemy himself.
"You copy my work? You dare to take the technique I've worked out to use for yourself? Die! Die! DIE!"
With every deathwish the sorcerer shot more bolts. The Composer now began to counter and reflect them, sending a few back to its sender and the others into the walls around them.
"This is a pathetic attack, thousand son. Don't you have anything more challenging?"
The Sorcerer began to hover above the ground, collecting potent sorcery around him and getting ready to fire it at the Composer. Now is my moment, the Composer thought, beginning to whisper the words ofthe song to draw more energy towards the enemy.
"What? No this is too much! Stop it fool you will kill me!"
Refusing to stop the Composer walked towards the Thousand Son, who now was hovering around himself struggling to control the energy. The Sorcerer began to scream in panic and helplessness. The smile of the Composer widened even more as he saw mutation taking over the enemy's body.
"Seems like that's it for you, thousand son."
The enemy sorcerer fell to the ground, only ash was leftover from his once shining cloak, his armour was burned black on a few points and on others it was almost liquid, pouring out into the open flesh of the wearer. The Sorcerer himself was nothing more than a mass of twitching flesh, tentacles and limbs grew just to implode a second later. As the movement of the flesh finally ended, the Composer took a step towards it and investigated the corpse. He saw a lot of trophies around the belt and power pack, one of them was a MKIV helmet of the Emperor's Children Legion. Feeling the potent energy encased in the helmet the Composer decided to take it with him. The moment he wanted to maglock it onto his belt, the helmet began glowing, on it's visor the music runes that are encased on the back of the mask began shining. Suddenly the helmet began getting hot, almost glowing, same for the mask under his cloak which quickly began to burn away the fabric. Very surprised from this the Composer threw his cloak from him, the mask transforming the lump into a fiery inferno. But as quickly as it began to burn it was gone, only ashe left. The young psyker stepped near and realised the helmet in his hand was almost magnetic towards the mask. He let it go and suddenly both began flowing in the air, circling around each other getting closer with every circle. When they touched warpflame erupted from them, after this the helmet just hovered a few feet above the ground before the Composer. It was fused with his mask, the gold on the front of the helmet molten and remade into the mask he carried for months. He took a closer look to get once again lost in the such beatific joy of the mask's face. After calming himself he reached out and grabbed the mask whole removing his own pretty damaged helmet with the other hand. He took a deep breath and put the helmet on his head.
At the moment the airlock closed he felt the power ravishing through his head, the potent energies steaming into his body. He began to hover, rising higher and higher with every bit of power his new helmet gave him. Testing the might he casted a simple warpfirebolt into the room, but it was not a simple bolt anymore. With the power he had now at his command the bolt became a fireball, giant and glowing it exploded on the wall shaking the ground around him. Surprised by his new power he hovered back to the ground and decided to make the helmet his artefact.
Armoured with new powers and the mask the Composer began to look around in the mechanicum complex. The servitors were still following their silent work, seemingly they didn't even recognize the battle on the spire. The Composer wondered what they were doing and decided to investigate their work. Some were just typing on displays while others repaired leaks and breaks in a bunch of pipes around the giant dome. He saw two ways, the one where he came from which was a collapsed wall and another one, a wide open hallway into deep black, only the headlights of some servitors lighting it. Interested in where it would lead he made his way over and lightened it up with warpfire he hold in his right hand. The hallway had pipes all over the walls and even some parts of the floor were just a mangled bunch of pipes. Following the hallway for a seeming eternity the Composer lost his orientation, pushing further and further into the darkness.
After an eternity he finally came to a giant dark hall, no servitors were working here and his steps echoed through the darkness. Letting the warpfire from his rand rise up and giving it more power the room got enlightened, it seemed to be an underground dock. A single ship was docked there with an undamaged hull and a wide open entry. Deciding to use the ship for his escape the Composer got on board and onto the bridge, it was ready to start with hundreds of servitors and a captain embedded within his cockpit, eternally connected to his ship. The displays showed him that this ship was a Gladius-Class-Destroyer, a fast ship with medium weaponry that needed almost no input from living astartes, the whole ship can be operated by servitors.
Now the Composer had to decide. Would he follow his Legion into the Eye of Terror? Would he travel around the milky way? He wasn't sure. Still thinking about what to do now he realised that his new helmet seemed to have some coordinates saved, a planet in the middle of the Eye. Maybe thats the point where all his former brothers went? Uncertain why he decided like that he tipped the coordinates into the big display and the servitors began to do their part. His new ship started, and the wall before it opened, revealing yet another giant and dark hallway, wide enough for the ship to travel through. It got picked up by a system of rails, moving it slowly through the tunnel. As yet another airlock opened he saw only the endless void before him. The ship left the trails and began to accelerate, leaving the atmosphere shortly after and beginning to fly right towards the Eye of Terror. With enough time to think the Composer sat besides the embedded captain and stared into the Eye. It sure is beautiful, he thought, the endless tides of red and yellow throwing each other around creating magnificent images and forms in the process. As the Eye drew near he already felt the currents of the warp tearing at his vessel, when entering into the giant warpstorms it got worse and worse until he realised he could not do this by himself. Quickly summoning a daemonette like he did once before he asked her if she could help, but she wouldn't even materialize right and just faded away after getting summoned. So the Composer had nothing left but to take control himself and manipulate the warp around him. A task he was sure he could not do. Focusing his mind on his vessel he began guiding it from current to current almost likea boat on waves. Some currents were harder to climb while he just could slide down others. As he travelled further into the eyes he got to know the currents better, navigating through the storms became easier although it was still very draining. As the ship finally reached the void inside the Eye, behind the warpstorm encircling it, the Composer collapsed on the deck.
