The Great Horned Rat sat upon the Throne of Ruins, peering down into the mortal coil. The soul of every skaven flickered like a beacon, allowing his divine gaze to fix upon any corner of the galaxy where his children scurried.
As he finally shifted his attention from the plight of Ornsworld back toward the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, he found the sub-sector had, unsurprisingly, descended into a total meat-grinder. The war between the Necrons and the newly appointed Master of the Watch, Demetrian Titus, had acted as a magnet for a massive tide of Orks.
To complicate matters, Guilliman's standing orders required Titus to reclaim the entirety of the ancient realm of Ultramar. Even if the Necron threat was momentarily checked, the planets already seized by Orks, Chaos, and Genestealer Cults were not about to be surrendered without a grueling blood-toll.
In the Damocles Gulf Crusade, the T'au Empire had shown a degree of "martial honor," respecting the traditions of the Space Marines and allowing Apothecaries to recover the gene-seed of the fallen out of a sense of humanitarian pragmatism.
Clan Moulder possessed no such scruples. When their Master Mutators realized exactly what the Apothecaries were harvesting, their professional curiosity was piqued to a fever pitch.
The treacherous rat-men did not merely strike; they intensified their ambushes against the white-armored Apothecaries. Beyond unleashing their stitched-together monstrosities, they spent vast sums of warpstone to hire Gutter Runners from Clan Eshin, and even the elite Death Runners, assassins on the cusp of full initiation, to hunt the harvesters of the dead.
Consequently, Ultramarines Apothecary casualties skyrocketed, and the recovery rate of precious gene-seed plummeted. For Titus, this threat had briefly eclipsed even the terrifying Necrons prowling the sector.
Faced with this crisis, Titus resolved to launch a desperate strike to reclaim the stolen progenoid glands. To aid him, Chief Librarian Tigurius delved into the tides of the Warp, casting a psychic augury to pinpoint exactly where Clan Moulder was sequestering the gene-seed.
Within the Immaterium, Lucius watched as the psychic flare representing Tigurius rose like a blinding firework in the midnight void, arching toward the Cold Sun of Terra. He reached out and snatched the fading embers of that powerful light.
"Aha... appealing to the Corpse-God, are we? How droll." Lucius crushed the psychic residue in his palm with a contemptuous smirk.
Even a Librarian as legendary and potent as Varro Tigurius was, in the presence of a true Chaos God, no more than a single drop of steam escaping a volcanic eruption.
"So, you wish to take them back? Very well. But there shall be a test first. You don't mind, do you, Emperor?" Lucius narrowed his eyes, glancing toward the distant, frozen radiance of the Golden Throne.
The cold sun remained silent, venting flickers of frigid fire into the silence of the void.
"Good. Then let us set the stage. For the final boss encounter, we'll have ourselves a thrilling little chase," Lucius declared. He clapped his hands, and the shadows coalesced into the physical manifestation of Sneek.
"I am here... my Master," Sneek hissed, dropping to one knee.
"Go and play a game of hide-and-seek with this mortal." Lucius flicked his finger, projecting the image of Titus before the Nightlord's eyes.
Sneek tilted his head, his voice a rasp of confusion. "Hide-and-seek? Forgive my impudence, Master, but... am I not to kill-slay him?"
"No." Lucius shook his head. As a flagship character for the Great Devourer of Wallets, GW, he knew Titus wasn't destined to die so easily. Besides, having played the Space Marine games in his past life, he felt a certain nostalgic kinship with the man.
"Take the gene-seed Moulder has collected. That is their objective. When the humans arrive, toy with them. Show them the Way of Eshin."
Though the nuance escaped him, Sneek understood the core intent: the Great Horned Rat wished to mock the prey. He did not need to understand emotion; as his Master's blade, Eshin required only a command and a target.
The Nightlord knelt once more and vanished into the shadows. Lucius turned back to the image of Titus, whispering to himself: "Since I played the original game, I suppose I'll design a 'Space Marine III: Vermintide' just for you. Let's see how your real-world performance compares to my keyboard skills... Hahaha!"
At this moment, Lucius felt the true joy of being a Chaos God. Simply crushing Warp daemons or corrupting Ratlings was mundane. But watching Titus and Tigurius grimly planning their "suicide mission," strategizing with such desperate, noble resolve to recover their lost heritage... that provided a unique flavor of entertainment.
"Perhaps this is where my true satisfaction lies," Lucius mused. He began to lay out the "levels" for Titus.
"Moulder's lot will serve as the generic trash-mobs for the early stages. But for the climax, I'll bring in my own claws. Let Moulder begin the ritual to sacrifice the gene-seed to me the very moment Titus arrives. Let's see if he falters at the eleventh hour. Heh heh heh..."
Lucius immediately channeled his divine will, sending a Shifting Omen to the Grey Seers embedded within the Moulder warband.
…
The Clan Moulder Sacrificial Fane.
The shrine was a colossal, vaulted structure of black stone, a sty of filth and squalor. Golden bowls, ornate yet encrusted with grime, were filled with rancid, curdled milk for common rats to scuttle over. At the center stood a towering thurible surrounded by thirteen flickering, sickly-green candles. A massive, horned rat-skull was mounted above, carved with the triangular rune of the Skaven.
The Chief Grey Seer of the Moulder expedition, flanked by his apprentices, was chanting a rambling, dissonant litany. Most of the prayer was self-serving gibberish designed to inflate his own importance in the name of the Rat-God.
Suddenly, the Seer's chattering was interrupted by his apprentice. The youth's fear-scent was so pungent it was practically a physical cloud. "M-master! Look... there!"
"What is it?!" snapped Skathrippa Sevenhorns. Skathrippa was a ruthless brute who had murdered his predecessor and cut the largest horn from the corpse's head, binding it to his own brow as a "seventh" horn. "Interrupting the Great Horned One's prayer is a death-sentence! Do you wish to die-die?!"
But as he turned, his own musk of fear filled the air. The thirteen green flames had begun to stretch and coil, merging into a single, terrifying specter of a titanic, verminous skull.
Every Grey Seer in the chamber collapsed to the floor, prostrating themselves. Even the mindless rats scuttling in the filth froze in paralyzed terror.
"O-oh! Great and Terrible One! Most Mighty Horned Rat! King of Many Tails, Lord of All Skaven! Your m-most humble servant, Skathrippa, awaits your every command! Yes-yes!"
The projection did not waste words. A voice that sounded like every rat in the cosmos screaming in unison tore through their minds:
"The Gene-Seed... pathetic servant. Offer up the new sacrifice. Do this, and I shall grant you a seat within the Realm of Ruin."
In an instant, Skathrippa's terror pivoted into manic ecstasy.
A seat in the Realm of Ruin? The Skaven paradise? Did this mean he would ascend, like Kritislik himself, to become an immortal, undying Verminlord?!
"Yes-yes! My Master, my God! Your servant-slave will give... everything for your word!!"
Watching the Grey Seer's frantic zeal, Lucius allowed a wicked smile to spread across his face. If the rat could complete the ritual before Titus cut his head off, he would indeed grant him ascension. If not... the Seer's soul would find only the eternal, mocking laughter of the Great Horned Rat.
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