The mask awoke him. First he saw its grin in his head, then he opened his eye to see that he was still lying on the bridge, nothing changed since he passed out. He brought himself up and looked around. The servitors were still On their stations and working silently. A view to the display besides the captain revealed that his location was almost reached, but the only thing he saw in the void was another completely barren world. Although even so far away from it he could feel that a potent source of psychic energy located on the planet.
With his ship approaching the orbit of the planet suddenly another vessel appeared. A vessel adorned with gruesome decorations, painted red with giant gold elements. He decided to take contact to it and send a VOX request. First only static came back but suddenly a voice spoke to him.
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
"Excuse me?"
"YOU HEARD RIGHT FOOL! WE WILL DESTROY YOUR VESSEL AND TAKE YOUR SKULL FOR KHORNE!"
Surprised by the aggression he advised the servitors to build up defences immediately, but his ship was not strong armoured or weaponised which made him unable to take on the enemy Cruiser. The defences weren't even bolter all up when several torpedoes crashed into the side of his vessel. While his ship entered low orbit of the planet he could see that the enemy vessel already found a new target, a much larger cruiser and he could hear the words of them over the VOX. The last thing he heart before the crash was another "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"
The Composer woke up, feeling his body broken he began to draw power from his mask to strengthen himself. After getting up he checked if the skull of Bequa Kynska was still intact. Holding it in his hand he realised it pulsated from power, the mask most likely empowered the skull over time. He searched for a iron bar in his crashed vessel and used his magic to forge the skull on top of it, making it a makeshift staff. After this he felt through the planet, quickly finding the power source he felt from space already. Deciding to seek out the source and look around on the planet he marched on, roughly into the direction from where the power originated.
His visor showed him walking for days, but on this sunless desert it felt like nothing, nothing happened and nothing changed. Until suddenly a ship appeared in lower space and he saw some droppods making planetfall from it, in each pod a powerful source of psychic energy was found. Investigating his visitors he got closer to where the pods made fall and saw them, more thousand sons! Their colours changed from the typical red to a blue, but their appearance and power clearly made them thousand son. But the Composer only felt these power from a few individuals, clothed in long robes and with crested helmets. The rest of the legionaries don't seem to have any life at all, they just wandered around behind their brothers, willingness. Realising these sorcerers came for the same powerful psychic signal he came for he decided to take them out. He counted six sorcerers and around 40 of these mindless marines, not that many. Desperate to take the power source for himself he felt the lust to kill his visitors. Giving into his desire he watched where the thousand sons were heading, they were splitting up and each sorcerer went into another direction into the desert. One took many of the other sons with him, one didn't take any at all. The one heading into his direction took a squad of five with him. The Composer began to chant a trap into the sand, placing a few enchanted stones to make the trap more powerful. The he hid in the wastes and waited, carefully hiding his psychic power like he did so long. It wasn't that much later as he saw the Thousand Son marching up the hill in front of his brothers, seemingly he already felt the traps and was now searching for them, leaving his brothers behind. Inspecting his squad the Composer saw that they didn't wear conventional bolters, their bolters were decorated in rich gold and seemed to glow with green fire from the inside. Interested in the weapons he sneaked around them, still watching the other sorcerer trying to find the traps. And then the trap snapped. The enemy sorcerer got thrown into the air and then frozen in place. The Composer revealed himself and shot powerful warpfire at the blue Marines hitting right into the squad with a huge explosion. It ripped apart two of the legionaries, making them explode into clouds of dust. While the enemy sorcerer still hung in the air one of his brothers began shooting, while the other two were trying to get on their feet. The interesting thing on his weapon was that it did not shoot normal bolts. It seemed to shoot green lightning instead. Trying to absorb and use these bolts the Composer held his hands into the direction from where the marine shoot and catched them in his claw, throwing himself into the sand he investigated his catch. It was simple warpfire formed into a projectile. The marine stomped near him and directed his bolter right at him. He rammed up his staff right into the marines head, destroying the helmet with the sharpened end. Then he sent a warpfirebolt into his enemy and he too exploded in dust. Very confused the Composer didn't realise that the enemy sorcerer already got up and began shooting the same weird green lightning from his hand. Now knowing the technique the Composer redirected and reflected them with ease, sending them back to his enemy. He felt the enemy psyche pushing itself into his mind, defending himself against it he pushed his attack on both psychic and physique, until his enemy finally fell. The enemy sorcerer got flung away, screaming words the former Emperor's Children could not understand, as the enemy landed he too exploded but in a rain of blood and ceramite. His brothers were now standing completely still. None of them moved or even shot at the Composer. He inspected them from the near, looking on their armour and into their visor he realised they were empty. The armour was full of dust. He took the sharp end of his staff and slashed a hole into the breastplate of one of them and dust began flowing out of it. Holding the dust in his hand he felt the psychic potential in it, felt the energy of the armour and realised the armour was a prison. A prison for a soul, and every soul can be enslaved. Forcing his mind into the soul of the dust he began to take control of the Thousand Son. But the soul screamed. It screamed in pain and eternal damnation. It sounded nice, enjoying the pain of the poor soul he pushed further into it. The screams teached him, they revealed that a sorcerer can take control of these so called "Rubrics" and make them their slave. They revealed that this lifeless hull once was a living marine of the Thousand Sons traitor legion but got ended and made into this one day. He couldn't find out what made the marine into dusk, but he found out how to take control. Making the leftover two his slaves he went out to find the other sorcerers and take their Rubrics as well.